Did you know that you could be paying more money and positioned lower than your competition due to your ad's quality score on Google?
What is Google Ads Quality Score?
When you run a Google Ads campaign, Google gives your ads a score from a range of 1-10 based on;
The relevance of your ads
The user's landing page experience (the page they land on after clicking the ad)
Keyword usage within the ads
How Can Quality Score Effect Your Ads?
When you run Google Ads, it's usually with the intent for that investment to convert into sales or leads. Having a lower quality score can result in your ads costing more and being positioned lower on the search engine results page (SERP). Increasing your score, however, would improve your position in the search results as well as your return-on-investment (ROI). But what's considered a low or high quality score?
What is a "Good" Google Ads Quality Score?
Like a lot of digital advertising, of course, there really isn't a clean-cut answer to this question. By default, Google usually starts you off somewhere in the middle, with most of your ads having a quality score of 5-6. Depending on performance, your score can either go up or down from there. A "good" quality score, however, depends on the type of keywords your ads are coming up for. Here is what you should aim for in terms of quality score for your ads in relation to the keywords that they come up for:
Branded Keywords = 8-10
High-Intent Keywords = 7-9
Low-Intent Keywords = 6+
Competitor Keywords = 3+
The most important of the group are high-intent and branded keywords. You're going to want to optimize your ads to have good quality scores for those keywords. For example, if you are a business that's selling graphic t-shirts, you're going to want to focus on keywords like "graphic tees" or "graphic t-shirts" before you spend too much time on "sweaters" or "tops". Now, for the real elephant in the room.
How Can You Improve Your Google Ads Quality Score?
This ties back into what Google uses to determine your quality score in first place; your ad relevancy, your ad's landing page experience, and your ad's keyword usage.
Ad Relevancy & Keyword Usage
You're going to have a higher quality score for keywords that are more relevant to your ad. Let's go back to that graphic t-shirt example; If your ad says Jane Doe's Graphic T-Shirts, your quality score will be higher for keywords like "graphic t-shirts" and "graphic tees". Now let's say you've added graphic sweatshirts to your inventory, but your quality score for "sweatshirts" is really low. One way you can improve that score is by changing your ad title to say Jane Doe's Graphic T-Shirts & Sweatshirts. You should also maximize your keyword usage in the description of your ad, which appears underneath your ad title. Have you ever noticed that when you do a Google search, the keywords for what you searched are bolded in the descriptions?
Google wants to know that your ad is relevant to the user's search, and if it is, your quality score will be higher, increasing your position in the results page. Your ad will also be matched with higher user intent, reducing wasted spend for irrelevant search terms.
Landing Page Experience
Your landing page is the page that the user lands on after clicking your ad. Google is looking for landing pages that give the user a good experience. This includes easy website navigation, fast load-times, and relevancy to what your ad title and description say. When somebody searches for "graphic tees" and clicks on an ad, for instance, they should land on a page that displays different graphic tees for purchase and an easily navigable menu to refine what they're looking for. The more time users spend browsing your page, and the more relevant your page is to your ad, the lower your bounce rate will be - and lower bounce rates can result in higher quality scores.
If your landing page has a low quality score, make sure your website speed is fast, make sure your site is easily navigable, and make sure it's simple - not too cluttered, but also aesthetically pleasing. You want attention-grabbing content without over-loading the user.
What Is Your Google Ads Quality Score?
Whether you're a beginner or an experienced Google Ads user, let's dive into your Google Ads quality score together. As a certified Google Ads expert, I can help you assess what you've learned so far - that your website, ad set-up, keywords, and optimizations all tie into your ad's quality score, which directly effects your campaign's performance. Book a free consultation so we can investigate the health of your ads and how they can be improved.
