It is getting harder and harder to get deeper details from any ad platform. With the increase of the privacy policies is not that easy to get a lot of information from your ads performance. But something that still remains and gives the marketers the possibility to improve their Google ads is the quality score. It was and still is a core PPC optimization metric. If you are new to Google ads, then you should definitely learn as much as possible about the quality score, and we are here to help. Keep reading to find the top 10 tips on how you can improve this metric.
What is a quality score?
Google describes the quality score as “an estimate of the quality of your ads, keywords, and landing pages. Higher quality ads can lead to lower prices and better ad positions.”
One of Google’s goals is to offer a great user experience to everyone, including advertisers. This is why they want to give you some help when it comes to choosing your keywords. The quality score is based on many factors, and it is meant to provide you with some details about the keywords you are using.
The quality score is between 1 and 10. When you add keywords to your account, it will receive a starting quality score equal to 6, which is a bit above average. Here are just a couple of factors that determine the quality score of each keyword:
- Ad Relevance – This factor determines how relevant is the new keyword compared to the other keywords in your account. So, to have a high score here, you shouldn’t just add any keyword to your campaigns but only ones that are really relevant for your business.
- Expected click-through rate – This score of this factor is based on the previous performance of your ads. Google will try to calculate how likely are people to click on your ad based on the click-through rate on similar keywords in your account.
- Landing page experience – Google will check the relevancy of your landing page to the keyword you are using. Also, how fast the page is loading and its usability.
Why is quality score important?
If you have a high quality score, this would mean that your keywords are relevant compared to the rest of your competitors, and also, it has an excellent chance to be clicked on. Sounds good, but what is the actual value behind it?
If your quality score is higher, it would mean that your clicks will be cheaper. If you are covering all the criteria of Google to have a good quality score, they will motivate you because you are answering users’ needs. If you are paying less for your clicks, it would mean you can take even more advantage of your budget, and your return on investment will be better.
The main three benefits of having a higher quality score are:
- Cheaper cost per click;
- Outranking competitors and still paying less than them;
- Guaranteeing yourself that your ad is shown.
How to improve your quality score?
Here are ten tips on how to get a better quality score:
- Create a tailored ad copy – Don’t just put any text to your ad, but try to include your keywords in it. This will help with the relevance score, which is a factor of the quality score, making it more user-friendly. For example, if you are selling cat food, try to add it in the heading of your ad copy.
- Structure your ad campaigns – Don’t just add all of your keywords in one extensive campaign without structuring them. It is better to have at least a couple of ad groups. Each group can have a primary focus like, for example, “Competitors” one. Having different ad groups with generic keywords that are focused on different parts of your product or service is recommended. Like that, you can also have dedicated ad copies that are highly relevant for the keywords in each group.
- Use relevant landing pages – Don’t put the same landing page repeatedly for all your ad groups. Choose the most relevant one and make sure the page itself is optimized. Make sure the page loads fast and provides a smooth user experience. It is not an excellent option to put just your site’s main landing page. If you offer different services, create a dedicated landing page for each and link it to a specific ad group.
- Use ad extensions – ad extensions are bits of information about your business that you can provide in addition to the primary information. It can be a phone number, USP call-outs, and others. Adding too many ad extensions is not recommended because your ad will become too busy and decrease your quality score. Add the most relevant ones to provide the best value for your potential clients.
- Continuously optimize your ads – Ads are something that you can’t just set and forget about it. This means you need to constantly improve your ad copy and your landing pages linked to your ads as well. Like this, you will find the best quality score by checking different combinations of keywords, ad copy, and landing pages.
- Know your audience – The best way to prepare ads that convert well is to know your user persona. Try to learn as much as you can for the customers you already have and, based on that, create your target user persona and optimize your ads in a way that will be relevant for them.
- Conduct regular keyword research – Knowing which keywords to use is the foundation of having a successful campaign. Don’t just add any keyword that comes to your mind that might be even slightly relevant for your business. Try to add the ones researched by users, and don’t forget about long-tail keywords and combinations.
- Create a negative keywords list – It is essential to have a list with negative keywords that you don’t want your ad to be shown. If you don’t do that, your ad will be shown to people who are not interested in your ad and are not looking for relevant keywords for your business. This will mean you are spending money for nothing.
- Prioritize your keywords – Don’t treat all keywords as equal. Some of them will have a better relevance and search intent. This is why you might create smaller ad groups with such keywords and then put higher bids on those. Even if they are more expensive, they will have a better chance of bringing you, new users.
- Try to expand your ads reach – Never think that you found all relevant keywords there are. Try to find new ones regularly and remove those that are not working that well. Customer behavior will change, your product will evolve, and your competitors, too, algorithms used from the ads, so you will be able to find more relevant terms to add to your campaigns.
Improving your quality score
Getting new users is not an easy task. You can’t count only on your organic reach because your competitors are surely investing in paid acquisition too. This is why Google ads are the perfect way for you to reach more people and win more customers. And your quality score is the most critical factor you need to learn how to optimize. Having the highest possible one will give you the best chance of getting more users.
