One of the first strategies many hosts have gone to increase occupancy during the crisis has been to change their titles and description.
For one, they aren’t targeting the same people anymore – since nobody is traveling, hosts have had to switch their strategies, renting out to travel nurses, work-from-homers or staycationers. Your titles need to change too, to reflect your new market.
For a short period, hosts were using titles like “coronavirus-free” or “no coronavirus here”, but Airbnb quickly banned use of the C-word in titles, in order to prevent the spread of false guarantee of safety.
So the main thing I learned from talking to 100s of hosts about their strategies for maintaining (or even increasing) occupancy during the crisis has been to change their targets, and their titles, accordingly.
I created a coronavirus survival kit for Airbnb hosts – this includes headlines and descriptions you can swipe and copy & paste directly into your listings! It also includes way more resources to get you through the crisis
Top titles for Airbnb right now
Now you have about a split second to convince them with your title.
Remember that in times like these, it’s not going to be bohemian dreams of Europe. It’s going to be cleanliness and safety.
Symbols for Airbnb title
Right now is a great time to use emojis in your title.
Note that technically, Airbnb doesn’t allow the use of emojis.
But I’ve never heard of anyone getting in trouble for using them.
You can use the lighting bolt ⚡️ or star ⭐️to make your title stand out.
Then use headlines that show more value.
Today, that would be something like:
- ⚡️WORK-FROM-HOME HAVEN⚡️FULLY STOCKED
- Travel nurse discount | Black-out Curtains
- Escape the city | Shelter in nature
To find emojis or symbols, just Google “emoji keyboard” and choose the one you like.
Or let them know you have coffee, tea, supplies or whatever so they don’t have to go out and put themselves at risk.
Right now, people aren’t traveling for pleasure.
They’re most likely business travelers, people who got stuck somewhere, or travel nurses.
Calm their nerves with your title.
Catchy names for Airbnb title
TL;DR? The ironclad formula is:
How to compose your Airbnb title
No title is perfect and it’s a good idea to experiment with your title to see how different titles affect the number of views you get for your listing. However, if you get the fundamentals right you’ll certainly see a bump in views. So let’s dive into the good stuff.
Use all the space provided
You can use up to 50 characters to craft your Airbnb title. Use as much as you can! Less is not more in this case. Any extra information you provide in your title could be a reason for the viewer to click on your listing.
Using value-adding information only
Airbnb users typically choose the location and type of property before they start browsing through the search results. Therefore, it doesn’t make sense to use this information in the title, it doesn’t add any value.
Speak to your audience
Think about your typical guest. What’s the reason for his visit? What type of person or group would love to stay at your place? What type of guest do you want to host? It’s better to cater to a specific crowd than to try to appeal to everyone.
You can choose between renting to travel nurses or work-from-homers, for example, but choose a specific audience and be sure the title speaks to them.
Include your listing’s best features
What’s the reason that people want to stay at your house? What’s your pad’s best feature? These are the things you want to include in your title. If you’re not sure what it is, the reviews left by your previous guests may offer some clues.
My guests love the location of my apartment as well as the fact that it has a patio. Therefore I mentioned these two features in my title.
Use catchy words in your title
Writing your catchy Airbnb title is the same as writing a headline for articles online. Most blog writers today will spend at least half their time writing and testing the title of the post. You should approach your Airbnb tagline with the same rigor.
Instead of “Nice apartment in central location” you could write “Gorgeous Hideout | Close to Everything.” What sounds more enticing? In general, avoid using general words like “nice” “good,” and “great.” Go for more descriptive ones like “spacious,” “modern,” and “rustic.”
As a rule of thumb, you should avoid the following words:
- Nice
- Good
- Great
- Clean
- Amazing
They aren’t terrible, but if you could use more powerful adjectives that immediately paint a picture for the FPG, your Airbnb house name will stand out. The following adjectives have a far better impact:
- Rustic
- Spacious
- Modern
- Eclectic
- Glamorous
- Historic
- Green
- Luxurious
- Peaceful
- Secluded
- Upscale
- Rare
I created a coronavirus survival kit for Airbnb hosts – this includes headlines and descriptions you can swipe and copy & paste directly into your listings! It also includes way more resources to get you through the crisis
Make it stand out with an Airbnb title emoji
You can use special characters in your title to help it stand out. I chose to use little stars in my title: ★. If you want to use these, just copy-paste. I have no idea what the keyboard code is.
Examples of excellent Airbnb titles and not so good ones
Let’s look at some great examples of titles, and some not so good ones. I’ll start with my own title and explain how I composed it. When I looked at the search results, my listing happened to be featured next to one with a terrible title, so I included that one in the screenshot too.
My fellow Airbnb host that the listing on the right belongs to hasn’t done a great job at composing a title. The issues are (1) the title doesn’t use all the space provided (2) it’s not targeting a specific crowd (3) it’s not a catchy name for an Airbnb rental and (4) it certainly doesn’t stand out. It’s not a surprise to see that the listing has a mere three reviews.
Now let’s look at my own title and see what’s the thought behind it. First of all, I’m using every single character provided. The title also has information that adds value. Based on the title, the viewer can infer that my place is great for couples, it has a patio, it’s in a central location and it has two bedrooms. The latter may be redundant information, as most viewers use the filters to specify how many rooms they are looking for, but I had three characters left so why not add it.
Next, I’m clearly speaking to a specific audience: couples. It’s fairly catchy, I would say, although not extremely. I sacrificed some “catchiness” to make room for more value-adding information. The way my title is formatted, it definitely stands out and it includes the two best aspects of my listing, its location and the patio.
More Airbnb title examples
The one on the left is fairly good in my opinion, although improvement could be made. There’s more space available for example. What’s good about it is that it adds lots of information. However, since the picture already clearly shows the rooftop, I’d choose to highlight something else instead.
The one on the right is not so great. The space usage is good, but most of the information is redundant. The only value-adding information is “comfy, convenient,” the rest of the information is (most likely) redundant. The viewer probably already knows he’s looking at the Upper West Side and that it’s a room.
Let’s look at two more Airbnb title examples.
The title on the left is one of the better ones I’ve seen. Notice the little symbol at the beginning of the title, it helps the title to stand out. “Instaworthy views” sounds a lot cooler than “great views,” it’s very catchy, and so does “Ace location.” All in all, the title provides a lot of information in a catchy way.
By now you probably understand why the listing’s title on the right isn’t great. Not much information, very little space used and it just sounds super boring.
Testing your title
One of the most important things you need to do is test your title and see how it actually affects both your rankings and how many people are clicking it. Unfortunately, as far as I know, there’s no way to manually track your ranking or see how your changes affect your listing’s performance.
But no sane business person would just throw changes out without tracking performance. I personally use and recommend Rankbreeze, which is a tool that helps you optimize your listing and track your ranking. You can even A/B test titles (in marketing speak, that means try out two different titles and see which one performs better).
That means every time you make a change, you can keep testing it so that you get the most amount of clicks possible on your listing. If you’re serious about your Airbnb, this is a small investment I’d consider.
Conclusion
To conclude, there’s no such thing as “the perfect title.” It’s hard to compose a title that has all the features mentioned in this post. The good news is, it doesn’t have to have all.
What’s most important is that:
- The title is catchy and it stands out
- You use all the space provided
- It provides value-adding information.
Other ways to improve your Airbnb listing:
*Optimize your Airbnb photo section
*Improve your Airbnb listing description
Here’s a fun video that kind of summarizes the lessons learned in this post.
I created a coronavirus survival kit for Airbnb hosts – this includes headlines and descriptions you can swipe and copy & paste directly into your listings! It also includes way more resources to get you through the crisis