Google Search Ads can be an incredibly effective component of a digital marketing campaign, but ONLY if they are optimized and set up to succeed. 

 

With so many local businesses competing for the top spot, it can be challenging to stand out and achieve the results you want. This is why it is crucial that you take all the steps you can to improve your Google Ads Quality Score.

 

So in this blog post, we’ll dive into what your Google Ads Quality Score is and how you can maximize it, and how your Quality Score will impact the performance of your Google Search Ads.

 

 

What is Your Quality Score?

Your Quality Score is essentially a grade given to you by Google that will determine the performance of your Google Search Ads. This grade represents how relevant Google deems your advertisements in relation to the related keywords, how relevant your landing page is based on your advertisement, as well as the expected click-through-rate of your ads.

 

The first factor impacting your Quality Score is keyword relevance. Keyword relevance refers to how well your advertisement aligns with the keywords you are using to target your ideal audience. For example, if you had a business related to commercial construction projects and your targeting keywords included phrases related to residential construction projects, your Google Ads could get a low Quality Score as there is a mismatch between your ads and your keyword targeting.

 

Furthermore, the relevance of your website’s landing page in relation to your advertisement is another factor that impacts the Quality Score of your Google Ads. Similarly, there shouldn’t be a mismatch between your ads and their corresponding landing page. Continuing with the previous example, if you had ads for a commercial construction business, but your landing page was filled with keywords related to residential construction, your Google Ads could get a low Quality Score due to the mismatch between your ad and landing page. 

 

Lastly, your Quality Score can also be impacted by your expected click-through-rate, or your expected CTR. This metric is based on your ad’s relevance in combination with bonus points from utilizing all of the additional features available from Google. For example, after crafting relevant headlines and descriptions, you can also include additional assets (formerly known as extensions) that will allow you to include additional links, or even a direct link to call by phone, on your advertisements. By including these features you are making your ad more useful to your audience, and to reward you for making Google a useful advertising platform, Google will score you highly on your expected CTR and your Google Quality Score.

 

When it comes to the success of your Google Search Campaign, by optimizing your ads to maximize its relevance and expected CTR, you can ensure that Google compensates you for effectively using their platform by giving your ads a high Quality Score.

 

 

Illustration showing the factors that contribute to a high quality score.

 

 

How Does Your Quality Score Impact Your Ads?

So now that we know about the importance of your Google Quality Score, and what factors you can optimize to improve it, how will it make your Google Search Campaign more successful?

 

By improving your Quality Score, Google will reward you by increasing your ad’s visibility and lowering your costs. In other words, since you are optimizing your Google Ads and making them more effective, you are indirectly supporting the success of Google as an advertising platform, therefore Google will continue to support the performance of your ad and encourage you to continue using the platform by making it cheaper.

 

Unlike SEO, the primary benefit of Google Search Ads is that they can put your website at the top of Google Search results without the extensive work required for on and off-page SEO.

 

You can learn more about on and off-page SEO from our previous blog posts here:

 

Fundamentals of On-Page SEO 

Fundamentals of Off-Page SEO

 

However, while Google Search Ads don’t require the same amount of work as SEO, it’s still a competitive space to advertise in. Businesses who want to advertise in this space compete using two things, their budgets and their quality score.

 

To earn the top spot on a Google search page, your ad campaign has to either have the budget to pay for the sought-after and expensive keywords, or you need to have a high-quality score. Depending on how competitive your industry is, some keywords can cost significantly more. For example, if you had a yoga studio in a city like Vancouver, where there is a strong culture around health & fitness, your Google Search Ads would likely be competing with a significant amount of other advertising yoga studios. In this instance, clicks for yoga-related keywords could be very expensive!

 

Due to these higher benchmark costs, the average budget needed to successfully advertise in this niche is higher. So for this case, all of the yoga studios that don’t have a high enough budget will be weeded out, leaving the rest to compete based on their quality scores. Therefore, Google will reward those with the highest quality score by placing their ad in the top position of the Google search page, and those in 2nd or 3rd place will get position 2 or 3.

 

Finally, not only will Google reward your ad optimization efforts by ensuring more people see it, but Google will also lower your cost-per-click, or your CPC as well. In other words, if you’ve already maximized your Google search page position, a high-quality score will also earn you a corresponding discount making each click cost less!

 

 

Illustration showing how a high Google Ads quality score will increase your ad visibility and decrease your ad costs.

 

 

In summary, optimizing a Google search campaign can seem like a complex process, and while it isn’t the easiest thing in the world, with an understanding of your quality score and how Google rewards your advertisements for their relevance and expected CTR, you have a strong foundation to launch a Google search campaign that will earn you leads fast.

 

Want to learn more about Google search ads and how they can help you grow your business? Don’t hesitate to reach out and contact us!