Running ads on Google is a great way to get your business noticed by your target audience.Google doesn’t treat all ads, keywords, and landing pages equally, however. The "Big G" prioritizes ads that provide a relevant experience for their users. To facilitate that relevance, the ads your business runs need to meet a few requirements. While "quality" may sound like a subjective term, the Google Quality Score is how your message is graded by Google's system Put simply, the Quality Score is Google’s overall rating of the user experience your ads and landing pages offer when reached by people searching your keywords. It’s less of a strict formula to follow than a measurement of how useful your ad is to a given user.If you want to rank higher, pay less for each individual click and see more conversions, you’ll have to push that score as high as possible. In this article we'll discuss how to improve the Google Quality Score of your ads.
Components of the Google Quality Score
Before you can learn how to kill it with your Google ads, you need to understand what factors are measured. The most important factor is the click-through rate (CTR), or how many times someone actually clicks on your ad when it shows up on the results page for certain keywords. If this rating is low, not much else matters.When people do start clicking on your ad, however, there are other factors to consider. First, it has to be relevant. The user searched a specific keyword to find information directly related to that keyword. If you’re marketing for a keyword that’s not all that relevant to your product or service, you’re not going to get good results.What about your offer page? Similar to how your ad needs to match the targeted keyword, your landing page needs to match the ad itself and deliver on everything the ad promises. Everything from the graphics to the color scheme to the language needs to be consistent.
Optimizing Your CTR
When using Google Ads, there are a few things you can do when the CTR of your ad is below average.Below-average ads are often caused by using keywords that are too vague. Let's say your businesses has an online e-commerce portal that sells pet toys. Now say you’re optimizing for the keyword “soft dog toys.”If your ad says something like, “Browse Our Inventory Today for Dog Toys 50% Off!” that ad isn’t going to do very well because it doesn’t include the long-tail keyword phrase “soft dog toys.” Try making it something like, “Soft Dog Toys 50% Off at Penelope’s Pet Toy Emporium. Learn more!” and you might see a higher CTR since the keyword was specifically included.
Keeping Your Ad Relevant
It can be tempting to make your ad reach as many people as possible, but it’s always more effective to have a specific target in mind with every ad. Google agrees, considering how impactful relevance (targeting) is to your quality score. Your ad needs to hone in on a specific keyword and intent so that it’s bound to draw people in simply for being exactly what they’re looking for.Take the pet toy store example again. If you ran an ad that said something along the lines of, “Shop Our Store to Find a Special Gift for Your Pet This Holiday,” you’re likely to get a below-average rating on relevance. It makes no mention that your store specifically sells pet toys, and most relevant keywords are going to be for specific kinds of toys for specific animals, like dog toys or cat toys.
Improving Your Landing Page
Imagine someone online saw how relevant and specific your ad was to their search and therefore clicked on it. Congratulations!But, alas ... the battle isn't over. You now have them on your site, placing them in a better position to actually make a purchase on your website and make their dog or cat happy. But what happens if they arrive on a landing page that has little to nothing to do with what they were searching for or what the wording of the ad suggested they would be finding.Due to that lack of immediate utility, they’re probably going to hit the "back" button and try the next search result.To keep the site visitor engaged through the buyer's journey, you need to make sure your landing page directly supports everything your ad promised. If your ad mentions soft dog toys, the landing page needs to have a list of soft dog toys you have for sale. While your site can also offer hard rubber dog toys or cat toys, the landing page from your ad must showcase the soft dog toys the user was looking for. Additionally, you need to make sure your landing page loads quickly and doesn’t have pop-ups or any other annoyances. Those hindrances can drive people away, regardless of how good your content is.
Get A Better Google Ads Quality Score With Symphonic Digital
You know how to improve the Google Quality Score by addressing the three factors that influence it, but it’s a lot to tackle on your own. For expert, data-driven assistance, Symphonic Digital is happy to lend a hand. We offer as much or as little agency as you need, allowing you to achieve the search engine marketing goals you want. Contact us today to take your Google Quality Score to the next level.
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