One of the most crucial aspects of your Google Ads campaign is understanding the Google Quality Score. Unfortunately, many advertisers don’t fully understand what the Quality Score entails, nor the steps they may take to improve it.

What is Google Quality Score, and Why Does it Matter?

Let’s start with a simple overview. In Google Ads, each of your keywords will be assigned a Quality Score, as determined by Google’s algorithms. This Quality Score is meant to signify how closely your ads match the keyword; in other words, they are metrics for evaluating the relevance of your ad content.

Quality Score matters for a number of reasons. It matters to Google because they want to serve their search engine users with relevant information, something that extends to organic results as well as to paid ads. As such, your Quality Score can have a big impact on how often your ads actually get displayed. This naturally matters to advertisers, as well, who ultimately need their ads to be shown to appropriate audiences. Additionally, Quality Score can affect the amount of money advertisers pay. Improving your Quality Score may result in a more cost-effective ad strategy.

A Closer Look at Google Quality Score

To put all of this a little bit differently, your Quality Score reflects Google’s assessment of how appealing the ads will be to the people who are searching for that keyword. Your Google Quality Score will be a number between one and 10, with one representing a bad match and 10 representing an ideal fit.

So how exactly does Google calculate these numeric ratings? While the ways of Google’s algorithms are often shrouded in mystery, we know that there are three basic factors considered when assessing Quality Score:

1. The expected click-through rate
2. Relevance to the intent of the search engine user
3. The user experience on your connected landing page

While Google has never stated exactly how these three factors are ranked, most experts assume that click-through rate is the most important factor by far.

How to Improve Your Google Quality Score

If your Quality Score leaves something to be desired, it may be advantageous to try to raise it: Not only will this lead to better ad placements, but it may also lower your CPC expense. The question is, what can advertisers do to improve their Google Quality Score?

There are a number of strategies to consider, starting here:

• Optimize for mobile users. Google tends to reward ads with a higher Quality Score if they perform well across all device types. One important strategy is to ensure that you’re using mobile extensions in your ads, improving the ad experience for search users who are on their phones. For example, an extension that allows the user to quickly send a text can be really useful for mobile shoppers. It’s equally important to be sure your landing page looks good and loads quickly across all device and browser types.
• Consider single-keyword ad groups. One of the best things you can do to boost your Quality Score is to make sure your ads are as relevant as can be for people searching for your chosen keyword. And the easiest way to do that is to develop single keyword ad groups (SKAG), which allow you to be hyper-focused on the user intent behind one specific search term.
• Make sure you’re doing A/B testing. Another important way to improve your Google Quality Score is to thoroughly test your ad copy, ensuring you’re using the creative collateral and messaging that most resonate with your target audience. For example, do some A/B testing with different calls to action, seeing if one generates more activity than the other. By testing your ads, you can be extra sure that you’re using the best possible content and offering the most relevant messaging.
• Fine-tune your landing pages. Remember that landing pages represent one of three factors considered in your Google Quality Score. So, what can advertisers do to make their landing pages better? Start by ensuring that you’ve optimized your landing page content for the target keyword. Make sure your landing page offers brief, focused, easy-to-scan content that immediately conveys the main idea of your offer. And again, be attentive to the technical aspects of your landing page. Specifically, be sure the site loads reliably and quickly.

These are just a few of the ways in which you can build a better, more laser-focused ad campaign… and in the process, boost your Google Quality Score.

Find Out More About Building Effective Ad Campaigns

Quality Score is a critical metric for ensuring a robust Google Ads campaign, but it’s hardly the only such metric. To find out more about what’s required to build an effective ad campaign, feel free to contact enCOMPASS at any time.