We are new to hosting and we need your input as to what we should do to promote our cabin and maybe rewording the description. If you have a change, please let us know. This is ours:
What a beautiful place! I miss the Smoky Mountains! You’ll see a temporary boost in your search rankings that Airbnb gives to new listings. Adding Instant Book will improve your ranking, but it’s probably best to get your feet wet and learn the ins & outs of the platform before you consider adding it.
I’d suggest re-wording your rule about extra guests. I think @konacoconutz was the one that suggested “Only registered guests allowed on the property.” It’s served me really well! Everyone who is staying should be on the reservation - Airbnb (and often times your STR insurance) won’t cover unregistered guests. If they’ve notified you they’ll be 6 and not 4, the reservation should be updated to reflect the actual number. (I have a dummy/hidden listing for the same space with a higher max guest count that I move them to if I’ve approved guests in excess of my regular listing).
This rule also averts party and “guest of guest” issues- if you see 10 or 20 people on your security cam, you can contact guests with this rule. With your current rule they can say “oh, they’re not staying, just popping by…”
I’d also get clear on your expectations for fires (it looks like you have both a fireplace and pit). Do you have burn bans in your area, or do you need any permits? Either ask them to contact you before having a fire (I do this, since we have county-wide bans occasionally), or give guidelines (eg. no more than X logs at a time, no higher than 2 ft, how to put it out)
You may also consider a security cam that monitors the fire pit area. A forum member just had an issue with a guest leaving an unattended fire that jumped the ring Fire pits, security cameras, and guardian angels
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Perhaps change the main photo so lookers realize you are in the mountains / outdoors amenity. Two of your “similar listings” that come up do this well.
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Don’t rely on Airbnb. It isn’t the fault of the platform, it’s the fact that in most locations there are dozens/hundreds./thousands of places. Airbnb can’t ensure that you’re on the first page of the search results.
Take matters into your own hands. Promote your listing yourself. Use social media. Get articles on websites. Devote a certain period of time every week to promoting your business. For example, promote every Sunday morning for an hour, or every Wednesday evening for 30 minutes … whatever. Get a routine going.
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Thank you everyone. i am working on it to reword and change photos
Airbnb and Lodgify also recently partnered to allow Airbnb hosts to create their own listing website: https://www.lodgify.com/. Not sure if anyone has used this or tried it out and I personally haven’t so I can’t vouch for it but might be worth checking out if you want another tool to promote your listings.