7 min read
What is a Google Ads Quality Score?
The main goal of any marketer is to have their ads reach the target audience on time to generate high conversions, clicks, and engagement levels. Pay per click provides a quick way to achieve those goals. For most customers, paid ads help them find the information they are looking for quickly. Therefore, most businesses are taking this opportunity to amplify their reach and maximize their marketing strategies.
As a result, Google ads have become a highly competitive landscape, and only those who explore all the available resources will succeed. For those who could still be asking what is Google ads quality score, it’s the criteria Google uses to determine your ad’s importance to the audience. Like in the organic search, those with a better score ranks higher. Your score depends on three main factors.
- The Landing page overall experience
- Expected click-through rate
- Advert relevance to the searcher intent
Google assesses how useful, organized, or convenient a website appears to the customers to determine the landing page experience. Ad relevance is basically how well your ad matches the searcher’s need. The expected click-through rate measures the likelihood of searchers noticing and clicking on your ad based on the keywords used.
Generally, your quality scores Google ads significantly affect your marketing campaigns’ performance and profitability. It determines your ad position and the cost per action. Though there are several uncontrollable variables in the ad quality score, marketers should be prepared to make changes and updates whenever necessary.
Tips to Improve Your Quality Score
Now that you have your answer on what is a quality score in Google Adwords let’s dive deeper into ways to improve your quality scores. Here are various tips that you can use.
Conduct An In-depth Keyword Research
Getting the right keywords to bid on is the foundation of your quality score. The web analytic is a great tool that will help you determine the exact phrases searchers use to look for specific products on the web. It will even show you those keywords with high search volume and those that are more likely to attract more conversions. If your keyword research is sub-standard, it will negatively affect your Google ads account quality score. Here is an example of Google’s keyword planner:
(Image Credit: Ahrefs)
Begin by brainstorming and come up with a comprehensive list of words directly related to your services or product. Think from a customer’s perspective to determine the exact words they would type into a search box while searching for your business. You can start with a broad list then narrow it down to a specific term.
For instance, if you deal with shirts, you can start with men’s shirts, then white long-sleeved polo shirts. Remember to include variations and synonyms in your keyword list. Further, be specific since a broad word like shirt could attract irrelevant clicks from anyone looking for women’s or kid’s shirts.
Also, consider long-tail keywords since they are less competitive and are more likely to attract convertible leads. Include these keywords on your ad headlines in the web content and ad copy. It helps convince searchers that your ad is highly relevant to their query.
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Create Keyword Ad Groups
Keywords ads groups make your ad more relevant to the exact search intent of your customers. When carrying out pay per click marketing, your main aim is to gain clicks from interested parties to prevent needless spending and maximize conversions. Therefore, it would be best to structure your ads into more targeted campaigns. You can achieve this by focusing on a single keyword ad group. It helps improve your account relevance that translates to a better quality score Google ads.
Additionally, you can develop targeted ads for each service you offer, create several ad groups, and use the most appropriate keywords in each. Every ad group should have a single keyword. As a result, those who will click on your ad will get what they want and most probably will convert. The image below shows where to go to create a new ad group:
(Image Credit: Google Support)
Make Use Of Negative Keywords
If you have been searching Google ads quality score and how to improve it, you have possibly come across the term negative keyword list. It enables you to eliminate some keyword combinations to filter out who will see your ads based on their search queries. Hence, it narrows down your targeting to prevent your ads from popping up in irrelevant searches. Only audiences on your target group can see your ad to avoid paying for wasted clicks and create more opportunities for displaying your ad to the most relevant group, which increases conversion rates.
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Negative keywords vary in different industries. Thus, you need to determine the exact search queries you intend to target and the best keyword match type for you. The exact match keyword type will exclude your ad for searches with the precise keyword stipulated in your ad group without extra words. For instance, if you exclude the name ‘red dress,’ your ad won’t appear for such searches but might pop up for the ‘straight red dress’ since the phrase doesn’t match the negative term entirely.
On the other hand, phrase match keyword type excludes your ads for searches with the same order as the indicated word phrase. For instance, if you prevent your ad from appearing on the search query ‘red dress,’ it won’t appear on a search term like, ‘where can I buy a red dress.’ However, it will appear on queries with ‘red straight dress.’
The broad match keyword type restricts your ad for any searches that contain the stipulated keywords in any order. Based on the red dress example, searches with ‘red straight dress,’ red floral dress, or ‘red dress deals’ won’t show.
Write High-Quality Content
You need to back up your keywords with engaging content that matches the searcher’s intent. Elaborate your ad further on the landing page to provide a better user experience. The headline of your ad should correspond to the one on your webpage. Be careful not to drive your page visitors to other pages that aren’t specifically designated for the offer on the ad.
For instance, if your ad reads, ‘best sneakers for baby girls,’ your audience expects to land on a page with little girls’ sneakers and not any other thing. Hence, you need to personalize your landing pages’ content to meet your target customer’s unique needs. Keep evaluating every page often and tailor them towards your customer’s preferences.
Make your content useful and organized to help the site visitors decide whether they want to claim your offer. First, your ad should focus on one specific product or service. Note that advertisements with multiple items can lead to a lower quality score in Google ads. Customers want to feel that they can get the exact thing they are looking for from your site.
Additionally, use easy to read language and avoid technical industry-based jargon. Also, make your landing page easily skimmable to attract busy customers, and you can even use infographics to help your site visitor understand better.
Optimize Your Landing Page
The landing page accounts for 39% of the total ad quality score Google ads according to a blog by DemandJump. Remember that it’s the first place that your visitors land from your ad, and if it’s not good enough, people will bounce off your website. Hence design a page with the customer’s goal in mind.
Guide your site visitors through with some visual elements. First, identify your brand with a logo and preferably place it at the top left corner of your webpage. Next, ensure that the page relates to what you stated in the ad. Focus on providing smooth navigation so that visitors can easily find information. Make clear headlines and bold them to draw people’s attention. Bulleting and italics also make essential points more noticeable.
Further, make your site indexable by securing external links to your page and updating all the internal links so that Google robots can easily crawl on your site to determine its relevance. Since 57% of web traffic is from mobile devices, make your page mobile-friendly to amplify your visibility and provide a better browsing experience for your customers. Also, keep the landing page visually appealing to grab the attention of your site visitors.
Additionally, work on your page speed. There is nothing as frustrating as clicking an ad then having to wait for a long time to get to the landing page. Most site visitors will leave a page if it fails to load within three seconds.
You can improve your page’s speed by optimizing your images to ensure that they are in the correct size. Also, keep the photos in the right file formats, JPEGS for photographs, and PNGs for graphics. Next, reduce redirects, improve server response time, enable file compression, and browser caching. You can use GTMetrix or webmaster tools to give you an overview of your page speed performance and make the necessary changes. For instance:
(Image Credit: 8ms)
Target Specific Regions And Exclude Irrelevant Ones
Specify the exact location you wish your ads to appear, regions where you intend to concentrate your marketing efforts. It helps exclude your ad from irrelevant countries to avoid getting unnecessary clicks. You will thus attract only those who show interest in your products or services from your targeted location.
Google Adwords provides two location settings. You can focus your ad based on the radius, bulk, or group locations for the primary option. On the other hand, the advanced location setting gives you a chance to include and exclude various locations. For instance, suppose you have a bakery in New York. In that case, you can target your ads to people residing there, regularly visiting the region, or who have shown interest in New York bakeries.
For hotel owners, who want to receive visitors from various areas, you can target your ads by countries or territories. It will help you focus your ads on a more relevant group of customers. As a result, you will record a higher CTR, which improves your ad quality score. Here is what the location settings will look like:
Schedule Your Ads Running Time
It’s also crucial that you run your campaigns on a specific schedule throughout the week. Ask yourself where your target audience lives and determine their most active part of the day. Look through your campaign data to determine when most users search through your ads to know when most conversions occur. Focus on running your ads during these periods.
For a business to business, advertisers consider running your ads during the day. Also, avoid advertising during holidays and weekends when most companies are usually inactive.
Alternatively, you can activate certain hours for desktop or mobile PPC. Most people are more likely to use the desktop during working hours and mobile devices afterward. Hence, it would be wise to deactivate ads from running on desktop platforms at night or during holidays. Your target audience is more likely to be using their mobile devices at such moments, which will improve your click-through rates. Focus your budget on the best performing hours of the day.
(Image Credit: Disruptive Advertising)
Promote Transparency To Gain Customer Trust
Most consumers rate advertising practitioners very low regarding honesty, and they have minimal trust in them. Hence expect that most visitors will look for the most superficial reasons to leave your page. Since online fraud is on the rise, you need to convince your site visitors that your pages are safe and secure. First, secure your website using SSL protection so that browsers won’t place a warning icon on your URL indicating that your site is insecure.
Further, you can include some security icons like the trust badge on the checkout page to let your customers confirm that you are handling their data with care. Also, provide a link to your privacy policy and social proof to show that other clients find your products or services valuable. You can also avail authority indicators in your webpage like awards to prove to your site visitors that you are trustworthy. Transparency improves user experience, improving your quality score, which helps attract more site visitors.
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Utilize Responsive Search Ads
Google can bring together several elements from your ad to automatically develop the ad copy that users will see. It also lets you create an advertisement with more text content that delivers relevant information to your customers. For instance, the expanded text ads allow you to develop ad content with more word characters, improving your quality score. You can even use long-tail keywords that benefit your ad groups, boosting your ad’s relevance. Your target customers will easily find your business when you use longer search terms.
For the responsive ads, you can write multiple headlines and descriptions. When someone searches a query, Google will automatically test different ad variations to develop the best possible combination to deliver the right message about your brand to the searcher. You have a chance to come up with up to 15 headlines and four unique descriptions. The more the headlines, the more options Google will have while determining how to show your ad to the searcher.
Include your primary keyword in at least two of your headlines. You can also indicate how your product or service can help solve a particular problem or highlight its benefits. Keep the headlines in different lengths and use a minimum of at least two unique descriptions.
Focus On The Right Audience Demographics
Consider targeting your ad to a particular group based on demographic setups. You don’t need to focus on every individual who interacts in your business, but instead, figure out who exactly will benefit from your offer. Choose the gender, household income, and age of your target audience. Narrow down your customers into smaller groups to be very specific in your targeting. The image below shows the options available:
(Image Credit: Tinuiti)
These settings might differ depending on your field and business type. For instance, if you deal with the business to business market, you can exclude 18 to 24 years. You will also notice a group termed as ‘unknown.’ When Google can’t determine some individuals’ exact age or gender, they classify them in the unnamed group. You shouldn’t exclude this category from your ads; let them view your advertisement for a while, then assess how they perform. With time, if you notice that a particular age group or gender performs better than the other, you can budget more on that segment.
Diib®: Improve Your Google Ads Quality Score Today!
Google ads are a great way to generate high conversions and diversify your traffic sources, but you must have a high-quality score. Focus on good keyword targeting and improve your landing page. It will not only help increase conversions but also make your campaigns more profitable. Partnering with Diib Digital will provide you with an added measure of confidence in your Google Ad Quality Score and can provide invaluable insights into its improvement. Here are some of the features of our User Dashboard that set us apart from the crowd:
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