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Reviews are automatically shown on Airbnb, Booking, and other online travel agencies (OTAs), but did you know displaying reviews on a bio link page can be extremely effective in increasing vacation rental bookings?
Bio links are beautiful, easy-to-create landing pages optimized for mobile users that are added to social media bios (Instagram, Tiktok, Facebook), as well as linked in digital ads.
Many consider link in bio pages the substitute for old-fashioned and hard-to-maintain websites that are typically clumsy and convert visitors poorly.
So how can you showcase reviews for maximum conversion?
In this article, we will explain why showing your reviews, especially from multiple sources, is critical and illustrate how you do that most effectively with a bio link page.
Do reviews actually matter for bookings?
Let’s set it straight. Reviews are absolutely critical for bookings. In fact, a study by Tripadvisor shows that as many as 72% of travelers would not reserve a short-term rental if it had no reviews.
Furthermore, thanks to a recent analysis by Brightlocal, we know that 98% of consumers read through reviews before making a purchasing decision. Not surprising if you think about it, right?
For vacation rentals, in particular, having and displaying reviews can be absolutely critical to occupancy rates, revenues, and the profitability of their operations. Here is why.
As verified by a vacation rental data company Transparent, the number of reviews directly correlates with occupancy rates. Consequently, the more reviews (especially good) a vacation rental has, the higher its occupancy is likely to be.
Moreover, a survey of over 900 guests by Expedia Group revealed that guests are willing to pay as much as 35% more for listings with ratings of 4.4 stars or more. Higher willingness to pay, in turn, leads to higher revenues and higher profitability.
There is, however, a caveat. Data shows that around 70% of consumers are distrustful of the reviews they see. This is especially true for overwhelmingly positive 5-star reviews.
Knowing that reviews are evidently instrumental to the success of a short-term rental, how do we address the trust issues?
How to ensure visitors trust the reviews?
The short answer is - by displaying reviews from multiple independent sources* in the property’s profiles and pages.
Here is why.
Showcasing guest ratings from different sources (Google, Airbnb, Booking, Tripadvisor, etc.) boosts trust in the authenticity of these reviews.
Not only that. An experiment by one of the leading OTA Vrbo uncovered that demonstrating reviews from various independent sources boosts bookings by 25% and increases gross booking value by a staggering 140%.
In fact, around 70% of consumers look for reviews in various sources anyways. By displaying them proactively, hosts can showcase their transparency and, through that, build greater trust and improve their bottom line.
So how can vacation rentals display reviews from multiple sources the most effectively?
Displaying reviews from multiple sources
Having reviews dispersed all over the internet and not being able to showcase them to prospective clients effectively, is a problem short-term rental hosts have faced for a long time.
Adding reviews from various sources manually to your website is huge work and a waste of time.
Building their own IT system for gathering the reviews automatically is out of reach for almost all.
What about using 3rd party tools that aggregate reviews for them? While it is most certainly a better option than the preceding two, it’s still far from ideal.
The few solutions that exist will offer to add a widget for the aggregated reviews to the vacation rentals website. Given that you even have a website (which most short-term rentals don’t), it is likely that the widget will not fit into the overall design of the website and will look very awkward.
This does not add to the credibility and trust.
There is, however, another way.
Link in bio pages for short-term rentals
You can use a tool like bookl.ee that sets up stunning and customizable landing pages (that also include aggregated reviews) for you in a couple of minutes.
Here is how the reviews might look.
Having reviews from various sources displayed on a vacation rental bio link page will enhance credibility and trust even further as all the reviews will have been verified by bookl.ee.
To create the landing page, you will simply have to connect bookl.ee to your existing listings and other links of importance. All the rest will be done automatically.
Once set up, you can link your bookl.ee page in your social media profiles, share it with your existing guests, use it for ads, or apply it in other creative ways.
In addition, bookl.ee will provide you with automatically created galleries, email/newsletter sign-up, a chance to display special promotions, and so much more.
Conclusion
Reviews can be a game-changer for any short-term rental business. The trust in online reviews is, however, at an all-time low.
To address the trust issue and reap the benefits, vacation rental hosts must aggregate and display reviews from multiple sources.
Using specialized yet easy-to-use link in bio website builders like Booklee tailored to short-term rental businesses is the most effective way of doing that.
If you follow the advice laid out, your visitors’ conversions, your listings’ occupancy, revenue, and profitability will inevitably skyrocket.
Are you maximizing the power of reviews?
*Note to hosts getting 100% of the bookings (and reviews) from a single OTA.
You should definitely think about offering direct booking or at least listing on some other OTAs too. Otherwise, you are completely dependent on this one OTA which means that your business is very vulnerable to any changes the OTA makes.