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Paid ads are a useful tool that companies and marketers can use to drive traffic to their website. There are many components that make up how effective and successful your pay-per-click campaign will be, with one of them being Quality Scores.

Google Quality Scores

Google Quality Scores are one of the most important aspects to maintain throughout your pay-per-click campaign. Quality Scores are an estimate of the quality and relevance of your keywords, landing pages, and ads to a user who views your ad. Quality Scores range from 10 to 1, with 10 being the highest score and 1 being the lowest. Null Quality Scores, or scores that receive a “-” in Google AdWords, are keywords that do not have enough clicks or impressions to estimate the Quality Score for the keyword. The higher your scores are for your keywords, the less your campaign will cost as Quality Scores impact both your cost per click (CPC) and cost per conversion, as well as where your ad is placed during a user’s search. Having a lower CPC for keywords and campaigns will be more cost-effective as paid campaigns continue to go up in price. Having a high Quality Score means that Google systems believe that your ads and landing pages will be relevant and useful for someone who searches on Google

While there are multiple factors that can determine Quality Scores, there are three major metrics that tie into how an overall Quality Score is calculated and assigned to a keyword:

• Expected Click-through Rate (CTR): Expected CTR determines the likelihood of your ad being clicked by someone who views it. Expected CTR is calculated by analyzing the clickthrough performance of your past ads and how that will affect your future ads.
• Landing Page Experience: Landing page experience is an estimate of how relevant and useful your landing page is when your ad is clicked. Landing page experience is determined by the content of your landing page and how closely it matches the search term of the user, as well as user experience once a searcher lands on your page.
• Ad Relevance: Ad relevance measures how closely your keywords match the ad copy. Below average ad relevance can mean that your ads are either too general or too specific and do not match what the user is searching, or that the keyword itself is not relevant to your business and the terms you are advertising for.

How To Improve Google Quality Scores

Quality scores are a large determinant for where, how much, and how often your ads appear through Google organic search, therefore, it is imperative to maintain high scores. Considering there are many different factors that tie into how Quality Score is determined, there are also multiple ways to improve the scores. Maintaining new and relevant keywords through keyword research will improve Quality Scores as relevant keywords can translate into useful leads for your campaign. Optimizing landing pages so that they relate closely to your keywords will improve landing page experience as the landing pages will align more with the user’s search term and provide a more productive user experience. Updating and refining ad copy within ads so that they closely match your keywords and landing page will boost your ad relevance and in return also boost your Quality Score. Additionally, adding negative keywords to your campaign will eliminate unnecessary search terms that have little to do with your campaign and ultimately save you money.

By using these simple techniques, your Google Quality Scores will improve in the long run and prove to be successful for your paid campaign as you draw more traffic through to your site and generate more return on investment.