How to improve keyword quality score in Google Ads?

Think of keywords in Google Ads as the keys on a piano.

Each key has the potential to produce a note when pressed. A skilled pianist knows how to combine keys to create a beautiful composition. Likewise, a well-structured ad campaign combines relevant keywords to create a compelling campaign.

Improving your keyword quality score in Google Ads can significantly enhance your ad performance and reduce costs.

Let’s learn how to improve Google Ads quality score and its impact.

Table of contents:

1. Why does Quality Score matter in Google Ads?
2. How is the quality score calculated?
3. Select the right keywords in Google
4. Boost CTR to improve quality score
5. Seamless landing page experience
6. Boost ad relevance
7. Use negative keywords
8. Aim for a higher ad position
9. Ad extensions inclusions
10. Improve website speed
11. Good campaign structure
12. Review campaign regularly
13. FAQs
    1. Why is my keyword quality score low?
    2. How to check your quality score?
    3. How do I get a 10/10 Quality Score on Google Ads?
    4. What are the main components of the quality score?
    5. How does the quality score affect my ad rank and cost?

How is the quality score calculated?

Google Ads assigns a ‘Quality Score’ for each keyword, ranked from 1 to 10. The higher your quality score, the lower you pay for clicks. Also, it boosts your overall ad ranking in the search results. Learn more about ways to rank higher in Google Ads and pay less.

The three key factors determine the quality score of your campaign:

1. Expected Click-Through Rate
2. Ad-Relevance
3. Landing page experience

This means that all these factors should contribute to a high-quality score.

Why does Quality Score matter in Google Ads?

Maximising return on investment (ROI) is important for any successful business. While Google Ads is a powerful platform, achieving success goes beyond simply bidding for top ad positions – it’s about running efficient campaigns.

The Quality Score is a key metric that gauges the effectiveness of your ads. A high-quality Score reflects that your ads are relevant, well-structured, and optimised. This results in better placements, reduced costs, and improved performance.

Here’s why Quality Score matters and how it impacts your Google Ads strategy:

• Reduced Cost per Click (CPC): High-Quality Score lowers your cost per click, meaning you can spend less for each click while maintaining competitive ad positions. This improves your ROI.
• Better Ad Rank: A strong Quality Score improves your Ad Rank, helping your ads appear higher in search results leading to more visibility and opportunities to convert.
• Enhanced conversion rates: By improving your quality score, you drive more relevant traffic to your website that aligns with the search intent. This can enhance user engagement and overall conversion rates.

Prioritising the improvement of your Quality Score not only reduces costs but also sets your ad campaign up for sustained success. This is a fundamental aspect of any effective Google Ads strategy.

Select the right keywords in Google

Before you think of improving the quality socre of your keywords, it is important to choose relevant keywords that closely align with your core business offerings.

Inappropriate keyword selection can lead to poor outcomes from a conversion point of view and you will also struggle to optimise the quality score.

Key points to consider while selecting the right keywords are:

• Think like a user
• Avoid generic keywords if you are limited by budget
• Select keywords based on your primary and secondary offerings

Make sure your keywords are closely matched with your product and service and you will have the same in ads headlines and landing pages to boost your quality score.

Visit our detailed guide on how to choose the best keywords for Google Ads.

Boost CTR to improve quality score

Click-through rate (CTR) is one of the main factors to boost the quality score of your keywords.

It calculates the ratio of users who clicked on the advertisement to users who viewed the ad. A high CTR indicates that a large percentage of people who view your ad choose to click on it.

A few ways to boost your CTR is by

1. Keeping healthy bid and budget
2. Writing compelling headlines
3. Strong keywords and ad copy relevance

CTR plays an important role in shaping your Google Ad’s quality score. When the CTR for a specific keyword rises, the quality score will also increase. Additionally, Google rewards ads with better quality scores by lowering their cost per click (CPC), giving you more value for your investment.

A strong CTR signals that your ad resonates with the target audience. As a result, it boosts your ad’s ranking, increases its visibility, and drives better campaign results.

Tip: If you’re not the top player in the market, focusing on low-competition, niche keywords tailored to your ad can be a smart strategy to boost your CTR. This approach helps you reduce unnecessary spending while attracting relevant traffic to your site, improving your CTR and quality score in the process.

Look at industry benchmarks to determine what is a good click-through rate.

Seamless landing page experience

Your landing page is often the first touchpoint for potential customers. A seamless experience can make all the difference.

Landing page is very important in Google Ads, it captures attention, builds trust, and encourages engagement, and it’s an important factor in boosting keywords’ quality score.

A seamless landing page experience reduces bounce rates and increases conversions.

This positive experience only enhances user satisfaction and boosts your quality score. A higher quality score can lower your cost-per-click and improve ad placements, giving your ads better visibility and frequency.

To achieve this, your landing page must be personalised and optimised for different devices. It should be intuitive, easy to navigate, and aligned with the user’s search intent to provide crisp and relevant information.

Boost ad relevance

Ad relevance is one of the most crucial factors that can make or break your campaign. It’s more than just matching keywords – it’s about delivering the right message to the right audience.

Often people do an organic search with the relevant keyword to browse for their desired product. Your ad must match the intent behind a user’s search.

It is important to incorporate your target keywords directly into your ad headlines. Businesses that understand how to write the best ad-headlines thrive in the competitive digital market.

Here’s an example of using keywords to increase ad relevance for a business selling eco-friendly trash bags:

Ad Headline: 
Eco-Friendly Trash Bags 
100% Biodegradable

Targeted Keywords: “eco-friendly trash bags,” “biodegradable trash bags,” “environment-friendly garbage bags”

In the above example, by incorporating keywords like “eco-friendly” and “biodegradable” in the headline,  the ad becomes highly relevant to users searching for environment-friendly products. This alignment can lead to better targeting and increased ad performance leading to a higher quality score.

Use negative keywords

Imagine if your email’s spam filter stopped working. Your inbox would quickly overflow with unwanted messages, forcing you to spend time sorting through the clutter to find important emails.

Negative keywords act like spam filters, blocking irrelevant traffic and ensuring only the right audience sees your ad. This helps reduce wasted spending and can potentially be used towards other campaigns.

By strategically implementing negative keywords, you can refine your targeting and enhance the overall effectiveness of your campaign. This tells Google that your ad aligns well with the user’s intent, helping improve your quality score.

How negative keywords can help boost quality scores?

Consider the following example: Let’s say you sell luxury watches

Table 1: 

Table 2:

Now if you see both tables, in the Table 1 case, it will fetch ads for “cheap mens watches” even though the business is not offering them. Users may see the ad but may not click on it as ti will read Luxury. It will create unnecessary impressions.

In Table 2, ads will not shop up for cheap related search phrases as it is in the negative keywords list.

When the relevance increases along with the CTR then you can expect the quality score to increase naturally.

Visit our detailed guide on how negative keywords work and their benefits.

Aim for a higher ad position

Imagine you’re searching for a cozy cafe in your neighbourhood to enjoy a warm cup of coffee. As you type “best local coffee shops” into your search engine and hit enter, you instantly see a few ads at the top of the page.

Which one do you click? You’re likely to select one of the top results that feature positive reviews or attractive deals.

When your ad ranks higher, it increases the likelihood of being seen by potential customers precisely when they are looking for services like yours.

A higher ad position increases the chances of receiving more clicks, which boosts your click-through rate (CTR) and improves your quality score. A higher rank also means that you are paying less.

Ad rank determines which ads appear at the top of search results and in what order. It accounts for factors like bid amount, ad quality, and the relevance of your keywords to the user’s search intent.

By leveraging personalised search strategies, businesses can enhance their ad rank and ensure they connect with the right audience, leading to higher engagement and increased conversions.

Ad extensions inclusions

Ad Extensions allow you to showcase different aspects of your business that are relevant to specific searches. They provide the advantage of displaying additional, valuable information not included in the main ad copy.

Extensions often boost the click-through rate (CTR), a key factor in determining the quality score.

Some of the key ad extensions are:

1. Sitelink Extensions: It allows you to add additional links to your ad, directing users to specific pages on your website.
2. Callout Extensions: It provides additional text to highlight specific offers or features of your business.
3. Structured Snippet Extensions: It highlights specific aspects of your products or services, such as types, brands, or styles.
4. Call Extensions: It adds a phone number to your ad, making it easy for users to call your business directly.
5. Location Extensions: It shows your business address, phone number, and a map marker, helping users find your physical location.
6. Price Extensions: It displays the different prices for your products or services, making it easier for users to see what you offer.
7. App Extensions: It provides a link to download your mobile app directly from your ad.
8. Image Extensions: It add images to your ads, making them more visually appealing.

Improve website speed

Most users today are scrollers and scanners, not willing to spend much time on a website to decide. You may have experienced the feeling when a website page you want to access takes ages to load.

Technological advancements have made us value speed more than ever!

A fast-loading website allows users to quickly find what they’re looking for, leading to possible increased relevance and engagement. This, in turn, can indirectly boost the Google Ads quality score.

According to Portant’s findings on conversion rates and loading times, a site that loads in 1 second has a conversion rate 3x higher than a site that loads in 5 seconds.

Improving your website speed can enhance user satisfaction, improve your search engine visibility, and boost your ad performance.

Good campaign structure

A good campaign structure can help you organise your offerings effectively with the proper usage of keywords. It will avoid keyword duplication helping with better search intent outcomes which can indirectly help to improve keyword quality scores in Google Ads.

It is an art to structure your Google Ads campaigns to align with your website’s layout with a clear focus on primary and secondary keywords to meet your business objectives.

For example, if your site has sections for “Men’s Clothing,” “Women’s Clothing,” and “Accessories,” your Google Ads campaigns should mirror this breakdown for optimal targeting and management.

Review campaign regularly

Google Ads doesn’t operate in a ‘set and forget’ mode, so monitoring your campaign’s performance is important. You cannot just sit and relax while your competition is ever-increasing. Tracking the performance of your ad campaign is vital for better campaign management, helping you build strategies to optimise Google ads, and boosting ROI.

Part of the regular review is to analyse keyword performance and apply necessary changes to boost relevance and performance.

Things to consider while analysing keywords’ performance and quality score:

1. Impressions: Pay attention to keywords with high impressions with low clicks or very few impressions.
2. Clicks: Check if the overall click pattern is healthy.
3. CTR: Look for keywords with very low CTR.
4. Quality Score: You must check this as this is what you are learning here.
5. Search Terms: It can give you a real picture of what users are searching.

Possible actions to be taken:

1. Delete redundant keywords.
2. Add negative keywords if any irrelevant search term is noticed.
3. Keywords with very low CTR or impressions need to be analysed closely. In some cases, they can be paused or deleted.

Work with a Google Ads expert to achieve the optimum outcome.

FAQs

Why is my keyword quality score low?

Performance history can affect your Quality Score. If keywords don’t have a large number of clicks or impressions, Google Ads will use other factors to generate a Quality Score.

How to check your quality score?

Head to Campaign >> Ad Group >> Keywords and look into the quality score column.

How do I get a 10/10 Quality Score on Google Ads?

It is not that difficult to achieve a 10/10 quality score in Google Ads. Having the right keywords, good ad relevance, a healthy budget and maintaining a high CTR, should get you the desired quality score.

What are the main components of the quality score?

Quality score is determined by three main components: expected clickthrough rate, ad relevance, and landing page experience. These three components receive a status of above average, average, or below average to determine the ad’s overall quality score.

How does the quality score affect my ad rank and cost?

Ad rank is influenced by both bid amount and quality score. Higher quality scores allow you to achieve a higher ad rank with a lower bid, potentially reducing your cost-per-click and maximising ad performance.