Businesses can do one of many things to optimize their PPC ad campaigns and improve profitability.
However, if you just started a business, these strategies may seem a little daunting initially.
Ad groups either contain a single ad or several ads that target specific keywords. Then, you set a certain price for those ads every time your ad group’s keywords trigger it to appear in front of your audience.
The best part about this strategy is setting your price for individual keywords within an ad group. You can also customize your ad group according to a specific theme.
For example, you can personalize them according to your brand’s persona or the types of products and services you offer.
Before jumping into how you can optimize your ad groups for better reach, it is essential to understand what ad groups are.
Ad groups are sets of keywords that businesses use in their targeted campaigns: every single ad or a group of ads shares similar targets.
You will be required to set a specific price or bid that will be used when the keywords cause an ad to appear to your audience.
These bids are called CPC ( Cost Per Click) bids. The advertising service usually sets these keywords for your PPC marketing campaigns.
When creating an account and setting up details, you will be asked to generate an ad group that will store text ads, landing pages, and keywords.
This will allow you to create an organized structure for your PPC ads. This can be very helpful when you monitor your progress and make specific changes to your PPC Ad campaigns.
For example, if you make a unique ad group for all the products and services your business offers, you might make an ad group for products you offer to your commercial clients and a different one for your residential ones.
Long story short, you can effortlessly structure your promotional materials through tools provided by PPC advertising agencies and services.
Every PPC advertising campaign you create lets you have multiple ad groups. Every ad group must contain at least one ad and one keyword. You can perfectly run a PPC ad with one ad group, one campaign, and one keyword. Moreover, you can also use one campaign and one ad group to market multiple keywords.
The question most business owners ask themselves is, “what is the benefit of running an ad group for PPC ad campaigns?”
To understand these benefits, it is crucial to look at the features shared between several ad groups and the parts that can be set separately for each one.
Let’s use an example to explain the benefits of ad groups better. Think of owning a restaurant that serves different types of cuisines from all over the world.
Having several ad groups for your PPC campaigns allows you to generate ads close to a specific group of keywords.
You can also fragment your keywords into different lists that are much more related. However, each ad group must ideally have one specific keyword and numerous variations.
For example, you can have separate ad groups for “Sushi rolls” or “Pepperoni Pizza.” In addition, you can create an ad campaign for a specific keyword and include several keywords such as “Cheese Pepperoni Pizza” or “Sushi Rice Rolls.”
Targetting long-tailed keywords drives better conversations than using common keywords. However, it would help if you still made sure that the ads are compelling enough so that users can click and improve conversion rates.
You can do this by creating different ad groups for long-tailed keywords. For example, you can create long-tailed keywords like “Which sushi roll flavor should I try.”
This will give you a chance to specifically target a user who wants to try different flavors of sushi rolls. You can also create a landing page and ads that compare different flavors of sushi roll sauces.
It’s not like you can set up a campaign, and it will keep running for life. You will need to tweak your keywords constantly.
For example, delete the old ones you don’t need and add new ones. You can also generate new ad groups for your new keywords without disrupting the old ones.
You can easily optimize your ads by creating new ad groups for the keywords. Moreover, you will also optimize your landing pages without worrying about harming other keywords.
The changes in your ad groups can significantly impact your overall campaign budget. However, you can also preset specific funding for all ad groups without worrying it will exceed.
Then, when there is a peak in queries related to one ad group, it will automatically absorb the price from other ad groups.
This strategy can be beneficial if you own a small business since startup businesses usually work within a limited budget.
Now that you are aware of the importance of ad groups in PPC let’s look at ways you can create better ad groups for your PPC campaigns.
It is essential to get all the tactical elements right to ensure functional structure. This will help you quickly benefit from the most innovative paid search methods that rely on automation and scripts.
For example, when you decide the number of ad groups you need, you must consider what type of searches need to be covered the most.
Your audience plays a crucial role in your ad group structure. You can use bid modifiers to avoid creating separate campaigns.
Moreover, it is vital to identify your audience’s specific needs and preferences. It will help you understand the niche of your business and help you come up with new product ideas according to the requirements of your customers.
In addition, identifying a specific need will help you communicate with your audience effectively while improving engagement rates.
Moreover, you must use any first-party and third-party data that helps you guide your structure. You can also target old customers using RLSA campaigns.
However, you must slice your structure a little bit further, mainly if you sell several products and services.
For example, you can create separate ad campaigns for users who have purchased specific products from you. This will help you support cross-selling business objectives that have specific dedicated goals.
You may want a similar geography footprint for your business, just like it does with any other channel.
However, the demands of your search engine will likely be different from the location of your offline sales.
So, take your time and search where most of your online and offline sales occur—for example, the cities, states, countries, areas, etc.
Once you do this, you can set up individual campaigns for your top markets. Then, if you still have some of the budget remaining, you can create a campaign that covers all the remaining audience in places your consumers usually come from.
When deciding a specific language to target, you need to see where most of your bulk audience is coming from. If you want to target several languages, you can create separate campaigns for each language.
Every device’s performance dramatically varies. Therefore, before optimizing your campaigns in relation to a specific device, you must consider some of the advantages and disadvantages listed below.
The mobile user experience will be vital if the site has a responsive design. Your campaign can have the same goals as those generated on other devices.
Moreover, segmenting your campaign according to the devices will reduce the KPI and traffic available for optimization. This may create campaigns that do not have much volume.
It is recommended that you do not generate campaigns concerning a device if it does not present a solid amount of cost, traffic, and goals.
Instead, you can use device bid modifiers to efficiently tailor the ad message across several devices.
Using keywords is extremely important in any PPC ad campaign. While Google does provide you with good quality keywords according to the relevance of your campaign, it is highly crucial to integrate keywords that have a higher CTR.
Studies have shown that 68% of online searches begin with a Search engine through keywords. So, when you make an ad group, make sure to check the performance of your keywords before integrating them.
And if your audience belongs to a different geographical location, finding keywords relevant to that specific location may be challenging. In such cases, you must use a VPN to discover what keywords rank in that location.
With a VPN, you will acquire an IP address of a particular area. This will help you navigate through the internet just like a local would.
Although several VPN options are available, some of them might not be up to the mark in terms of quality.
Therefore, you need to make a wise decision regarding the VPN you choose to surf through the internet in that particular location. Check online reviews before investing in a VPN service.
Using ad extensions is one of the best ways to unravel information regarding your products and services. Generally, there are two kinds of ad extensions.
Advertisers use manual ad extensions according to the requirements of their business. Therefore, you can easily customize and personalize manual ad extensions.
Moreover, these extensions further segment into several other extensions like location, call out, site link, review, etc.
On the contrary, automatic ad extensions function automatically. Furthermore, automatic ad extensions are also segmented into several other attachments such as previous visits, dynamic site links, customer ratings, etc.
It is common for ads to have a high bounce rate in pay-per-click marketing. For example, you might have specific customers who purchase products from you and then sway away.
Advertisers use remarketing through blogs, articles, and websites to regain those customers. In addition, advertisers can generate custom messages that lure visitors to revisit your website and purchase a product or service through remarketing.
It is essential t keep track of your PPC campaigns to ensure the success of your ad groups. Unfortunately, some marketers don’t realize the importance of keeping track of their PPC campaigns. This is one of the reasons why their PPC campaigns are unsuccessful.
Make sure you constantly monitor the performance of your PPC campaigns, as it will help you gain significant insights into how well your PPC campaign is performing.
Google Analytics is an excellent tool for advertisers who use Google Ads to market their advertisements. Research has shown that Google Ads convert 50% better than organic reach.
Hence, if you use Google Ads to market your campaign, there are high chances your website will rank better if you optimize your ad groups.
You can invest in an automation tool to improve the efficiency of your ad groups. Automation tools offer closed-loop reporting to help you quickly find information regarding your campaigns.
It also allows you to use excellent marketing strategies to improve the performance of your campaigns.
PPC advertising can help you boost engagement and increase your website’s visibility irrespective of the type and size of your business. However, following the steps listed above is essential to ensure your campaign is working well.
Ad copies are a great way to ensure the success of your ad groups. Therefore, it is essential to write an ad copy that is convincing enough to retain old customers and attract newer ones.
In addition, make sure you state your business’s unique selling point so that your customers have a reason to choose you over your competition.
Moreover, make sure your ad copies are relevant. Link all your ads with relevant keywords and landing pages.
Furthermore, make sure you generate eye-catching headlines since these are the first thing a visitor looks at.
Use power words in your headlines to make them even more compelling. For example, you can use words like Free, Today Only, Exclusive, Instant Etc. Finally, end your ad copies with an eye-grabbing call to action.
Every marketer seeks ad groups that are compelling and cost less at the same time. Therefore, consistency in an ad group is critical.
In addition, your landing pages must directly speak to an audience searching for something to reach your website. Therefore, make sure you consistently create ad texts, landing pages, and keyword groups closely related.
When you create well-aligned ad groups, not only do you pay less, and convert more.
For example, suppose a user searches for graphic designing services, and your ad talks about it and sends them to a similar landing page. In that scenario, you will get more conversions than a landing page that does not associate graphic designing services.
So, long story short, you need to be very vigilant in what you include in your ad copies as they play a huge role in determining how successful your ads will be.
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Pay-per-click (PPC) ads can generate a steady stream of guests for anyone in the hospitality industry, whether you run a hotel, motel, hostel, vacation rental, or an Airbnb. In terms of marketing strategies, PPC ads convert 50% better than SEO and it’s easier to measure than results from organic search.
But a successful ad campaign isn’t just a matter of getting ads in front of people who are looking to book right now. You can also use PPC ads to find people who are just starting to think about their getaway and those who are comparing options. An effective strategy will reach a variety of people to get bookings now, fill future pipelines, and get repeat guests.
If you’re in the hospitality industry, here’s how paid advertising can help you drive more revenue.
To run a successful PPC campaign you need to understand the guest journey. Different people are doing different things at different times. For example, some people are researching destinations and others are comparing lodging, all while another group of people are ready to book. If you serve all these people the same ads, you won’t get the best results.
1. Define your funnel stages
There are four main stages to a hospitality funnel: awareness, consideration, conversion, and loyalty. Reaching leads at each stage requires different messaging and targeting. That’s where audience segmentation comes in.
2. Segment your audience by intent
Since each lead needs to be given a different message, it’s crucial to segment them by intent first. For example, the dreamers are people who search for “things to do in X city,” “best beach getaway,” and “romantic weekend destinations.”
The comparers search for “hotel vs. motel in X city,” “4-star stays in X city,” and “Airbnb vs. boutique hotel.”
The bookers search for a specific brand + location + dates.
Each audience segment should be served different ad copy, different offers, and of course – different landing pages.
3. Measure results according to stage
Finally, you need to measure results in several ways, like impressions, click-throughs, content engagement, and email signups. This will give you the bigger picture regarding how your ads are working (or not). For example, to measure the conversion stage, look at bookings, CPA, and revenue per booking. For the loyalty stage, look for repeat stays or referral leads.
Once you know how you’ll segment your audience and track the results, you can allocate your budget smartly. Otherwise, you risk overspending on high-intent leads and ignoring the long-term value of leads in earlier stages of the journey.
If you only bid on keyword phrases like “hotel room booking tonight,” you’ll miss all the people researching and thinking about their vacation. These people can convert, too, even if it doesn’t happen in the moment. They’re worth pursuing. You can capture their email, get them to like your social media pages, and you can also use remarketing to serve them additional ads.
The following are the general types of keywords you want to focus on:
· Broad/discovery keywords. These keywords will reach people in the awareness stage. Phrases like, “Best beaches in [location],” “Top things to do in [location],” and “Travel inspiration [country].” When you use broad modifiers (like “top,” “best,” “where to stay”) you’ll attract people in the research stage.
· Middle-funnel comparative keywords. These are phrases like, “Boutique hotel vs. Airbnb in [location],” “Hotel deals vs. motel,” and “Hotel amenities comparison.” With phrases like these, people are narrowing down their choices. The right PPC campaign can help them pick your business.
· Branded and high-intent booking keywords. These keywords reach people further down the funnel. Phrases like, “[Your hotel name] rooms,” “Hotel in [location] near [landmark],” and “cheap hotel [location][dates].” These phrases typically provide the highest conversion rates but can be competitive, so they may cost more.
· Negative keywords. To prevent wasted ad spend on irrelevant clicks, you can add certain keywords to your negative keyword list. This ensures your ads won’t show up when people search for these terms. Common negative keywords used in the hospitality industry include, “Free stay” and “Jobs at [hotel].”
Since most hotels and motels stick with keywords that target people ready to book, you can expand your reach by running ads for people in other stages. Just make sure you have a system in place to nurture your leads so they don’t go cold.
What you say matters just as much as when you say it. Copy that works for someone researching won’t work for someone ready to book with you. Every part of your ad needs to match intent, including the imagery, tone, copy, and offers. Here’s how to reach each stage:
· Awareness stage ads. At this stage, people will respond to emotional and inspirational copy. Phrases like, “Discover tranquil stays in the mountains,” or “Unwind by the sea.” Use imagery to provoke desire. Beautiful views and relaxing room setups work like a charm.
· Consideration stage ads. These people need more information, so hit ‘em with your amenities (Wi-Fi, breakfast), comparisons, reviews, ratings, and testimonials. Show them visuals of your accommodations and the local area.
· Booking/conversion stage ads. Urgency works best here. Phrases that get people to click to book now, like “Limited rooms available,” and “Book now and save.”
· Loyalty stage ads. Guests who have stayed with you before, even just once, are more cost-effective to convert again compared to chasing down new customers. Create some ads for these people by highlighting perks, upgrades, and exclusive deals they can’t get through other places. For example, you can use lines like:
“Book direct for free late checkout,” “Exclusive returning guest discount,” or “VIP upgrade on your next stay.” It also helps to use personalized copy like, “Welcome back to [your hotel name].” along with imagery of your best amenities.
Loyalty ads drive repeat bookings and increase lifetime value by bringing people back.
· Remarketing and nurturing prospects who got away. In addition to targeting people in all funnel stages, you want to bring people back who clicked but never booked or signed up for your email list. Run retargeting ads to show them what they looked at and offer them incentives or discounts. This is a great time to leverage social proof.
By matching your ad content to meet potential leads where they are in their journey, your ads will be more relevant and you’ll get more conversions.
Having a great ad doesn’t necessarily mean it will drive conversions. If your landing page is confusing or the booking process is clunky, you’ll lose people. That’s why landing page optimization is often where people see the biggest gains.
As a foundation, create a specific landing page for each target audience. You need a dedicated landing page for ads that target each funnel stage. Landing pages should be simple and clear and should be free from all distractions (like links and menus) that invite a user to click away. You want one offer and one call to action.
Social proof is critical in the hospitality industry. Show guest reviews from Tripadvisor, Google, Trustpilot, etc. It also helps to show photos of real guests enjoying their stay (with their permission). Showcasing reviews will reduce anxiety and hesitation, especially for people comparing you with other options.
If your landing pages show pricing, make sure you’re up front about all fees. Be clear about what’s included, like tax, breakfast, and service fees. People hate hidden fees. If a guest’s experience doesn’t match the impression they get from the page where they booked, they’ll probably leave a bad review.
Talk to your website developer and have them trigger a follow-up email that goes out to people who start filling out a booking form but stop. The email should show them what they left behind and you can sweeten the deal by offering a small discount or other incentive.
Having a smooth flow after a person clicks on your ad can help you convert far more prospects. Everything you can do to reduce friction and increase trust compounds.
To get conversions, your bidding strategy and budget need to align with a variety of factors, including funnel stage and seasonality.
· Increase bids for high-intent keywords, use moderate bids for middle-funnel ads, and go lower for awareness and discovery.
· Watch for online travel agents (OTAs) and large hotel chains that bid on your property’s name or similar keywords. If they undercut you in rate or bid too aggressively, you could end up with arbitrarily inflated costs per click. Research data shows this can cost around 47% more per click.
· Adjust your bids and budget during travel seasons, events, and holidays. During off-peak seasons you may want to stick with pushing awareness.
· Allocate your budget proportionately across all funnel stages.
· Use Google’s automated bidding tool for the conversion stage, but use manual methods for the consideration and awareness stage.
The right bidding strategy will ensure you don’t overspend for low-intent clicks or underinvest in more profitable funnel stages.
PPC is more than search. When you use different channels and ad formats you’ll reach people in a variety of places.
· Search ads (Google, Bing). Search ads capture high-intent demand users. They’re great for the conversion and compare phases and can make use of extensions like call, location, and reviews.
· Display and discovery/native ads. Display ads are excellent for the awareness stage. They reach people browsing travel blogs and using apps. With these ads, visuals are everything.
· Social media ads. Platforms like Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, and TikTok are great for the awareness and consideration stages. They’re especially powerful for remarketing.
· Video ads. Short-form videos can stir emotion, show off ambiance, and be used to create a mini virtual tour. These ads are great for top and middle funnel prospects.
· Email ads. If you’re using email marketing, offer loyalty deals and off-peak discounts.
Paid search on social media converts better in hospitality than it does in other industries.
Location matters in hospitality. Geotargeting can significantly improve your conversions and reduce wasted ad spend. You can use radius bids and location extensions to target people looking for accommodations within a certain radius.
It pays to bid higher for people in feeder markets and origin cities during the holidays. You can also target departure cities for Arbnbs if that’s relevant to you.
In your ad copy, include local cues like “Only 30 mins from downtown,” and “15 minutes from airport. If you know your audience well, include the origin city (“Fly in from Seattle & Stay with us just outside Olympia”).
When offered by the ad platform, use local extensions to note your address, phone number, and any other elements offered. This will generate more bookings from mobile users.
Most people who click your ads or visit your website won’t book right away. Retargeting will help convert these “warm but not ready” leads into guests eventually.
When you target people who visited your site without converting, show them ads with refreshed offers like a free breakfast or an upgraded view. Visual reminders will help bring them back.
Show the specific rooms and properties to the prospect so the ad feels personalized. Use tools like Google dynamic remarketing and Facebook Product Ads.
For guests who did convert, show them additional special offers and upgrades. Keeping them in your funnel will make future conversions easier.
It’s crucial to know when to pull back, push forward, test more, or scale.
· Define clear ROI goals. Know your target Cost-Per-Acquisition (CPA), Return on Ad Spend (ROAS), and guest Lifetime Value (LTV). If your ad spend yields bookings but loses money, it’s not working.
· Perform weekly and monthly audits. Refine keywords, ad creatives, and keep testing.
· Scale what works. Once you have a campaign producing consistent returns, increase the budget there while watching for diminishing returns.
· Adjust your offers and pricing. If conversion rates drop or your CPCs rise, start offering special packages like early-bird deals and loyalty perks.
The average travel and hospitality conversion rate for search is 3.55% so if you’re under that, there’s room for improvement. If you’re over that, scale carefully.
If you’re ready to transform your PPC campaign into a reliable machine that fills your rooms and builds a solid pipeline for the future, we can help. At PPC.co, we specialize in creating full funnel PPC strategies for hotels, motels, and Airbnbs that convert into bookings, repeat guests, and long-term loyalty. Contact us today and let’s craft a PPC strategy that drives bookings and turns first-time guests into lifelong customers.
If you’re running paid ads to promote your web hosting services, your landing pages are the core of your funnel. You can run a killer campaign with the perfect keywords and nail your targeting, but if your landing pages aren’t optimized to convert, you’re wasting money.
Your pay-per-click (PPC) ads need to capture attention immediately or you won’t get clicks. But web hosting is a highly competitive market and your landing pages need to be top-notch to turn those clicks into paying customers. To accomplish this, each page has to prove your value in seconds, overcome objections before they’re raised, and guide visitors toward signing up.
PPC strategies for generating web hosting leads apply whether you’re running your own company or building a business as a reseller. In this guide, we’ll walk you through the critical elements that make the difference between someone who buys and someone who clicks out of curiosity and bounces.
Generating leads from PPC ads starts with understanding user intent. For example, someone who clicks an ad for “best web hosting for small business” isn’t looking for the same thing as someone searching for “cheap web hosting.” They might both end up buying the same plan, but you have to sell your services differently to each group. Each lead needs to think, “this hosting plan is for me” when reading your ads and landing page. As such, you need to alter the language to speak directly to each group’s pain points, desires, and fears.
It’s worth pursuing multiple markets, but each requires a unique strategy. Success requires segmenting your traffic by creating separate landing pages for each group and then crafting ads and offers specifically tailored to those groups based on their intent. For example, you want to run separate ads with corresponding landing pages for each of the following keyword groups:
· “Reliable small business web hosting” – these leads are small business owners looking for a web host that has decent uptime and won’t go offline for a few hours every month.
Your ad and landing page copy should focus on reliability, uptime, and access to tools like email, page builders, security, and customer support.
· “WordPress hosting” – these leads aren’t tech savvy and want hosting that offers one-click WordPress installations. However, they aren’t necessarily looking for the quick installer that comes with cPanel. That’s far too complex for this group. They want a fully managed WordPress hosting account with a user interface that makes managing every WordPress installation a breeze.
To capture this group, your ad and landing page copy should focus on simple installation, easy migration, templates, automated backups, managed maintenance, and accessible support.
· “Cheap web hosting” – these leads are looking to save money and will likely sacrifice features for the right price.
Your ad and landing page copy should focus on your prices, discounts, and deals first, followed by elements like reliability and features.
· “Reliable web hosting” – these leads prioritize reliability over everything else.
Your ad and landing page copy should focus on your uptime guarantee, security, accessible support, and anything else that tells leads your servers aren’t going to crash or get hacked every week.
These are just a handful of examples of what search phrases can tell you about a user’s intent. To maximize leads, it’s crucial to segment your market based on intent to reach each group with customized marketing messages.
As with any market, before you type a single word, analyze your competition to know what you’re up against. Your competitors are bidding on the same keywords, targeting the same customers, and many are throwing down some serious cash. If your landing pages aren’t top-notch, you’re not going to make it.
Here’s how to research web hosting competitors:
· Dissect their traffic sources. Use tools like Ahrefs or Semrush to find out where they’re getting traffic. If you’re not using these platforms yet, it’s time to start.
· Copy their offers (but not specifically). Analyze their headlines, subheadings, CTAs, and packages/plans. Use this information as inspiration to build your landing pages and offers, but don’t copy anything word-for-word. Then, see what you can improve.
If your goal is to create better offers, keep in mind that hosting companies offer mid-tier plans that don’t make financial sense as part of a marketing strategy to get people to buy a more expensive plan. If you don’t use this strategy, it could result in fewer sales.
· Look for their hooks. What emotional buttons are they pushing? Security? Speed? Price? Support? Take their hooks and craft even better ones. For example, if their hook is “Hosting for $2.95/month,” take that up a notch to “Hosting that won’t crash - $2.95/month.”
· Read all their reviews. Take a deep dive into what people are saying about your competitors on sites like Reddit and Trustpilot. Negative customer reviews will tell you exactly where your competitors are failing, and those are the pain points you can solve (and advertise). For example, if a one of your competitors has an awful support ticket system, make it clear that you have superior-level support. For example, “No more ticket system nightmares – talk to a real human 24/7.”
Researching your competitors is the best way to avoid having to reinvent the wheel each time you need to build a landing page. It will give you the foundation needed to meet and exceed your competitors’ offers.
Your landing page headline is your first impression. If it doesn’t capture attention and resonate immediately, the rest of your content won’t matter. According to research from the Nielsen Norman Group, 79% of users only scan web page content and don’t read word-by-word. To capture attention, your content has to include scannable text, and that’s where your headlines shine.
When users scan web pages, they scroll while taking in headlines and subheadings in addition to bolded text and bulleted lists. But if your headings aren’t convincing, they won’t scan the rest of your content.
No matter what market you’re going for, craft your headlines to be value-and-benefit-driven. For example:
· “Lightning-fast hosting for growing businesses” is more effective than “Shared hosting plans.”
· “Get your website live in [time frame] – no tech skills needed” is more effective than “Build your website with us”
· “Affordable hosting that scales with your business” is more effective than “Business hosting plans.”
These are general guidelines – you’ll need to split test specific headlines to see what works best.
Landing pages generate more conversions when they load fast and aren’t cluttered with distractions and opportunities for people to click away from the page. Strip your landing pages down to simplicity. Remove sidebars, footers, links, and anything else that will allow users to escape from the conversion path. Most importantly, eliminate the main navigation menu to keep people on the page.
As previously discussed, most people scan content and don’t read it word-for-word, which means your landing pages need to give users something to focus on as they scroll and scan. This can be accomplished with meaningful headlines and subheadings, bolding important words, breaking up text into smaller paragraphs, using bulleted and numbered lists, and containing features and benefits inside visual comparison boxes.
One important feature of a successful landing page is that it provides limited options. If you give people too many choices they’ll struggle to make a selection. Whatever you’re offering, make it simple and limited. For example, say you have 20 different hosting plans spread out across shared hosting, dedicated servers, and VPS plans. Instead of listing all 20 plans on one page, list the three categories and link them to separate pages that detail all the relevant plans. When you create your PPC ads, run specific ads for each category of hosting rather than a generic ad for better results.
It’s not your amazing services that sell – it’s the packaging. In this case, it’s how you present your offer. Mediocre web hosting wrapped in a great offer will beat great web hosting wrapped in a boring offer every time.
Web hosting offers tend to do well with limited time offers that create a sense of urgency for the user to act now. Deals that end at midnight or offers only available to the first 50 signups can increase conversions. Just make sure you actually end those offers when claimed, and limit signups as advertised to avoid being fined by the FTC.
If you don’t know how to craft a compelling offer, look at what your competitors are offering and make sure your offer can compete. However, don’t just focus on price and disk space – that’s an old tactic that worked in the past, but today, people want more than generous resources. In fact, the average web hosting client won’t necessarily know or care about how much RAM or processing power your servers have.
Today’s web hosting clients want the following:
· A plan they can use without technical knowledge
· Managed WordPress hosting with automatic installation
· The ability to scale
· Ecommerce options
· High uptime
· Free SSL certificate
· A free domain name for at least the first year
· Site migration services
· AI-powered web building tools
· The option for custom design services
· Automated malware protection
· Automated backups
· A money-back guarantee
With so many unknown and scammy web hosts out there, social proof will go a long way in helping you generate leads. What others say about your business matters more than what you say about yourself. In fact, according to statistics published by Brightlocal, around 87% of people use Google to find reviews before making a purchase.
When people are researching your company, they’ll use customer reviews to determine whether or not you can be trusted. However, you can leverage social proof more powerfully by embedding testimonials right in your landing pages. Instead of bouncing to go look you up on Google right away, many users will read and/or watch your embedded reviews first.
If you’re not one of the top, well-known web hosting companies, you need social proof to gain momentum and trust in the market. Instead of posting images of 5-star reviews, highlight reviews from real people using a name and photo whenever possible. If you don’t have a system yet, you can start collecting video testimonials from sites like Storyprompt and embed them on your website.
Even though you’re selling web hosting services, users need to be told what to do for the next step. That’s where your CTA comes in. Your call-to-action (CTA) needs to be direct, bold, and specific to the targeted user. According to Hubspot data, aligned CTAs convert 202% better than basic ones.
Effective web hosting CTAs are action-oriented, like “Get started,” “Choose plan,” or “Claim your offer now.” For optimal conversions, create a custom action-oriented CTA for each segment you’re targeting.
Since people scroll through content scanning headlines and words here and there, it’s crucial to repeat your CTA throughout your text in a way that makes sense based on the content. For example, place a CTA at the end of each main section, like your pricing plan comparison charts, features overview, and testimonials section.
Mobile optimization doesn’t simply mean creating pages that can be viewed and interacted with on mobile. It requires a strategy for crafting pages that support how mobile users naturally read, scroll, and click. Effective mobile-friendly pages are plain, use limited or no images, don’t use sidebars, and have a sticky menu with a “buy” button so the user doesn’t need to scroll to the top of the page to make a purchase.
Friction makes users bounce fast. Eliminate any kind of on-page barrier that makes it hard or frustrating to get information or sign up for your services. For example, simplify your web forms and only ask for what you need at each stage. The first stage should ask for the basics, like name, email, and domain name. In the next step, ask for billing information. While users will eventually need to fill in all the information, it helps to break it down into stages. In fact, data published by Unbounce highlights a company that increased conversions by 120% just by reducing a form from 11 fields to four.
Another way to eliminate mental friction is to offer a free trial. In terms of web hosting, you can offer a heavy discount for the first month or a no questions asked 30-day money back guarantee.
Finally, include a FAQ section that addresses common questions and concerns transparently. If you can address objections and concerns that are at the top of people’s minds, they’ll be more likely to sign up.
If you’re ready to turn clicks into customers it’s time to hire a professional PPC company. At the end of the day, even the sharpest PPC strategy won’t deliver results if your landing pages don’t pull their weight. Web hosting is one of the most competitive industries around, and that means your pages can’t be average. They need to be fast, persuasive, and laser-focused on turning visitors into paying web hosting clients.
That’s where expert help makes the difference. At PPC.co, we specialize in building and managing high-converting PPC campaigns paired with landing pages crafted to maximize leads. Don’t let your ad budget leak away on clicks that never convert – contact us today and we’ll craft a tailored PPC strategy that maximizes every dollar.
