Google Adwords uses quality score to measure the quality of your PPC ad in relation to search queries. It impacts how often your ad will show for the keywords you bid on and what each click will cost. It’s important to keep good quality scores to ensure your ads show more often and your average cost per click stays as low as possible. If you’re noticing a lot of keywords in your account with low quality scores, there are a few important things you should do to improve them.
This chart helps to explain quality score ranges. You should aim for your keywords to be in the green ranges, ideally at a 7 or above.
Factors that contribute to quality score include:
- Click-through rate
- Ad relevancy
- Landing page relevancy
By focusing on improving these factors, you can improve your quality score.
How to Improve Click-Through Rate
A poor click-through rate leads to poor quality scores because it indicates that users are not interested in your ad. If no one is clicking on your ad, it must not be relevant to what the searcher wants. As the click-through rate improves, quality score should improve with it.
Monitor Search Queries
Check search query reports and add negatives for searches that are irrelevant to your ad. If you’re noticing keywords coming through that are relevant to your business, but possibly not to that specific ad, add those keywords to other ad groups or create new ad groups for them so you can specify different ad copy and show a more attractive ad.
Use More Specific Match Types
Use phrase and exact match types in your keyword lists to keep the search queries more specific. The more open your keywords are, the harder it is to control performance and optimize CTR.
How to Improve Ad Copy
Ad copy is extremely important because it’s the one thing the user sees before they decide to visit your site. Make sure your ad is relevant to the search, contains clear messaging and is attractive to the user.
Include Keyword in Ad Copy
Try changing up the ad copy to include the keyword and speak more specifically to what the searcher is looking for. Search phrases are bolded in the ad so they stand out more to the user and indicate relevancy.
Note: This should be done for the more searched on, more important keywords in an ad group. Do not change ad copy to be more specific to one low-performing keyword if it means becoming less relevant to a better performing keyword.
Ad Testing
Along with including the keyword in the ad copy, you should also be testing different messaging to learn what resonates with your audience best. Try testing out different titles, product features, benefits, sales, and calls to action.
Ad Extensions
Add extensions like sitelinks, phone number, location, and callout extensions to provide more information and click options to the searcher. Extensions also help your ad take up more space in the SERP pushing your competition lower down on the page.
How to Improve Landing Page Relevancy
The landing page should be useful to the user and help them achieve their goal, whatever that might be. When users land on a webpage and don’t find what they’re looking for, or get confused, or don’t want to wait long for the page to load, they bounce. High bounce rates indicate to Google that the searcher was unsatisfied with that result. Since Google wants to make sure to give the best results to the user, it will stop showing your ad for that search query over time.
Use Keyword-Specific Landing Pages When Applicable
If there are better landing page options for specific keywords than the one you’re using at the ad level, add destination URLs at the keyword level to land users on the better page. For example, if you have a product category ad group that contains keywords for product ID searches, it’s better to land those searches on their specific product detail page instead of the product category page. By landing them on the better page, they’ll be more likely to interact with the site instead of bounce.
Ensure Landing Page Copy Speaks to Search
Is the keyword used at all on the landing page? Does the landing page speak to anything relating to the keyword? Make sure there is copy on the page that refers to the search. You can’t expect someone to search for a specific topic, land them on a general catch-all page and then follow through with a conversion. Give them what they’re looking for – and if you don’t have what they’re looking for, maybe you shouldn’t be bidding on that keyword.
No Redirects!
Ensure none of your landing pages are redirecting to another page. This can hurt user experience as well as your ability to track those sessions effectively.
Concluding Remarks
Remember, Google wants the user’s experience to be seamless from search query to ad to landing page. Ensure all three of these are relevant to each other and you should have no problem with quality score!
