There’s a lot of advice out there on quality scores, but the most important thing to always remember is that Google wants you to create the best experience for the end user.
So whatever tool you wield to ace successful results with Google, if you don’t crown it with a great user experience, your entire strategy will fall off the ladder of success like a pack of cards.
As soon as Google has sufficient data, keywords in an advertiser’s account are given a score between 1 and 10, with 10 being the pick of the bunch. It is used to decide your cost per click (CPC) and multiplied by your highest bid to determine your ad rank in the ad auction process.
Now, 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 (CTR) is the most important component.
When more people see your ad and click on it, that’s a strong indication to Google that your ads are relevant and beneficial to users.
So if you are looking for a guide that will provide you with in-depth knowledge on Quality score, how to improve it, and how it affects Google ads, Please continue reading as I will uncover all the top secrets you deserve to know about the quality score on this one journey.
What is Quality Score?
Quality Score is a diagnostic tool meant to provide you with a sense of how well your ad quality compares to your competitors. This score is measured on a scale from 1-10 and is available at the keyword level.
In essence, the Quality Score is a sign of whether your ads and landing pages are beneficial to your consumers.
If your next question is about where you can Find Google Ads Quality Score, I won’t waste your time before telling you that You can find your Quality Score in the Google Ads platform under the “Modify Columns” angle.
Why is the Quality Score Important to Marketers?
Your Google Ads Quality Score is important because good scores positively impact your Ad Rank and lower your cost per click.
The better your Quality Score, the less you will pay and the higher your ads will show up in search results. Instead of sinking so much in your marketing budget, focus first on determining if your Quality Score needs enhancements.
Quality Score is important to measure how useful your ads are to the end users’ search queries.
Highly relevant keywords in your ad text will typically produce a high-quality score while irrelevant keywords in your ad text will produce a poor-quality score.
So when crafting your content, make sure every word counts.
Google Quality Score ensures users are viewing ads that are beneficial to their search. It ensures that highly relevant content will win over irrelevant ones for ads using the same keyword.
This is Google’s way of providing the best search experience to its users, so when you don’t bring quality and relevant content to the table, Google puts you in the back seat while your competitors take the wheels.
How does Quality Score Affect Google Ads?
A good Quality Score means that your ad and landing page are more relevant and useful to someone searching for your keyword, compared to your competitors.
You can leverage the Quality Score diagnostic tool to identify where it might be important to improve your ads, keyword selection, or landing pages.
That you are still reading means you want to know and I will surely tell you more.
Well, Quality Scores directly influence something called Ad Rank. Ad Rank is a value that is used to decide your ad position.
Unlike Quality Score, this number cannot be seen within your account this is because Ad Rank is calculated during the auction.
A new auction occurs every time a user types a search term into Google, the auction takes place in the period it takes for the Google search page to load. (Less than a 10th of a second).
Depending on the auction, your Ad Rank can be hugely different but the one thing that can help enhance your ranking is your Quality Score.
How Do you Calculate Google Ads Quality Score?
The keyword Quality Score calculates the relevancy of ads based on the URL or landing page associated with the particular keyword used.
After a keyword receives impressions, Keyword Quality Score will reveal how well it performs.
If you have many keywords in your Google Ads interface with low impressions, then you are probably not getting enough feedback. Keywords with no Quality Score don’t have sufficient traffic or searches to be rated using the standard Quality Score formula.
When reviewing your Keyword’s Quality Score in your Google Ads account, you can view the following:
#1. Quality Score: How relevant ads, each keyword, and landing pages are to viewers.
#2. Ad Relevance: How beneficial the keywords are to the ad copy in a campaign.
#3. Landing Page Experience: How beneficial a landing page appears to viewers of the page.
#4. Expected CTR: Compared with past performance, how often an ad gets clicked when displayed to a user.
Each component is examined with a status of “Average,” “Above average,” or “Below average.”
This examination is based on a comparison with competitors whose ads showed for the exact same keyword, over the last 90 days.
If one of these has a status of “Average” or “Below average,” this may signal an opportunity to make improvements.
What is Considered a Good Quality Score?
A Quality Score of 8–10 is considered extremely good. If you are creating new campaigns and groups, know that you need to reach a specific threshold of impressions and clicks to have a Quality Score.
Reasons Your Google Ads Quality Score Drops
As you have already known, the quality Score is based on historical impressions for exact searches of your chosen keyword, therefore changing keyword match types will not influence the quality Score.
If you notice a “—” in the quality Score domain, it means there are not enough searches that exactly match your keywords to determine a keyword’s Quality Score.
Below are three reasons your quality score is sinking
#1: Your CTR stinks.
The main determinant of a good Quality Score is a high click-through rate (CTR). A high CTR for a specific keyword means that users are clicking on your ad when their search query matches one of your keywords.
If you have a low CTR there’s a good chance that Google is going to grade you with a bad Quality Score badge, which can end up costing you money in the long run.
#2. Lack of Relevancy and Cohesion in your Ads
Many marketers get horrible keyword quality scores because their campaigns and ad groups are unorganized.
Make sure that you keep your ad groups to about 15-25 (or less if you can) related keywords advertising for one specific item. For instance, if you sell pens, don’t have an ad group with both “black pens” and “blue pens.” Split these out!
The advantage of splitting out these ad groups is that it enables you to put your high-volume keywords in your ads and on your landing page.
For instance, if you sell bathroom mirrors we strongly recommend that you have the keyword “Bathroom Mirrors” in the title of your ad and ensure to have it in the headline of your landing page.
#3. Using the Short Tail keyword May fail you
If you use all short-tail keywords like “blue pens” it’s pretty likely that your overall CTR is low (less than 2%). Including long-tail keywords like “black metal office pens” is a great way to improve both CTR and conversions.
How To Improve your Quality Score
Use this short checklist if you’re trying to improve a low score or if you’re aiming for a high-quality score:
#1. Tailored ad copy
Tailor your ad copy to your keywords: Try to add your keyword within your ad copy to improve ad relevance and user experience, which in turn can increase the click-through rate.
For instance, if you were a clothes retailer with the keyword “denim shirts” you could use “Denim Shirts” in the headline to increase both quality score and user experience.
#2. Granular account structure
Structure your Google Ads account to have a large number of very targeted ad groups. Don’t be afraid to use single-keyword ad groups for high-traffic keywords.
#3. Choose highly relevant landing pages
Put some thought into which landing page you direct website traffic to for the best user interface and the shortest conversion path.
If you are selling electronics, for instance, send users searching for an HP laptop to the HP laptop page instead of the homepage.
#4. Optimize, Keep optimizing, and Continue to optimize
Remember to continually evaluate and refresh your ad copy and landing pages, and their influence on quality score.
Testing different versions of ads can provide insights into what drives the highest click-through rate, and which ad copy earns the highest quality score.
Conclusion
As a digital marketer, it’s highly beneficial to have all kinds of knowledge in your skills toolbox. At any given time, we are asked to create a social media graphic, respond politely to an angry customer, and source content for next week’s marketing outing.
Learning about Quality Scores is just another important skill to take on for the modern marketer.
Like other marketing skills, there is no one quick fix for Quality Score, and boosting yours will take experimentation and refinement, don’t ever get tired of doing it.
If you are just starting out on Google Ads, don’t fret, this guide here has taken you far on so much that you have to know about Google ads and quality scores.
Following the commandments and recommendations made in this guide will surely put your foot ahead of your competitors as far as quality score improvement is concerned.
