How To Improve Your Google Ads Quality Score
Improving the quality score of your ads on the Google Ads platform will help you get more clicks at the same time as reducing your average cost per click. Let’s look at why your quality score is so important and how you can start improving your ads today.
What Is A Quality Score?
Google Ads’ quality score is a rating out of 10 given individually to keywords in your account. The score is calculated using variables including click-through rate (CTR), ad relevancy, and landing page experience.
Why Does Google Use Quality Scores?
Google wants to give its users the most useful and relevant results when they make a search. This includes making sure the adverts they show them are also relevant. If a user searches for “Florists near me”, Google doesn’t want to display ads for a carpenter, even if that carpenter happens to have added “florist” as a keyword for some reason. In order to ensure that they are serving relevant ads, Google developed the Quality Score.
What Happens If You Have A High Google Ads Quality Score?
You can save advertising spend and get a better return on your advertising spend (ROAS) when you have a high-quality score.
If your quality score for a keyword is higher than average (above 5/10), you will pay less to display your ad. This doesn’t mean that you can’t be outbid by a competitor with a lower quality score, but they will need to spend even more than normal to outbid you. On average, if you have a 10/10 quality score, you will be paying 50% less for the top of page ad placement than if you had a 5/10 quality score.
Here is an overview of the benefits for having a quality score above 5/10.
- A Quality Score of 6/10 will save you 16.7% on average.
- A Quality Score of 7/10 will save you 28.6% on average.
- A Quality Score of 8/10 will save you 37.5% on average.
- A Quality Score of 9/10 will save you 44.2% on average.
- A Quality Score of 10/10 will save you 50% on average.
What Happens If You Have A Low Google Ads Quality Score?
If you have a low-quality score you will have to spend even more for your ads to appear on Google. This means that competitors who have lower budgets, but higher quality ads will often outperform you.
It is worth noting that you are penalised far more for a low-quality score than you are rewarded for a high one.
Here is an overview of the benefits for having a quality score below 5/10.
- A Quality Score of 4/10 will cost on average 25% more for ads.
- A Quality Score of 3/10 will cost on average 67.3% more for ads.
- A Quality Score of 2/10 will cost on average 150% more for ads.
- A Quality Score of 1/10 will cost on average 400% more for ads.
How To Find Out Your Current Google Ads Quality Score?
- Go to your Google Ads account.
- In the menu sidebar on the left, click “Keywords”, then “Search keywords”.
- If you do not already see a column called “Quality Score”, click on “COLUMNS”, then “Modify columns” and add the quality score column.
- You should see a column of quality scores. Some keywords will not display and will show a dash instead of a number. This means that Google Ads does not have enough data to accurately determine the quality score for these keyword yet.
What You Need To Know About Quality Scores Before You Make Any Changes
Before you start trying to improve your quality score, you need to remember what the overall point of your Google Ads account is.
The overall performance is what matters most. If a keyword has a quality score of 4/10, but the ad is otherwise performing well and generating you leads/sales, don’t feel like you need to improve the score – the results matter more than how you get there.
Google’s AI isn’t perfect, and you should always design your ads and landing pages with your potential customers in mind rather than Google’s AI. That said, if you have a keyword which is underperforming and it also has a low-quality score, it is definitely worth trying to improve it.
It is also worth remembering that 5/10 is average. With a quality score of 5/10, you won’t be penalised with higher ad costs, nor will you be rewarded with lower ones. If someone told you a film was a 5/10, you would think it meant it was bad, but a 5/10 quality score simply means your ad relevance is average.
How To Improve Your Quality Score
- Improve your Ad Relevance
Your advertisement’s relevancy is crucial! Make sure your ad’s headlines, descriptions, and URL path prominently display the keyword you are bidding on. Making your ad as related to the user’s original search phrase as possible should encourage them to click on it, increasing traffic to your site and your click-through rate (CTR), which will in turn also increase the quality score for the associated keyword.
You will receive more clicks, a better CTR, and a significantly higher quality score if your product or service is more relevant to the user than that of your competitors. - Improve Your Landing Page Content
You don’t want to put in all that effort to entice a person to click on your advertisement just to send them to a landing page that they want to leave as soon as possible. Create a frictionless customer journey and ensure that the content on the landing page is relevant to the keyword that brought them there.
To achieve this, place your keyword prominently on your landing page. To do this for all of your keywords, you might need to develop more than one landing page. Although it may seem like a lot of work, improving your quality score will save you a lot of money on your advertising spend in the long run. - Improve Your Landing Page Speed & Performance
Page speeds also have an impact on your quality score. Ensure that your page loads quickly and that it functions well on both desktop and mobile. - Improve Your Click Through Rate
Click through rate (CTR) is a huge factor in calculating a keyword’s quality score. Therefore, having a high CTR should go hand in hand with a high quality score. A clear and cogent message to your user is essential if you want to increase your click-through rates (CTR). This may be a current deal or campaign your business is running, or it might be a USP for your particular company. Simply including your keyword in your ad text is not enough to guarantee an improved click through rate – your ad needs to actually entice the user to click it. Another good way of increasing click through rate is to ensure you are using all the available assets in your ad, including images, callout extensions, and sitelinks.
Need Help Improving Your Google Ads Performance?
If you have a Google Ads campaign and are struggling to improve your quality scores, we can help. Our PPC specialists have built and managed dozens of campaigns for clients across the UK and have the expertise you need to make your online advertising a success. Speak to our PPC team today.
