If you’re looking into how to write a good Airbnb description that’ll convert to bookings, here are the 5 steps you need to follow.
You’ve made it through the longing and grueling process of furnishing your vacation rental from start to finish… now it’s time to list your finished product!
You want to be sure you do your place justice by highlighting all the great features and amenities you offer, as well as providing great location and neighborhood descriptions that paint the picture of what it’s like to stay at your home.
In this post, we’ll put on our marketing hats together and learn why it’s important to identify your target guest, what to highlight about your place, and ultimately, how to write a good Airbnb description for your listing that attracts great guests to your place. I’ll even give you an example of a great listing description.
This post is all about how to write a good Airbnb description.
1. Identify Your Target Guest
The first– and arguably most important– step to writing your listing description is identifying your target market, or target guest. Why? Because this is how you’re going to attract just the right person to your listing. You want to attract the guest who appreciates all that you have to offer, and also someone who is comfortable with what you don’t offer (more on that later).
For example, let’s say you have a lake house that sleeps 8 and has all the toys and amenities for fun on the lake. Your ideal guest might be vacationing families, and bachelor or bachelorette party groups who enjoy water activities. You’re going to keep this information at the forefront of your mind when writing your listing description. Don’t get caught up trying to appeal to everyone. Just focus on appealing to your target audience and being the best of the best for that market.
Demographic & Psychographic
In order to figure out your Target market, you’ve got to identify who they are, including ages, how many guests will typically stay, whether its couples, families, friends, or solo travelers (demographic). And then think about the things they want, enjoy, or appreciate (psychographic). To go back to the lake house example, it might be families (demographic) who enjoy water activities (psychographic).
How do you figure this out? First, think about the things your place offers and what type of person might be attracted to what you’ve got at your place. Also think about your surroundings & what the community is like overall. For example, If there’s a lot of bars and restaurants around that cater to a 30’s age crowd, there’s a hint at your target market.
You can also peek at your competitors listings and head to their review section. Often times, guests will leave hints in their reviews about who they are (family, couple, solo traveler) and what they enjoyed about the place. These are all clues about your target guest’s demographic and psychographic characteristics!
Reason for Stay
If figuring out your guest’s demographic and psychographic didn’t already give away their reason for staying, this is something you’ll want to find out as well. Are they coming to vacation, have a bachelorette party, visit friends or relatives, attend a wedding or funeral, visit a college? Sure, you’ll get a mixture, but overall, once you start to host your guests, you’ll start to see the patterns.
So how do you figure this out before you’ve started hosting? Again, look at your nearby competition and check their review section for hints from other guests as to why they were staying.
You’ll also want to take into strong consideration your surroundings. If you’re near a hospital, you might get relatives visiting loved ones in the hospital. If you’re near a college, you might get college visitors. If you’re in a vacation town, you’re likely to get mostly vacationers.
Related: What to Know Before Starting an Airbnb: 14 Tips
2. Find Out Your Drive Time to Popular Attractions
Once you’ve honed in on your target guests and their reason(s) for staying, write a list of every single nearby place a guest might visit. The list might include:
- Hospitals
- Colleges
- Local Attractions
- Parks
- Popular Neighborhoods nearby
- Strips of Bars and Restaurants Nearby
Once you’ve got your list, pull up Google Maps and look up the drive time from your place to every single destination on your list. This is going to be a focal point in your listing description!
Above all, people want to know their proximity to attractions and popular destinations. The easier you can make that for them, the better! It’s actually not that easy from the guest’s side to figure out the location of your place and its proximity to things, especially when they may be looking at several other options in the area. If you are the only host who easily details drive time to popular areas, that alone may just be the winner in selling your guest on booking your place over another one!
3. Name Your 3 Uniques
Your last bit of homework before actually writing your listing description is to figure out what makes your place unique and set apart from the others. Try and come up with 3 things. Maybe it’s your top-notch design and decor, maybe you offer access to a gym. Do you have water access or a fantastic view? Maybe your place has a killer workspace for a solo traveler needing to work remotely. Figure out those 3 “uniques.”
Here’s an example of 3 uniques of one of my places in a downtown metro market:
- Great design/decor
- Convenient & Central Location
- Incredibly Clean
4. Writing Your Listing Description:
Okay, now the fun begins! It’s time to take all this information and turn it into a show-stopping listing description. A suggestion is to start with the description first, then create your listing title last.
The point of steps 1-3 is that EVERYTHING you now write in your listing description is going to reflect that information. You want to (1.) appeal to your target guest, (2.) highlight all the local attractions or destinations they might be coming for and (3.) boast about the 3 unique things your property has that others may not.
Parts of the Airbnb Listing Description:
Remember when you go to write your listing description, there are 6 different sections to complete:
Main Listing Description (500 characters max): Here you will give a brief overview of your place. You’ll highlight your 3 uniques and really focus on appealing to your target guest in this description. You only get 500 characters, so make sure all the important things make it in here. I would save room to add a few bullets of your local destinations and drive time to them.
The Space: Here you’ll describe the guest experience in your space and include sleeping arrangements and any other features of the property that you want to highlight. Make sure to hit on any uniques your space has!
Guest Access: In this section, you’ll describe which parts of the property the guest can access. I also like to use this section to describe the parking arrangements.
Other Details to Note: This is your chance to be brutally honest with your guest so that no guest expectation goes unmet and there are no surprises. If there are any amenities you don’t provide or if you place has any drawbacks or quicks, mention it here.
Interaction with Guests: Here you’ll simply describe whether or not you’ll be interacting with guests in person and what to expect as far as communication goes.
Neighborhood Description: The neighborhood description if the place to deep dive into what the locale is like, including any and all favorable and unfavorable characteristics of the location. Its important to be honest even about the unfavorable things. That way, guests know what they are getting and there’s no surprises.
Airbnb Description Examples
FINALLY! It’s time to start writing your Airbnb listing description.
Instead of simply telling you how to write a listing description, I figured this would be a great place to show you what a good listing description looks like.
Listing Description Example (Steps 1-3):
In this example, I’ll first outline the background information I mentioned in steps 1-3 (Target Guest, Drive Time to Local Attractions, & my 3 Uniques), then I’ll write the listing description in a way that highlights all of these components.
This example is for a one-bedroom apartment in a metro market.
(1.) Target Guest:
Solo travelers or couples (demographic) visiting friends and family (reason for stay) who enjoy a convenient location and a well decorated space (psychographic).
(2.) Popular Attractions + Drive Time:
Strong Memorial Hospital- 5 min drive
University of Rochester- 7 min drive
Unity Hospital- 13 min drive
Park Avenue Neighborhood- 4 min drive
Bars and Restaurants- walkable within a .5 mile
(3.) 3 Uniques:
–Convenient location
-Economic Pricing
-Sleek & modern design/decor
Airbnb Listing Description Example
Main Listing Description (500 Characters):
A centrally located 1 BR apartment right on Monroe Ave, a lively, bustling, and diverse neighborhood. Stylishly decorated & plenty of space to relax or work remotely. You’ll get that true city living experience right in the mix of Rochester’s best takeout restaurants, a laundromat, and major bus route; also very close to Downtown, Park Ave, and much more.
Under 10 mins to Strong, RGH, and Highland Hospital.
The Space
“This 1 bedroom apartment is in a recently renovated apartment building just above a vintage thrift shop. The space is perfect for a traveler looking for a convenient place with all they need for their stay.
We have everything you need for cooking, working, and resting your head after a day of travels. See amenity list for more details.
You’ll find the building to be quiet even though you are among the bustle of Monroe Ave, but noise does travel in from the street outside. Remote workers will find it a great place to get lost in their work against the background “white noise” of the city.“
Guest Access:
“Free street parking is available and easy to come by just outside the apartment building, if not, just a close walk away. There is a bus stop just outside the building, so be mindful not to park in designated bus parking area.“
Other Details to Note:
“*Please be aware that there are all types of people traveling through this area and you will be sure to pass by some of our homeless neighbors, so you’ll need to be comfortable with that type of cultural diversity.
*As mentioned in our description, this is a lively, bustling area, so expect some street noise, even during the night hours.
*There is no elevator in the building, so you must be able to walk up a flight of stairs to your apartment.“
Guest Interaction:
“We are available by phone, text or booking platform. Our preferred mode of communication is via the booking platform you have selected. Several of us help to manage the communication so to ensure our most prompt response time, platform messaging is the way to go.
As far as physical interactions, we like to provide privacy. On the off chance that something needs to be fixed or replaced during your stay we may swing by ourselves or send one of our maintenance personnel to remediate the issue.”
Neighborhood Description:
“This listing is in a lively city neighborhood with lots going on. There are a number of local businesses, restaurants, and establishments nearby, bringing lots of traffic by foot and car to the area at all times of day. You’ll find many pedestrians traveling up and down Monroe Ave including teachers and students to the nearby High School.“
5. Writing Your Listing Title:
Last, but CERTAINLY not least is writing your listing title. You only get 50 characters, and not all of them show up when a guest is looking at your listing in the search from their phone. So you want to make sure you get the most important info out in the first few words of the title.
Your listing tile should be written with your target guest in mind, and highlight the most important features of your property. If that’s proximity to a certain attraction, make SURE to put the drive time or state that theres walkability to that attraction or destination in the first few words of the title.
Here is an example title for my one-bedroom apartment:
“CENTRAL CITY APT W/ STYLE, NEAR BUS STOP & TAKEOUT”
Conclusion
I hope this post helped you hone in on the important marketing side of renting your home on Airbnb. By pinpointing your target market, your 3 unique characteristics, and getting a solid list of local attractions, you’re setting yourself up to attract not just any guests, but the right guests to your place.
If you found this post helpful, you might also like:
How to Increase Airbnb Bookings: 10 Proven Ways to Optimize Your Listing
What to Know Before Starting an Airbnb: 14 Tips
New Airbnb Hosts: Click here to setup your host account for the first time!
This post was all about how to write a good Airbnb description.
