AirbnBUST: Creating Our OWN Direct Booking Website For a Short-Term Rental
Here is how we created a direct booking website for our short-term rental. We've been meaning to do it for a while now but felt we didn't have the time to invest in creating an entirely new website. Once the so-called "Airbnb Bust" began after Airbnb's new website rollout in the summer of 2022, we knew it was time to stop relying solely on another company to build ours. We took back the reigns and officially have an independent platform of our own to book guests! That being said, we're NOT giving up on Airbnb.
In this week's episode, we show you how we chose to create a direct booking website, how to link your calendars from VRBO, Airbnb, Expedia, Peerspace, etc., and connect your Pricelabs account and/or other pricing forums to your direct booking site. We also show you how easy it is to customize your website!
We have found the perfect all-in-one "hub" for our direct booking & website builder.
That is customizable and with little effort, won't look like an inexpensive stock website. Let's make sure you know though: THIS IS ABSOLUTELY NOT AN AD. Michael LOVES to research to make sure we're getting the most out of whatever we are doing whether it is for our business, a DIY project, or a restaurant we're going to! So everything you see here was from extensive research on his end.
Sign Up & Direct Book Through Lodgify:
www.lodgify.com/?afmc=16m&utm...
See our website: www.theseventhrayhouse.com
Stay tuned for more DIY projects on our short-term rental as well as hosting tips!
New to our channel?
Hi! We're Kristen and Michael, a couple DIY renovating their dream desert home into a short-term rental business. In December 2020, we decided to leave Los Angeles (our home of 7 years) to pursue our dream of owning land in California and creating a sanctuary to share with family, friends, and others worldwide! We purchased our house in the high desert during the summer of 2021 and have since DIY-renovated the entire thing and created our business from the ground up.
Follow along as we continue vlogging our journey of hosting our short-term rental & upgrading our DIYs on the home little by little.
Sign up to be an Airbnb host and get $40* by using our link: www.airbnb.com/r/kristenm17254
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#directbooking #airbnb #shorttermrentals
0:00 - 0:23 Intro to Creating Our Lodgify Direct Booking Website
0:23 - 0:50 Why We're Creating a Direct Booking Website
0:51 - 1:33 Becoming Independent from Airbnb
1:33 - 2:07 How We Found the Best Direct Booking Platform
2:07 - 2:50 Lodgify and What It Entails: Direct Booking, Merch, and More
2:51 - 3:13 Sign Up for Lodgify for Free and Set Up a Call
3:13 - 3:48 Connecting Pricelabs Through Lodgify
3:48 - 4:20 Lodgify Is Your HUB
4:20 - 4:42 We Signed Up For Lodgify, Now What?
4:42 - 5:14 Beginning to Build the Website and Connecting Airbnb
5:14 - 5:59 Customizing Our Website Within Lodgify: Colors, Widgets, Fonts, etc.
5:59 - 7:37 Editing and Customizing Widgets in Lodgify
7:40 - 8:46 Lodgify Backend: Adding House's Info, Booking Settings, etc.
8:46 - 8:59 Calendar and Other Listings Sync Settings
8:59 - 9:28 First On-Boarding Call With Lodgify
9:28 - 10:01 Take Time to "Tinker" While Lodgify Connects API on the Backend
10:01 - 10:23 Second Call With Lodgify
10:23 - 10:32 Why We Like Lodgify for Direct Booking
10:32 - 10:42 Automating Check-In and Check-Out on Lodgify IS Possible
10:42 - 10:51 Property Management Options on Lodgify
10:51 - 11:13 Experience With Website Building Can Be Minimal and the Website Will Still Look Fab
11:13 - 11:22 How We Customized Our Website With a Template
11:22 - 12:07 Our LIVE Website Is LIVE
As a host with only one unit, I especially appreciate the professional approach you take with your business. Thanks for sharing!
This was a great video for me. Short and direct to the point. And I especially like how you have answered most of the questions in this thread over the past year! You gained another sub.
Thank you for this video! Exactly what I've been looking for and better than any of the lodgify videos I've come across. I've done my research and was 99% sure I wanted to go this route with our vacation rental and this video closed the deal. Wishing you all the best with your vacation rental.
Looks like you found a great solution that turned out looking fantastic. Good luck with it and thanks for the tips. 👊🏼
I came back to watch this after 1 year in. Thanks for making the video. Also thanks for it being 12 minutes.
I have been watching your channel and it's so full of information...We plan to start our STR by spring of 2023.. We bought a small cabin unfinished and will clear three Rv hookups as well. We have 29 acres and thought this would be a great place to work at home and earn money...thanks for all your advice you guys are great Dena
I’ve been watching your story for the last few months and appreciate your honest, real-world information. In fact, it has helped me search for and purchase my first short term rental property just over a month ago. Now, with this video… what perfect timing; I’m starting to dive into creating my own booking website. I hadn’t found Lodgify and love how much design control it seems to provide. Thx… I’ve got some research to do… can’t wait. Thx again for this video. All the best to you two!
Thank you so much for watching and best of luck on your short term rental journey! Let us know if you have any questions, always happy to try and help.
Exactly what I was looking for. Thank you very much!!
Glad we could help!🙌🏼
Interesting! Thanks for sharing! I hope it's a great success for you guys!! 🥶
Wow, solid video, edit and info. Thank you. We are basically wanting to branch off as well from only using Airbnb and you guys inspired us. Saludos, pura vida from Costa Rica!
Glad it was helpful! Best of luck to you all on your journey!!
YALL ARE AMAZING!!! Thank you!!
Thank you!🤍
Please keep us posted! Thanks
Will do!
Super helpful!! I’m looking to do the same thing. Thanks for doing all the leg work for me 😊
Glad it was helpful! Best of luck!!
Awesome info! Thanks so much
Glad it was helpful! Thanks for watching :)
You are so welcome! Thanks for watching
Have enjoyed your KZhead videos for quite a long time, not as a fellow airbnb host but as an (ex) avid Airbnb user. It would be interesting if you did a video getting Airbnb (& other platform users) feedback regarding the changes that are occuring in short term rentals and how that affects our travel booking choices (which in turn affects bookings for hosts). I've personally stepped away from using Airbnb exclusively within the past year (as have many of my friends). Hosts that put their heart into their listings like you do hopefully won't lose business due to the way Airbnb is making it more and more difficult to justify the cost of exclusively using them. The customers are the base of the business, I always wonder how in tuned some short term rental hosts are as to why us travelers are choosing to look at other options when choosing where to stay in our travels. Love your videos & what you are doing and hope you continue to enjoy what you are doing!
Thank you so much for watching. And yeah we completely agree that it’s definitely not as appealing to everyone as it used to be. We are trying to stay flexible and open to new possibilities of finding guests which is one of the reasons we made a direct booking website. We’re always on the hunt for more opportunities though! Appreciate the insights!
Very helpful.
Glad you think so!
Thank you 😊
Hmm. That’s interesting stuff. I was considering them. We will soon have a second STR. Maybe you should do horse boarding. Build some pens.
very nice
Looks like you guys have a plan ! Looks fairly simple. I think you guys are doing the right thing by moving toward direct bookings. Another great video !
Thank you! It's been great so far... but of course, we'll keep you posted!
Just need to be careful that you do not lose the insurance coverage. We have many friends that have needed to the aitbnb insurance to cover some serious damage.
Great video !
Glad you enjoyed it! Thank you!
Another question for you guys - my one rental unit is a condo in the Sierras and access can be a problem in the winter when a storm can shut down the road in both directions, sometimes for days. And so guests sometimes can’t make it up for a booking. Naturally they don’t want to pay, but virtually everyone who runs a STR at my resort employs a strict cancellation policy where weather and road closures is no reason to issue refunds or cancellations. But people understandably get angry about the reality of a strict policy in those situations. Do you know of any travel insurance options available for hosts to offer on their direct booking website? That seems to be another topic that nobody seems to cover in their videos. I can’t be the only host with this problem yet the lack of conversation on this topic certainly makes me feel like I am. Thanks again for your videos. I really dig your vibe!
Thank you for this info, we have purchase two brand new homes to airbnb,
You're welcome! Best of luck on your new airbnbs!
Can you give any insight on why you chose Logify over Guesty? My wife and I are about to start an Airbnb and we need to choose between the two soon.
Hi, can you give the pros and cons or difference between lodging and square space which is better.
Hi there, the two sites are pretty different. Squarespace is just a website hosting and webpage building platform. They don't handle bookings or transactions the way Lodgify does. With lodgify, it's connected to our Airbnb and VRBO accounts so that when we get bookings it all syncs together and if you did a Squarespace site, you would still need a service to handle bookings and the transactions. That's why we like Lodgify because it's a one stop shop.
I have an empty house in Florida during the summer months, I don't want to B&B it to strangers. Can you use this service to have a private B&B Website for family and friends without using other services?
Thanks so much for sharing this information, great video! Can you comment sometime on whether you take extra steps to cover your liability with the direct booking option? Did you get additional insurance? Thanks again!
In Lodgify we set a security deposit that clears once the stay is complete and we know there isn’t any damage. We also have short term rental insurance just in case anything goes wrong
@@kristenandmichael thanks!
I’ve been watching you guys from the beginning and it makes me so happy to see this video on the channel Lodgify is a solid solution
Thank for the help! I have a weebly website (now squarspace), and I want to add a house to my original website, as a seperate option in the landing page. Do you know if that is possible? Clearly, I'm not very techy.
Thanks for the info! What will you do for damage deposits, liability insurance, etc. That would normally be covered by aircover?
In Lodgify we set a security deposit that clears once the stay is complete and we know there isn’t any damage. We also have short term rental insurance just in case anything goes wrong
@@kristenandmichael how did you decide what $ dollar amount to set the security deposit?
We have three short term rentals and manage a fourth. It's been going well with hospitable and pricelabs but we want a direct booking website. I love the guest response features in hospitable, which have the same responses for all platforms- does lodgify do that as well?
Think I’m about to make my db site for my str as well and will go with this platform but the one thing I didn’t see if the description with all your links is where is the link for your finished website lol? Was looking great in the video wanted to check it out and he’ll maybe even book a trip directly through the site
You're so right. We forgot to put it in the description. I just added it to the description. The link is www.theseventhrayhouse.com
Thank you for letting us know!!!
How much was your yearly lodgify fee
How much was the lodgify subscription? Would you suggest waiting to set up a sight for when you’ve been in the business for a few months?
There are a couple different tiers. We paid for the professional package, and paid for the year upfront, which comes out to $32 a month. But they have a package that is $12 a month also!
Does Logify offer payment processing or do you need to set up and integrate that with a 3rd party provider (who also takes an additional cut)? Does Logify allow you to add video content? Can multiple listings be under 1 website?
The plan that we are using, the professional one, there is no booking fee. Payments are made through Stripe, and they do take a small percentage (way less than Airbnb though). Yes they allow upload of KZhead in a widget on your website from KZhead and Vimeo. And we only have one listing so might need to double check but I am fairly certain that you can have multiple listings on your website.
Hello thanks for the information! Can you give more details about how the payment processing works directly through lodgify? With another host site I had to signup for stripe which takes an additional 3% for each booking to process the payment. This doesn't seem like a lot but most of our bookings are over $2000, which 3% comes to $60. I'd rather avoid that extra fee if I can. I would rather put that money into a guest gift
Hi there, yes Lodgify also pays us through Stripe. Totally agree but 3% it's still less than the airbnb fee that gets taken on their platform. I think if you wanted to avoid fees all together you would have to make your own custom website and then collect payment through Venmo or some way directly from the guest. Even PayPal has a small fee, so it's hard to avoid that transaction fee these days.
Which subscription did you sign up for?
How do you manage damage risk outside Airbnb? (No idea how good Airbnb insurance is either).
We don’t rely on Airbnb insurance (Aircover), we have private STR insurance through Foremost!
I haven’t found an answer online to a concern I have about launching a direct booking website, but maybe you can help? I don’t mind pointing guests who I’ve booked through the major platforms and who’ve stayed with me before , to my direct booking site so they can save money and so I can make a little more. But my concern is, how do I vet someone who finds my direct booking site but who’s never stated with me before? My worry is that maybe they have bad reviews on the other platforms and so maybe I’d rather not rent to them. How would I know to avoid them?
You’re so right. That is one of our big concerns as well and we’ve expressed that concern to the direct booking website we use (Lodgify) but one thing we can do is require an approval process. So there is no instant booking for our listing, and the person has to request to book and say something to us. And we can start a conversation with them and feel out if it will be a problem or not.
@@kristenandmichael That’s a great idea - I hadn’t thought of doing that for direct bookings because as a guest I always avoided properties that didn’t have instant bookings because if the hassle in getting approved. But as a host, my perspective is definitely different. And thanks for validating my concern. All I see on KZhead are videos about how great an idea it is to launch your own direct booking site, but no mention of the risk due to a lack of ratings available to the host.
Is this something you would advertise via AirBnB listing also? Or do they shut that kind of thing down?
Yeah, Airbnb doesn't really let you advertise this sort of thing. So it would be through social media or paid advertising that people could find it.
Hey, I have a question: If your completely new to short term rentals and want to get started, would you recommend making a website first or just start reaching out to landlords, get the lease contract, get bookings and then create the website? I currently have an LLC. Thanks!
I am in the exact same position, I was wondering as well. Good luck with your new business!
We're not too sure about reaching out to landlords and get lease contracts, I assume you are asking about arbitrage. But we would recommend getting the hang of hosting through VRBO or Airbnb before creating your own website. Once you've hosted you can learn watch to watch out for in terms of scams or bad guests, and on your direct booking website you don't really have the same protection, so always good to be vigilant.
@@kristenandmichael oh oki, thank you for your insight! This really helps alot!
Any idea on how this works in conjunction with Evolve?
Evolve is a management company like Vacasa. It depends what agreement you have with them as to how much they do and how much you do. You can still have your own site though; they can't stop you. But if they manage all for you then they'd have to have access, unless you do all the bookings and they just do maintenance, cleanings, etc.
I have a question i need a booking site but for my barber shop will this work?
Not sure about that!
Hi! Thanks for this helpful video! I'm trying to find the link to your website to check it out, could you reply with it? I'm interested in getting this too, and will use your link! Thanks!
Of course. Here's our website: www.theseventhrayhouse.com
Do they support embedded video?
Yup!
Can you 1. accept damage deposit 2. Get rental agreement signed 3. Collect IDs through Lodgify?
Yes, we collect a damage deposit through Lodgify, easy to set up. And there is a section to upload your own rental agreement that the guest agrees to when they book your property. We have not found a way to collect ID through Lodgify, you might need to use a 3rd party for that.
My question is how do guests know to find your place? Everyone knows AIR and VRBO how do they find you on logify?
It’s your own website but on the platform of Lodgify, like Squarespace or other website-builder platforms. We put our link in our social media bios & people have found us that way. A lot of times customers want to book directly to avoid the fees. Branding is also really helpful. Having a name for your property so if they find it on VRBO or Airbnb they can search it and your website will pop up as well
Or you can market your website on Google like SEO.
Are there people on fivrrr with experience I can hire to do all this ?
Anyone have resources for doing this within an existing Squarespace site? Client has one for long-term rental side of the business and does not want to lose it. Now they're doing short-term and want to make that the primary focus of the SP site.
Not a pro here, but I would imagine you can embed it on any page of your square space site. Here is a great article: www.getfloorspace.com/lodgify-squarespace-direct-booking-website/#:~:text=There%20are%20at%20least%20two,Widget%20on%20your%20Squarespace%20website.
@@kristenandmichael Very helpful - thank you! I did some digging and will post backs some resources once I figure it all out.
Hi! Wondering if you'd be willing to share whether your direct booking site is profitable? Or is it just a $32 monthly expense? Asking because I'm just starting my own short-term rental, and I'm trying to decide if a direct booking site would be worth it. Thank you guys!
Hi! Yes, we are seeing bookings through Lodgify although it has been a slow burn TBH, it's been fruitful. Knowing where to promote it (socials) and using the blogging aspect of it has helped. That way we're able to be found through SEO. We're beginning to do blogs about our area and featuring them on our site to even further boost our presence through that SEO. Here's our example: www.theseventhrayhouse.com/en/7-best-restaurants-in-joshua-tree-area-2023 Hope this helps! K+M
@@kristenandmichael That's so helpful! Thanks so much.
@@kristenandmichael Great video! You guys are very professional. I had the same question about SEO. Obviously you have a great SM following so you can leverage off that. How would you go about making it show up in google searches without paying or doing blogs etc? Thanks in advance.
@@rustyyoung_author17 Thank you so much. It's difficult to show up in search engines without driving traffic to your site somehow/ Although this video does include blogging, we talk more about it in this video: kzhead.info/sun/ZdCAYsySi6uujac/bejne.htmlsi=q6Vqm1CqMu8cMzei
@@kristenandmichael Thanks for quick response! I'll have a look at the video. Congratulations on your success and I'll keep watching your videos! Well done!
Do you no if you can have multiple houses. On the one website.
Not sure! They have a great support team and Q&A on their site though
Yes, you'll pay per rental per month. For six it can be like $100/mo.
how much did lodgify cost?
There are a couple different tiers. We paid for the professional package, and paid for the year upfront, which comes out to $32 a month. But they have a package that is $12 a month also!
Did you get bookings? I find the website is the easy part.
We’ve got a couple bookings from it so far! But mostly people who found us through social media or a friend of a friend
You're mind readers!!! Haha!
Read mine too
I believe Airbnb has rules you have to follow regarding collecting information from people who book with you. I presume you read Airbnb rules accordingly? Sorry to bring this stuff up…. 😇
Not if you’re clever about it. I wrote a Whole book ok it
Beware, when you try to sync Lodgify with AirBnB your host fee will automatically raise from the 3% split fee that most of us have to the 15% host fee on AirBnB. So if you want to avoid this you'll have to forgo syncing the platforms and manually add every booking from airbnb to Lodgify. This was not clear anywhere (or in this video). AirBnB wants to protect themselves from competition and I haven't seen an alt way to sync that cals without avoiding the 15% fee from AirBnB....has anyone else created a direct book system that syncs without getting tangled with AirBnB??
Airbnb is so lame - not surprised they’d do something sneaky like this
What is your website address?
www.theseventhrayhouse.com
Thanks
I HATE when people use "AirBnB" as a common noun (like "Band-Aid" or "Kleenex" or "Frisbee") for short-term rentals or vacation rentals or holiday rentals. They weren't even a thing when we started in the business 20 years ago and it helps make them a monopoly or as the only player in the game.
launching your own website doesn't get a lot of traffic, google is so crooked, people pay for exposure
How did you market your lodgify website after you created it?@kristenandmichael
Good question! We walk you through it in this video: kzhead.info/sun/ZdCAYsySi6uujac/bejne.htmlsi=tl-uxQZXua2gbzJ8
@@kristenandmichael ok thanks for sharing. About to check it out now! 🙂