8 Proven Strategies to Increase Direct Bookings for Your Short-Term Rental

How to increase direct bookings

8 Proven Strategies to Increase Direct Bookings for Your Short-Term Rental

 

Are you looking for ways to increase direct bookings for your short-term rental? You’ve come to the right place! Direct bookings are an important part of any short-term rental business, as they help you control pricing, increase profits, and save time. But how do you get more direct bookings? With the right strategies and tools, you can increase your direct bookings and make your rental business thrive. we’ll share 8 proven strategies to increase direct bookings for your short-term rental. From optimizing your website to leveraging social media, these strategies are sure to boost your bookings. So what are you waiting for? Let’s get started!
 

Optimize Your Website for Direct Bookings

Your website is the first step towards increasing direct bookings. This is the first place potential guests will go to learn about your rental business. Before booking a stay, people want to know about your property and your location. They want to know about your amenities, costs, and payment methods. If your website isn’t set up for direct bookings, you’re missing out on a huge opportunity to increase your bookings! Your website should display your calendar and rate information, as well as direct booking links to your preferred booking sites, like Airbnb, HomeAway, or FlipKey. With a few tweaks, you can make your website more booking friendly. Here are some tips to get you started.

Leverage the Power of Social Media

Feedback
Did you know that 78% of online consumers turn to social media when planning their travel? If you have a rental business, you need to be using social media to your advantage! Not only will social media help you grow your online reputation, but it can also help you get more direct bookings. To kick things off, identify the social media channels that are most relevant to your business. While all social media channels are worthy of your attention, select a few that are most relevant to your business. For example, if you’re running a beach-themed short-term rental, Facebook and Instagram would be great places to start.
 

HOST WITH US TODAY

Join a growing community!

Use Online Travel Agencies (OTAs) Strategically

Online travel agencies (OTAs) are big players in the travel industry, and they can be very beneficial to your short-term rental business. OTAs have the power to increase your bookings, but they can also decrease your direct bookings. How? By offering your guests a price-match guarantee. OTAs price-match guarantees are meant to help consumers find the best deal on the market, but these guarantees can hurt you as a short-term rental host. If someone finds your rental on an OTA, sees the price, and then goes through the price-match guarantee process, they can get your rental at that lower price. OTAs can be great for increasing your bookings but do so strategically. When listing your rental, opt out of the price-match guarantee. This will ensure that your rental is not displayed at a lower price on the OTA.

Increase Exposure with SEO

Your website is essential for increasing direct bookings, but it’s also important for SEO (search engine optimization). SEO is a proven way to increase your exposure and drive more traffic to your website. When done right, SEO can help your rental business get discovered. When you optimize your website for SEO, you’re improving its discoverability. This means that people can find your rental business through a variety of mediums, like Google, other search engines, or travel-related websites. When people can easily find your website, they can also easily book their stay. And why wouldn’t they? If your website is optimized for SEO, it will be clear about your pricing details, amenities, and payment methods.

Take Advantage of Email Marketing

Email marketing is a powerful way to increase direct bookings and build your rental business. It’s important to start building a mailing list as soon as possible. This can be done easily with a tool like Mailchimp. When you start building your mailing list, don’t sell to your subscribers. Instead, give them valuable content, like tips for short-term rental hosts. The more your subscribers learn about short-term rental hosting, the more likely they will book with you.

Collect Reviews and Testimonials

Reviews and testimonials are powerful ways to increase direct bookings. But these aren’t just nice to have; they’re required on some booking sites, like Airbnb. When a guest books your rental, they might want to see what previous guests thought about their experience. If your rental doesn’t have reviews or testimonials, they may decide to book elsewhere. By collecting reviews and testimonials, you’re increasing your exposure and building trust with potential guests. 90% of consumers say that online reviews influence their purchasing decisions.

Utilize Automation Tools

For many short-term rental hosts, marketing and managing their properties can be a full-time job. Fortunately, there are automation tools that can help you streamline your marketing efforts. For example, one of the best ways to automate your marketing efforts is with an auto-responder. An auto-responder is an email sequence that is sent to your subscribers on a set schedule. By setting up an auto-responder, you can control your marketing efforts. You can automatically send welcome messages, request reviews, and send out informative content. By automating your marketing efforts, you can reduce the amount of time you spend on marketing. This means that you can spend more time growing your short-term rental business.

Build an Engaging Community

Building an engaging community around your short-term rental business can help increase direct bookings. With the right community, you can get more referrals, collect more reviews, and increase your overall brand awareness. For example, you can create an Instagram community, called an Instagram hashtag campaign, around your location. These campaigns are meant to engage the community with a specific topic or theme. To kick off your hashtag campaign, select a theme that is relevant to your short-term rental business. Try to select a theme that isn’t too specific, but also one that is unique to your rental business. Now, encourage your community to post photos using that hashtag.

Bonus Content

Build an Engaging Community

Building an engaging community around your short-term rental business can help increase direct bookings. With the right community, you can get more referrals, collect more reviews, and increase your overall brand awareness. For example, you can create an Instagram community, called an Instagram hashtag campaign, around your location. These campaigns are meant to engage the community with a specific topic or theme. To kick off your hashtag campaign, select a theme that is relevant to your short-term rental business. Try to select a theme that isn’t too specific, but also one that is unique to your rental business. Now, encourage your community to post photos using that hashtag.

Utilize Property Tools

Property tools are another way to increase direct bookings and build your short-term rental business. Property tools include things like welcome letters, maps, and welcome baskets. These tools help your guests feel welcome and appreciated, which can lead to higher ratings and more direct bookings.

CLICK HERE...

Download the PDF everyone wants!
Rank Better on Airbnb using Airbnbs own algorithm.

Conclusion

Your rental business can’t thrive if you don’t get direct bookings. Direct bookings are an important part of any short-term rental business. With the right strategies and tools, you can increase your direct bookings and make your rental business thrive. From optimizing your website to leveraging social media, these strategies are sure to boost your bookings.

YOUR NIGHT INN

hi

Related posts

Reviews

Reasons Why Customer Reviews Are Important to Your Business

Why Customer Reviews Are Important to Your Business

Customer reviews are one of the most valuable assets a business can have.

Not only do they help consumers identify the best local businesses to go to, but they also provide businesses with a chance to learn from their customers.

These reviews can help consumers find businesses that are reliable, efficient, and trustworthy. Businesses that are looking to build up their reputation and trust.

So, why do customers leave reviews, and what can businesses do to attract more reviews? Here are a few reasons why customer reviews are so important to your business.

1. Boost Reputation

boost

Reviews can help business reputation. If a customer leaves a bad review about the business, the business has to take it seriously because bad reviews could potentially lead to lost customers.

A good review on the other hand could attract more customers and generate more trust from current customers.

2. Provide Feedback

Feedback

One of the main reasons customers leave reviews is to provide feedback. Consumers want to let other people know what their experience was when they visited.

They want to share their thoughts on the product and or service they were given. If the consumer had a problem during their visit, they might also leave a negative review about it.

HOST WITH US TODAY

Join a growing community!

3. Differentiate Yourself

Stand out

One of the benefits of customer reviews is that it helps your business to differentiate itself from other businesses.

If you were to survey 117 people and ask them how they decide which restaurant to eat at, what accomodation to stay at, most would say they rely on customer reviews.

The same goes for many other types of businesses. When people need a new place to stay, they go on a review site like TripAdvisor and are able to read through all the reviews before making a decision.

When they want to buy a product, they will go onto Amazon and read the reviews there as well.

When you have more reviews than your competitors, you are more likely to be chosen over them because people know that you have been vetted by others that have had similar experiences with your business.

4. Encourage Repeat Businesses

Repeat

Repeat business is a good sign that your business is doing something right.

If your customers are coming back and leaving reviews, it’s a good indication that your company has a good product or service.

Reviews will help encourage repeat business as consumers who have been to your accommodation before will want to share their experience with others.

Reviews will also help you advertise your products or services more efficiently and effectively.

You can use the reviews to market your products on social media.

Asking for reviews can provide information about what your customers are looking for in your business – both positive and negative.

You may find out if there is an area of improvement or if they’re satisfied with how you’re running the business.

Encourage word-of-mouth advertising When consumers read reviews, they’re looking for recommendations from people they know and trust, which means that other consumers will be reading these reviews too!

Potential guests will want to read what other people think about the accommodation before they decide to hit that #BookNow button themselves, so this could mean increased word-of-mouth advertising for your company!

5. Create Brand Advocates

Sharing

Guests who take the time to leave a review are more likely to share that review on social media.

They may also be more likely to book again in the future. These guests will champion your company and help bring in new business for you.

6. Form Partnerships

Partnership

Businesses that form partnerships with other local companies are more likely to attract reviews than those who don’t.

There is a strong correlation between customer reviews and the number of friends on Facebook.

A study by BrightLocal showed 44% of consumers are more likely to leave a review after they were contacted by a business via Facebook Messenger or Messenger Lite, and 84% of those who left reviews said they were more likely to purchase from that company in the future.

If you want to grow your business, make an effort to connect with your customers online through social media and other methods.

You can do so by following them on social media as well as commenting on their posts or photos.

You can also ask them questions about how your accomodation was for them which will prompt them to share their experience with others–including how many stars they would give your company.

This way, you’ll be able to form partnerships that lead to customer reviews, which ultimately leads to success for your business!

Conclusion

Your reputation is everything in business, and customer reviews are a great way to get the word out about what you offer and how you do business.

Reviews can provide valuable feedback on how to improve your business, encourage people to come back, and create brand advocates.

So don’t be shy! Give your customers a chance to share their thoughts.

CLICK HERE...

Download the PDF everyone wants!
Rank Better on Airbnb using Airbnbs own algorithm.

Read More

Book Direct

Direct bookings using OTAs

How to get direct bookings with OTAs

Do you know what we all love about online travel agencies?

That they help bring in business and generally help our businesses grow.

However, you also may not like that OTAs charge high commissions for every transaction.

Why don’t people book directly through you?

Well fortunately there are some ways to encourage this!

Here’s a list of tips on how to get direct bookings with OTAs.

Create A Direct Booking Website

How to get direct bookings with OTAs

We recommend you use the most popular website platform, WordPress.

Hiring a professional guarantee a secure platform and ensures that your site is optimally configured for accepting direct bookings. We recommend using Boostly as they are laser-focused on building websites for short-term rentals.

This includes having SEO-optimized copywriting, as well as high-quality photos taken by a professional photographer to create your perfect dream vacation spot!

Collect Guests Personal Emails

Email

To collect emails from guests, you can ask them to complete your Terms and Conditions before checking in.

Within these terms and conditions, you can include a request for their email so that they’ll be able to receive marketing information as well as check-in details.

HOST WITH US TODAY

Join a growing community!

Create Regular Content And Share!

Social Media

Create content regularly on your website so that people can find you when searching for things online.

Create the following types of content: pillar pages, travel guides, blogs and videos. Share with existing subscribers from your email marketing campaigns and use cross-promotion to send them an offer they might not have seen before!

Make sure you set up your social media profiles correctly, add your published articles as blog posts and share them widely. You can also try out social media advertising to grow your followers and get more people to your website.

Promoting your work on social media will also help you make connections and grow your network. Wherever you share your work, leave thoughtful comments on other people’s posts and respond to any questions they pose. Doing this will not only help you grow your network but will also give you the chance to learn and engage with other people in the industry.

If you are struggling with coming up with consistent content Boostly has something useful to help

Create An Offer

Offer

When people visit your website, offer something in return such as discounts on stays a useful guide for their trip.
Sign-up forms are one of the most important elements to any website. You want to make sure that your form is easy to find, easy to fill out and looks professional. Make sure that your sign up form is prominent on your site

Keep Them Informed

Infomation

Keeping your list of email contacts up to date with content you’ve published is a great way to stay in touch.

A monthly newsletter, for instance, can help keep people updated and offer special deals.

Direct Bookings!!!

Book Direct

Continue to post content consistently on your website and promote your accommodation on social media.

Email previous guests as well to share the best parts of what you offer, which will build trust for future repeat bookings and recommendations.

This also helps people find you faster on Google when they are looking for a place like yours to stay with less advertising costs than normal advertisements.

These strategies help increase direct bookings. You will also pay less commission to OTAs compared to if we had used them in the first place.

CLICK HERE...

Download the PDF everyone wants!
Rank Better on Airbnb using Airbnbs own algorithm.

Read More

YOUR NIGHT INN

7 Tips To Improve Your Listings On Your Night Inn

7 Tips To Improve Your Listings On Your Night Inn

7 Tips To Improve Your Listings On Your Night Inn

When it comes to attracting guests, one of the most common questions hosts ask is how they can improve their Your Night Inn listing. To get more requests from potential clients, you need to sell your space which means showing and telling what makes your place great! Over the past two years, we observed patterns that emerged from listings that received more bookings than others. We put together 7 tips for creating an amazing online listing – these are 30% more likely to receive bookings.

Add a profile photo of you

Selfies are all the rage, but not everyone loves them. They can make it seem like you don’t have any friends to take pictures of you and that your life is just about taking selfies. A photo of yourself instead of your pet or house communicates that there’s a real person behind the screen and makes visitors feel more welcome. If you’re a property management company on Your Night Inn, we recommend adding your logo so people know who they’re booking with!

Write an informative listing description

Remember, guests might not have been to your property and may not even be in the city where it is located. It’s important that you tell them about it and sell them on why your listing is a great option for them. Try to imagine what questions you would have if you were trying to decide which one of two listings suits your needs better: yours or competitors?

 

A few general tips when writing descriptions:

Write a description at least 500 words long, format as paragraphs with complete sentences (bulleted list or two), read like more of a story than an enormous list of items, use proper grammar and spelling so that people will take notice. Think how much easier it would be for someone looking up properties online if they could find keywords associated with their search faster! And don’t forget Grammarly – free editing software makes the process easy peasy!

 

We recommend writing 5 paragraphs:

Overview: If you’re renting the house as an entire property or a room, note how big it is, what highlights are there (such as if it’s been recently renovated), any nearby attractions. Also mention who you’ve rented to before: for example travel nurses, contractors.

Rooms details: Provide information about the kitchen (e.g. type of oven/stove, any new appliances), the living and dining areas, and where to do the washing. Talk about the floor material,is it wood or carpet? What direction the rooms face, will it provide a lot of natural sunlight and mention small things too, like the number of smoke and carbon monoxide detectors. Bedrooms, do you have King, Double, Single or can you cater for requests?

Previous Guest: Talk about your ideal guest who would be best suited to live in your property. For example, if you’re close to a hospital, your space is likely perfect for medical professionals like nurses and doctors. Is it suitable for contractors because of the development happening in the local area.

The Area: Add key attractions nearby, like supermarkets, restaurants, hospitals and motorways. Talk about how long it takes to commute to certain areas. If you’re near a large city (Birmingham , Wolverhampton, Walsall etc) then mention what the travel time is and other types of people who live in this area as well as whether or not nightlife is present there for those who enjoy it (e.g., pubs). Mention if the area is suited for families with children or more quiet places without traffic where one can relax undisturbed by noise from cars on highways nearby.

Pros and cons: List the positive aspects of living in your property, and mention any potential downsides that are important for others to know before they move in.

HOST WITH US TODAY

Join a growing community!

Upload at least 10 amazing photos of your listing

You don’t need to be a professional photographer or have a big camera to take great photos. You can make your smartphone do everything with these tips:

 

Prep: Tidy up your property as much as possible, simple is best.

Time of day to photograph: During daylight. Open the shades or curtains to let in light. Make sure you have a lot of natural sunlight.

What things to take photos of: Every room in your house, also garden areas or outbuildings. Guests don’t visit before booking photos are the only way they’ll see your property. 2 photos per room from different angles works well.

How to take a photo: Horizontal photos, not vertical, to show more of the room. Take photos from different angles of the room; corners are usually the best spot to place yourself to take the photo. Make sure the photos aren’t blurry. Take a number of snaps and pick the best.

Video tour's

Take a horizontal video of your property with the camera from outside, opening the front door and going into each room. Talk about what you’re looking at and why it’s great for guests! Upload it to YouTube or reach out to us directly for your own promotional video.

Prices

If you are not getting any interest from guests and have already spent a lot of time to perfect your listing description and photos, then lower the price for your rental. Drop it by 10% and see if you get any interest at all. If not, drop the price by 5%. Check what kind of interest this generates with each increment in price point. Remember Your Night Inn doesnt charge commission or fees so you can be more flexible with your price point.

Share your listing and your Your Night Inn profile on social media

Every major city has at least one property group that is actively looking for guests on Facebook. All you have to do is copy and paste your listing or profile URL, mention that you’re looking for guests in the post, offer a discount, and voila! You can also post your listing on sites like Gumtree. When posting a listing there make sure to optimise it’s description (in order to get more eyes), add photos of properties with links back to Your Night Inn. That way not only will people be able to see your listings but they’ll also be booking direct through Your Night Inn which means payments straight into your bank account; easy security deposit returns; reviews- all these things result in future inquiries about other properties being posted by You Night Inn too!

Make sure all your listings are marked as "Published."

Don’t forget to publish your listing so guests can see it! Here’s the difference between each type of Listing Status:

Drafts: Unfinished, unpublished listings not visible to any guests. These are drafts and will show up when you click “Published” after completing the last step in publishing a draft listing.

Published: Listings that are live on YourNightInn.com and viewable to Guests at all times (unless they’re booked).

Awaiting Approval: When you try publishing a new listing but fail for some reason, an error message will display with information about what went wrong along with options for how to fix it or proceed as if nothing happened – these types of listings won’t be seen by anyone else until approved by our team members who’ll ensure that everything is correct before sending them into active status.

To publish your listing once again, simply go back in while editing then fill out the remaining information correctly then hit Publish/Update.

Bonus Tip: Reviews

Once you get inquiries and your first bookings on Your Night Inn, make sure to ask each guest to leave you a review. From our experience, listings with reviews are booked more often than listings without reviews. In the meantime, start improving your listing! Thirty minutes of work on your listing could yield thousands in rental income

CLICK HERE...

Download the PDF everyone wants!
Rank Better on Airbnb using Airbnbs own algorithm.

Read More

Join The Discussion

Search

June 2025

  • M
  • T
  • W
  • T
  • F
  • S
  • S
  • 1
  • 2
  • 3
  • 4
  • 5
  • 6
  • 7
  • 8
  • 9
  • 10
  • 11
  • 12
  • 13
  • 14
  • 15
  • 16
  • 17
  • 18
  • 19
  • 20
  • 21
  • 22
  • 23
  • 24
  • 25
  • 26
  • 27
  • 28
  • 29
  • 30

July 2025

  • M
  • T
  • W
  • T
  • F
  • S
  • S
  • 1
  • 2
  • 3
  • 4
  • 5
  • 6
  • 7
  • 8
  • 9
  • 10
  • 11
  • 12
  • 13
  • 14
  • 15
  • 16
  • 17
  • 18
  • 19
  • 20
  • 21
  • 22
  • 23
  • 24
  • 25
  • 26
  • 27
  • 28
  • 29
  • 30
  • 31
0 Adults 18+
0 Children
Pets
Size
Price

Compare listings

Compare