Advice to improve booking rate

[Travis24]

Hey there, fellow hosts!

Hoping you can give me some advice to improve my booking rate.  I'll share some data points and feel free to ask questions.

- Have two units in my house (main floor and lower floor)

- Previously only rented my main floor, but added my lower floor in June/July

- Average views WERE ~350/month (+/- 50)

- Conversion rate WAS ~3%

- My pricing was higher than AirBnB suggested pricing by ~10-20%

- Due to my assumption that the fall/winter/spring is a slower time on Air BnB in Denver (people are traveling less and/or going to the mtns and not to Denver) I have lowered my price closer to their proposed pricing

- I am still booked out for ~96% of the month, each month (due to lowering my prices in the last few days for unbooked nights), but with the # of views, I should be able to command a higher price while not hurting my booking rate....I would think.

- Demand in denver for AirBnB is climbing...but so are the number of places (hence me lowering my price.

Most interesting facts:

- Views have spiked to ~450/month (upstairs) with a 1.7% booking rate and ~950/month (downstairs) with a 0.7% booking rate

- My lower unit is a basement, but the price is good, the neighborhood is amazing and the reviews are very good

- Every guest has been overly flattering with feedback upon leaving

- The decor / layout / offerings in the basement are super nice...relative to other places

Thoughts that I have:

- Did my conversion rate drop due to me lowering the price (ie - lower price = percieved lower quality?  higher price, with supporting reviews = higher percieved value?)

- Is demand dropping??  (Not likely due to the 900+ views in the last 30 days for my lower unit and consistent views for my upder unit)

- Is my profile out of date?  (Created it 3-6 months ago.  Do I need to regularly update?)

- Is my competition outperforming me?  (While there are a few great places, most are on par or below mine)

Upper unit: www.airbnb.com/rooms/12793912

Lower unit: www.airbnb.com/rooms/18996370

Question: Why do you think my booking rate on the lower unit is SO low...and why do you think my upstairs unit's booking rate has dropped by almost 50%?  

Thank you in advance!  Hopefully this is an opportunity for all of us to learn!  🙂

Travis

[Karen-and-Brian0]

Wow @Travis24 your places are gorgeous! I can only speak to one of the points you raised - it is really important to update your listing regularly, every day, even. I'm ignorant as to the complete explaination why, someone hopefully will help me out here, but the frequent changes bring it up higher in the search results & keep it more visible to a search. Sites like Smartbnb offer to update your site every 15 minutes, so I know there is something to it.  - Karen

[Travis24]

Thanks @Karen-and-Brian0 for the great advice!  I have seen/read that before and do update my pricing nearly every day. That may be why I get so many views.  Yet, I am still confused why the booking rate is so low vs before.  Maybe its a quality views vs. quantity of views factor in that case.