What Is Quality Score? [+4 Tips for Improving Quality Score]
How can you decrease your Google Ads costs and increase your ad rankings? Improve your Google Quality Score. Google’s Quality Score measures the quality of your ads, keywords, and landing pages on a 1-10 scale.
Three components influence your Quality Score: Click-through rate (CTR), ad relevance, and landing page experience. Earn a higher Quality Score, and your ads can earn better placements at a lower cost. Keep reading to learn more about Quality Score, including:
For even more tips on how to increase your Quality Score on Google Ads — while staying on top of the latest digital marketing trends and tactics — subscribe to Revenue Weekly and join more than 150,000 other clever marketers!
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What is Quality Score in Google Ads?
Quality Score from Google Ads is a measurement of your pay-per-click (PPC) ads’ quality and relevancy. Google generates your Quality Score, which ranges from 1-10, by evaluating your ads’ landing page experience, keywords, and CTR.
What are the components of Quality Score?
The official components of Quality Score are:
Expected click-through rate
Your CTR is the percentage of people who click on your ad compared to people who view your ad. When your ad is more relevant to your audience, they’re more likely to click.
Google wants to promote ads with a higher CTR because they’re more valuable to users, which is why CTR is one of its Quality Score components.
Keyword relevance
Your keyword must match your advertisement. If you’re a veterinarian targeting “best burger places” in your ads, that keyword isn’t relevant. Google’s Quality Score ensures that your keyword selection matches your ad copy and landing page.
Landing page relevance and quality
Google analyzes your landing page to ensure that it’s relevant to your targeted keywords.
It also examines the quality of your landing page and uses that to determine if your landing page matches your keyword targeting. Besides the above Quality Score components, Google also analyzes your ad text to determine if it relates to your keyword. It wants to ensure you’re delivering relevant information to users that search using your targeted keywords.
These are the components of Quality Score that help determine your rating. While marketers don’t know how much each factor influences Quality Score, many believe that CTR is the most important metric.
How does the Google Ads Quality Score work?
Google’s Quality Score uses “wisdom of the crowds.” When Google shows ads to users, it wants to provide an advertising experience that’s relevant to a person’s search query. To help Google determine if your ad is related to the search and user, it uses Quality Score.
Quality Score for Google AdWords operates on a scale of 1 to 10, with 10 being the best score. You want to have a Quality Score as close to 10 as possible, so you get a higher placement in paid search results. Google will base your score on how users interact with the search engine results pages (SERPs). These interactions help Google predict future actions, as well as your ads’ relevancy.
It’s better to have a high Quality Score and low bid than a low Quality Score and high bid. That’s because your ad is more relevant, so Google gives it a better position in search results.
What is a good Quality Score?
A good Quality Score depends on the keyword: Branded, competitor, high-intent, or low-intent. For branded keywords, a good Quality score is 8-10, while a good Quality Score for competitor keywords is 3 or above.
A good Quality Score for high-intent keywords is 7-9, while a good Quality Score for low-intent keywords is around 7.
Why does Quality Score on Google Ads important?
Quality Score is essential to your business for three reasons:
1. Quality Score determines whether you can enter an ad auction
Your Quality Score on Google Ads determines if you can enter an ad auction. Since Google only wants to show the most relevant ads, it uses Quality Score to determine if your ad makes sense for the keyword and search intent. Remember, Google makes money when people click on your ads.
If your ad isn’t relevant, people won’t click on it. It’s a lose-lose situation because you won’t get leads, and Google won’t get revenue. That’s why Google uses your website’s Quality Score to help determine if your ad will perform well and get clicks for its targeted keyword.
If you want to get in relevant ad auctions, you must focus on improving your Google Ads Quality Score.
2. Quality Score determines how your ad is ranked
Your Quality Score determines your ad’s ranking too. More than 45% of page clicks go to the top three PPC ad positions. If you want your ad to rank in these highly clickable positions, you need a high Quality Score.
Quality Score influences where your ad appears. When you have a better Google Quality Score, you can earn a better position in paid search results.
3. Quality Score determines your CPC
Your Google Ads Quality Score also matters because it determines your cost per click (CPC). With CPC, you set a maximum bid, which is the amount you’re willing to spend when someone clicks on your ad. When you improve your Quality Score, you can lower your CPC, which means you’ll pay less for attracting high-quality leads.
When you have a higher Quality Score, you pay less for clicks on your ad. You’ll spend less than your maximum bid, which can help you optimize your monthly ad spend by earning more clicks, leads, and sales. Improve your Quality Score, and you’ll help your business save money without sacrificing lead quality.
How do I improve my Quality Score?
If you aren’t happy with your Quality Score on Google, check out these four tips for improving your Quality Score:
1. Conduct keyword research to find relevant keywords
If you aren’t happy with your ad’s Quality Score, you may need to change your keywords. Your ad copy may be strong but not relevant to your keyword selection. By conducting keyword research, you’ll help your business find the right keywords for your ads and audience.
Keyword research helps you identify relevant terms for your PPC ad. If you want to reach the best leads for your business, focus on keywords most likely to drive qualified traffic for your website and sales team. When you research keywords, you’ll see an abundance of options.
Focus on long-tail keywords to drive the best results for your business. Long-tail keywords contain three or more words. A long-tail keyword example is “flooring businesses in Harrisburg, PA.” It’s a specific keyword that people would use to find a flooring company in the Harrisburg area.
You’ll want to focus on long-tail keywords because they drive more interested and qualified leads. Long-tail keywords also keep your CPC low because fewer companies try to target these phrases because they’re so specific.
2. Refine your ad text
If you like your keyword selection and want to improve your Quality Score for Google Ads, analyze your ad text. You may need to change your ad copy to make it more relevant to your keyword selection. Google analyzes your ad text to ensure you’re providing people with helpful information.
If yours doesn’t use your targeted keywords (without stuffing them) and match the user search intent, you’ll want to update your ad copy. Let’s say you’re a flooring company, and you create a PPC ad about your carpeting services. Looking at your ad, you see that the ad text mentions other types of flooring besides carpeting.
In this case, to make your advertisement more relevant, you’d want to update your copy to focus solely on your carpeting services. By optimizing your ad text, you can improve your website’s Quality Score and drive more credible leads.
3. Add negative keywords to your ad
If you aren’t using negative keywords, you’re missing a prime opportunity to lower ad costs. This is also a way how to increase your quality score. Negative keywords prevent your business from appearing in search results that aren’t relevant.
Using these keywords helps you appear in more relevant search results and saves you from wasting money on leads that aren’t interested in your company. Let’s say you own a flooring business and decide to target the keyword “flooring companies with carpet.” Someone comes along and searches, “flooring companies with carpet squares,” and Google delivers your ad. 
The person clicks on your ad but learns that you don’t sell individual carpet squares.
Your company ends up spending money on a click that doesn’t convert. In this scenario, you can use negative keywords to ensure you don’t appear in these search results. In this case, “squares” would be your negative keyword.
Setting this negative keyword ensures that you won’t appear in the wrong search results.
4. Test your landing pages
If you want to increase your Quality Score, test your landing pages to ensure you’re putting out the best version. Your first landing page may not be your best. It’s essential to test different elements of your landing page to ensure you’re creating an effective advertisement.
When you test your landing pages, test elements individually. If you check too many details at one time, you won’t get precise results and know which change improved or hurt your user experience. You can test different types of elements on your landing page, such as:
- Heading
- Call to action (CTA) button text and color
- Multimedia, like images and video
- Layout
These are just a few elements you can test on your landing pages. With routine testing, you’ll help your business create the best user experience for your audience, which can make them more likely to convert, like by calling you or buying your product. If you need help with your landing pages, try professional landing page design services.
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Improve your Google Ads Quality Score today
Your Quality Score affects how your ad performs in search results.
If you want to help your ad rank higher in search results, you must improve your Quality Score. Increasing your Google Ads Quality Score enables you to drive more leads and sales for your business. If you aren’t sure how to get started with improving your Quality Score, our team at WebFX can help.
We have a team of over 500 PPC experts that will help you grow your business. We’ll help you improve your ad and keyword selection to drive more relevant results for your business. To learn more about how you can improve your ad’s Quality Score, contact us online or call us today at 888-601-5359 to speak with a strategist about our PPC plans.
