If you’re trying to master Google Ads, you need a solid understanding of Quality Score. That’s because your Quality Scores have enormous influence over the cost and effectiveness of your Google Ads campaigns. Just as your credit score can affect whether or not you qualify for a loan and how high your interest rate is, Google Quality Score affects how your PPC ads perform and how much you pay for each click.
What is Quality Score? Quality Score is Google’s rating of the quality and relevance of both your keywords and ads. It is used to determine your cost per click (CPC) and multiplied by your maximum bid to determine your ad rank in the ad auction process. Your Quality Score depends on multiple factors, including:
- Your click-through rate (CTR).
- The relevance of each keyword to its ad group.
- Landing page quality and relevance.
- The relevance of your ad text.
- Your historical Google Ads account performance.
No one outside of Google knows exactly how much each factor “weighs” in the Quality Score algorithm, but we do know that click-through rate is the most important component. When more people who see your ad click it, that’s a strong indication to Google that your ads are relevant and helpful to users. Accordingly, Google rewards you with:
- Higher ad rankings
- Lower costs
Benefits Of Improved Quality Score
Reduced Spend
Keywords with a high Quality Score will benefit from not having to pay as much as advertisers with a lower Quality Score for each click. Even though in some instances, the amount saved will only be minimal for each keyword, if you were to be able to add up each of these individual savings you would be surprised at how much this could amount too.
Unfortunately, Google doesn’t inform advertisers how much they are saving on each click, so doing the actual maths is not possible. You will be able to see the difference yourself by taking a keyword with a low Quality Score and improving it to a high one.
Higher Ranking Position
Google takes many factors into consideration when giving a keyword its Score but the bulk of the scoring is based around ‘relevance’.
Keywords with a higher Quality Score are deemed relevant by Google and Google like their users to see results that are relevant to their search. Therefore the higher the Quality Score, the higher you should see your ads appear within the search results.
How Do You Increase Your Quality Score?
Since Quality Score determines where and how often your ads appear, it’s important to boost your ratings by working consistently on your account. This can be achieved by focusing your efforts on several key areas:
- Keyword Research – Discover new, highly relevant keywords to add to your campaigns, including long-tail opportunities that can contribute to the bulk of your overall traffic.
- Keyword Organization – Split your keywords into tight, organized groups that can be more effectively tied to individual ad campaigns.
- Refining Ad Text – Test out ad copy that is more targeted to your individual ad groups. More effective ads get higher CTR, one of the best ways to improve Quality Score.
- Optimizing Landing Pages – Follow landing page best practices to create pages that connect directly with your ad groups and provide a cohesive experience for visitors, from keyword to conversion.
- Adding Negative Keywords – Continuously research, identify, and exclude irrelevant search terms that are wasting your budget.
Low Google Ads Quality Scores are primarily the result of disconnect between keywords, ad groups, ad text, and landing page content. A high Quality Score comes naturally when a Google Ads account contains organized keywords in appropriate keyword groups, ad text that corresponds with certain ad groups, and landing pages that connect with the ad text’s offer. While there is no easy, foolproof answer to improving your Quality Score formula, paying careful attention to relevance will greatly improve your scores.
