The vacation rental space is becoming more competitive every year. Even business travelers are showing increasing interest in vacation rental lodgings over hotels.

As competition and interest grow, it is critical to ensure your vacation rental listings are catching travelers interest first. At BookingTeam.com, our platform and team of booking professionals help rental property managers optimize their listings. To get more guest interest and booking conversions, remember these four essentials.

1. Show off your properties with high-quality photos--lots of them.
Humans are visual creatures. The first thing that people will notice about your listings, besides perhaps the Headline, are the photos. Professional-level photos should be well lit with a clear resolution. Including several top notch images of your property will help to draw traveler attention to your listing right away. In fact, a recent TripAdvisor study found that listings with seven photos get 53% more interest than those with the minimum of four. When the number increased to 10 photos, listings received 81% more interest.

2. Encourage reviews.
Photos are important. They’ll catch travelers’ attention, but it is in the listing description and guest reviews that they will ultimately make their decision. People heavily rely on word of mouth to make any purchasing decision. In the rental world, word of mouth usually means online reviews, so it is important to have a lot of positive reviews.

Not only do reviews shape how potential guests view your property, it affects your ranking on popular rental sites. Most sites including Airbnb, HomeAway and many others consider rating as a primary factor in search ranking. To boost your ratings and ranking on popular sites, encourage every guest to give feedback and leave a review.

3. Identify your ideal travelers and personalize experiences.
Don’t try to be everything to everyone. Doing so will likely hurt your booking conversion rather than help. Plus, a percentage of the guests will never be completely satisfied, because it won’t be the right lodging for them. To attract the right travelers, you first need to know who they are and what they want from a lodging.

Is it a family with small children? College kids? Sophisticated socialites? Busy business travelers? International travelers? A guest may fit several categories, but the key is to have a clear sense of the type of guest you want to attract. When creating listings and marketing, think like a potential guest. This will help your listings stand out and generate more bookings.

4. Respond fast and update often.
If you want to attract more travelers, you have to be on top of everything. A guest wants to feel assured that a host is organized and professional. They don’t want to worry about their travel plans being impacted because a host is unreliable or unreachable.

There are a few ways to demonstrate to a potential guest that you are dependable. One is to have a proven track record with reviews. Another way is to make sure that you respond to inquiries quickly. Also, keep all your listing information and most importantly, your calendar up-to-date.

Including at least 7 to 10 high-quality photos can significantly increase traveler interest. However, keep in mind that people have shorter attention spans than goldfish, so you also need well-crafted listing descriptions, profile and review ratings to keep them seriously interested.

It may seem too overwhelming or unrealistic to monitor and respond to all your vacation rental listings, but luckily you don’t have to. Thanks to automation as well as management platforms like BookingTeam.com, you have booking tools and around-the-clock experts at your disposal.