Back to: Essential Beginners Guide To Airbnb
Now that you have enough photographs to fill a magazine, it’s finally time to write about your property! While your photos should do all the talking for you, you’ll still need to create an engaging and informative listing that goes over user’s common concerns. Remember: most users won’t contact you unless they’re ready to book, so your descriptions are the second chance to hook them in after they see the pictures. Give them all of the information they need to decide, and this includes essentials like maximum occupancy, kitchen features, bed sizes, amenities, and nearby attractions like restaurants or metro access.
We’ll dive into the nitty gritty of solid descriptions, but here’s a quick checklist of the most crucial things you’ll need to keep in mind:
- Proper grammar
- A friendly tone
- Advertisement-style layout
- Easy to Read (since many visitors may not speak English at a native level)
Let’s go over the grammar. You don’t need to write like Shakespeare, but you should edit your description numerous times before posting it. Read it a few times in the evening, and then again when you wake up. Read it aloud, and share it with others to see their reaction. Even the most simple errors can cause a viewer to lose trust in your listing, and these errors can be as tiny as writing “the the” instead of “the.”
You’ll also want to use an engaging tone that sounds like a friend inviting you over for the week. Show them that you’re a person and not a robot, and strive to give them a good vibe as opposed to just the facts. Here’s two examples of a listing that conveys the same technical information:
“This is a two-bedroom apartment in the city center complete with one King bed, private shower, and cooking appliances.”
“Unwind in your very own central two-bedroom apartment complete with a spacious King bed, deluxe shower, and cozy kitchen.”
Both give the viewer the same overall view of the listing, but the first description is very cold and detached. It’s certainly not the worst description in the world, but it could be improved. The second fixes everything by adding a touch of humanity into the text. It changes “city center” to “central” for brevity, and it’s much warmer with adjectives like “cozy.” You want your listing to feel like home to the guest before they arrive, and even the simplest phrases can go a long way in making that happen!
