Not Sure How To Improve Your Google AdWords Quality Score? Use These 8 Tips

If you are planning to run Google Adwords campaigns, then you should know that Google assigns a Quality Score to every keyword in your ads campaign.

The score will have significant effects on the performance of your campaign and will give you an edge if you work to increase it.

Quality Score is a general grade for how often your ads will show, your cost-per-click, and how much you pay Google when potential customers click on an ad.

Google awards the advertisers who provide an excellent experience to the searchers with lower costs while also showing ads more frequently.

Image Source: https://www.wordstream.com/quality-score

Many online marketers struggle to find ways to improve the quality of the ads of their campaigns while also combatting rising ad costs and lost Impression Share.

Improving the Quality Score of your Google AdWords campaigns isn't easy, but there are 8 actionable steps that you can take to identify and address low-hanging opportunities to boost your ad performance today!

1. Add Keywords To Your Ad Copy

The first step to improve the Quality Score of your ads is to insert keywords into your text ads. Adding keywords to your Headlines, Descriptions, and Paths help Google understand the meaning of the ad copy.

Apart from helping you improve the Quality Score of your Google Ads Campaign, writing great Google AdWords text ads will increase the Click Through Rate (CTR) and Conversion Rate of your ads when your message matches across keywords and ad copy.

This is because keywords connect what people are searching for and your text ads, so each ad is more relevant for your target audience.

You can either do that manually or use the dynamic keyword insertion (DKI), which will insert them automatically. Either way, you will be able to make your ad copy more relevant for your readers that will lead to improved engagement and more sales with each click.

2. Structure Your Campaigns Into Small Targeted Ad Groups

Google is like a smart kindergartener because you need to tell Google AdWords precisely what you want to say and whom you want your ads to appear to. Part of this process is to organize your campaigns into tightly controlled ad groups.

Image Source: https://www.wordstream.com/blog/ws/2017/05/02/adwords-account-structure-guide

By using small targeted ad groups in your campaigns will result in more relevant ad copy and relevancy between the search queries and the advertisements.

You can reap the rewards of relevant ad groups by building your ad groups around a core set of keywords and text ad copy.

Be sure to map out "buckets" for all of your products and services before you build out your account so you can set the campaigns with several ad groups, which should be specific and related to your target keywords.

Organizing a Google AdWords account can sound daunting at first, but when implemented correctly, it will boost your sales in the long term.

Remember to use the least number of keywords possible per every ad group. Proper organization of the account will help you manage good Quality Score in addition to increasing the Click Through Rates of your ads and stretch your ad spend!

3. Target Unique Landing Pages

The job of a keyword is to get your ads found, while the position of your text ads is to get clicked by qualified customers. Finally, the role of your landing pages is to close sales, so you need to direct your audience from high-quality text ads that meet their needs to an optimized landing page that will get them to fill out a contact form or give you a call.

Designing a landing page for every ad group will take additional time, but this small investment will have a significant impact on the quality and quantity of leads that you drive through Google AdWords marketing.

A relevant landing page will increase the conversions while also increasing the Quality Score of your campaigns.

To know how Google and other search engines see your landing pages, and to identify the more relevant keywords, use the Google Adwords Keyword Tool.

You can use this approach to find what keywords Google recommends you focus on for each landing page, so you can reverse engineer the entire keyword research phase by looking at unique landing pages!

4. Decrease The Landing Page Load Time

Branching from the need for high-quality landing pages is the need for your landing pages to load quickly. While you need to optimize your Google AdWords campaigns for Google's algorithms, you also need to maximize your marketing efforts for human readers.

You need to reach your target audience and direct them to your site. Once they are on your website, you need them to buy from you, and your audience will leave your site without buying from you if your landing pages load slowly.

The loading time of a landing page is another essential factor that affects the Google Quality Score of ads campaigns, and Google will penalize your Quality Score if your landing pages do not load quickly.

This is because Google's primary goal is to provide the highest quality and most relevant information for searchers, and a slow-loading landing page hurts the customer experience.

While this factor is not directly attached to your Google AdWords account, you should check the loading time of each landing page that you are directing ads to. Here are some items to check when reviewing the load speed time of your landing pages:

• Meta refreshes
• Slow redirect chains
• Large page sizes
• Slow loading images
• Unoptimized on-page coding and JavaScript snippets
• Slow server responses

Optimizing your landing page load time can have a significant impact on user experience. Improving the landing page experience for your customers will make your ads relevant and influence a higher quality score across your entire PPC campaign. 

5. Adjust Geographic Targeting

Setting tight geographic settings in your campaigns can help you show relevant text ads to people based on their geographic location. You can use this aspect of Google AdWords optimization to minimize wasted ad spend while also boosting your campaign's Quality Score through controlled keyword organization.

In addition to reducing ad spend, you can also use geographic targeting only to have your ads trigger in specific geographic areas. This means that you can use very specific geo-modifiers with your keywords and ads to boost the Quality Score of your campaigns. 

Your business may depend on customers in a specific area, or you may want to focus on regions based on seasonality.

If you are struggling to improve your Google AdWords Quality Score, then you should look at the geographic targeting options to sidestep your competitors and target qualified customers based on their physical location for improved CTR, Quality Score, and more conversions!

6. Focus On Long-Tail Keywords

Keywords are what drive your Google AdWords campaign, and your business should focus on long-tail keywords to engage qualified customers and drive more leads to your site.

Long-tail keywords are also your best friend because they will help improve Google AdWords Quality Score since your ads will only appear to a tight focus of customers. 

Image Source: https://www.semrush.com/kb/685-what-are-long-tailed-keywords

Since your ads will only appear to qualified customers, you will see a significant boost in Quality Score and CTR. Plus, you can add the long-tail keywords to your text ads (as we discussed above), so you will engage customers who are in the market for your products and services. 

Integrate long-tail keywords into your campaign and ad group structure to ensure your ads appear to qualified leads. As your campaign grows, you will be able to expand your reach with geographic targeting and other settings to boost your Quality Score and drive more conversions!

7. Review Your Keyword History

Google uses historical keyword data to construct your Google AdWords Quality Score. Advanced algorithms look at all aspects of your account, so you should check your keyword history and performance frequently. 

Looking at historical data will help you understand how Google ranks your keywords and ad copy. You should pause keywords that have a Quality Score below 6, and break any low-Quality Score keywords that are not driving Impressions and Clicks.

While keywords that don't generate Impressions may not seem damaging, Google will take engagement into consideration when grading your ad groups and ad performance. 

Be sure to check your Auction Insight tab to find opportunities for new keywords and use long-tail keywords to improve your keywords and ads moving forward so you can boost your campaign Quality Score.

8. Split Up The Campaigns With Various Time Ranges

Your customers are looking for your products and services based on specific criteria like:

• Geographic Location
• Seasonality (month, season, holidays, etc.)
• Time of Day

You should try to make your ads as relevant as possible, and part of this task is only to show your ads at times that your customers are looking for solutions to their needs.

You can adjust when your ads show throughout the day, and this can lead to improving ad spend since your ads will not appear during periods that your customers are not likely to buy from you. 

You can improve your Google AdWords Quality Score by engaging with your customers, and you can adjust the times that your ads show to boost engagement and CTR.

Think about when people will search for your products and services and only show your ads during that period instead of at all times throughout the day and week. 

You will streamline your Google ads campaigns with the above tips and see an immediate boost to your Google AdWords Quality Score.

As a result, the ad placement will be higher, and the click-through rate will be higher while the bids for keywords will be lower. In other words, your ad campaign costs will be lower.