How to Improve Your Quality Score and Why It Matters

Some ads just stand out more than others. They're inviting, enticing, and utterly irresistible, which is why people click on them. Google notices those visits and then rates how those ads perform on a scale of 1-10, with 5 being the benchmark and 10 being perfect.

If you've never paid any mind to this quality score, you'll want to start. Your quality score directly impacts your cost-per-click and cost-per-conversation rates, and a high quality score can help your campaigns see a much stronger return on investment.

Of course, the best way to earn a high quality score is to learn what it is, why it matters, and how to help it rise to a perfect 10.

What Is a Google Quality Score — and What Determines a Quality Score?

Although Google is always coy about what goes into its algorithms, it is transparent about what factors into a quality score. So how does Google determine a quality score?

First, the company assesses keywords. Essentially, your keywords need to resonate with users. The more relevant your keywords are to viewers, the more clicks your ads will collect. This illustrates to Google that you've (probably) done the necessary legwork to help your ad make more sense to visitors.

Over time, Google will predict how well future ads will do based on past user interactions. This forecast helps Google decide how to benchmark costs for ads and ad campaigns.

Another element that comes into play when determining a quality score is your landing page. Google's bots will explore the landing page for relevance based on keywords and related algorithms.

How Does a Quality Score Work in Practice?

It's simple, really. Let's say you earmark $10,000 each month for a Google Ads campaign. Ideally, you want to make that investment work hard, so you check Google's benchmark price for your keyword group. It's $10, which means that if your quality score is 5, you'll pay $10 per click and send 1,000 people to your site. Not bad.

But here's the exciting part: If your quality score jumps to 10, you can double your reach and send 2,000 to your landing page for the same price. On the flip side, if your quality score dropped to 1, you'd be hit with a whopping $40 per click rate and only get in front of 250 viewers.

It's easy to see how dramatically — and quickly — a quality score can impact your marketing and sales goals.

How to Improve Your Quality Score

At this point, you're probably eager to know how to improve your Google Ads quality score. Below are three ways to boost a quality score organically:

1. Improve your keywords.

A surefire way to boost your quality score is to pick and group keywords carefully. Spend time studying which keyword groupings belong together and why. You may even want to investigate your strongest competitors' keywords.

Speaking of keywords, be sure to include negative keywords in your research. Negative keywords allow you to avoid paying money for users who aren't likely to be interested in what you offer.

2. Consider your ad copy.

Simply having the right keywords doesn't mean your quality score will improve, especially if your ads on Google are weak. Carefully arrange the text in your ads. Are your messages compelling? Or are they falling flat?

A proven way to judge an ad's effectiveness is to post two ads that are just slightly different and see which one performs better. Keep iterating in this way with A/B split tests to boost those clicks — and your Google quality score.

3. Pay attention to your landing pages.

What experience do your users have when they click your ads and land on your site? Does the landing page correlate with what they expected based on your ad copy? You don't want visitors to be turned off by what feels like a bait-and-switch.

If your landing pages aren't connected with your ads via keywords, make changes. Ensure they're informative and contain an intuitive, sensible call to action. If your ad promised information and your landing page offers a free whitepaper on the advertised topic, for instance, users would feel satisfied. But if the same ad sent visitors to an irrelevant product page, visitors would likely bounce — and Google would notice.

What is a good quality point score? The answer is simple: As close to 10 as you can get. If you're not happy with your score now, contact our team of Google Ads pros. We'd be happy to help grow your quality score.