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Deconstructing PPC Quality Score

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Like everything else in life, we strive for quality. High quality cars, high quality food, high quality homes. We want things to live up to our standards and expectations. We want Cadillacs, filet mignons, mansions. As it turns out, Google isn’t much different. They want the creme de la creme just as much as we do, just in the form of advertising.

Although there are many factors that go into Google’s assessment of a “good” or “not so good” PPC account, there’s one component that can give you a pretty decent idea of where you stand with the big G. It’s called Quality Score, and it’s both a mystery and a compass for your Adwords account. Sound complicated? Keep reading, it’ll get less fuzzy.

It’s a mystery because we don’t exactly know the overarching Quality Score for an account. We only know the Quality Score of keywords within the account. However, Quality Score can act as a compass, pointing you in the right direction of what may be going right or wrong within your account. Let’s take a look at the attributes that make up the ever so important (and elusive) Quality Score:

  • Click-through rate
  • Relevancy (keywords to ad group, ad text to ad group)
  • Landing page quality
  • Historical performance

Sticking with the mysterious theme, Google never really reveals how much each of these components weigh in the Quality Score equation. All we know is that relevancy is a major player in the Google game. So, let’s say you want to advertise dog collars on Adwords (I’ve been looking at way too many puppies online lately). If it were me building the account, keeping Quality Score in mind, I’d separate “puppy collars” and “dog collars” into two separate ad groups, and only include keywords that pertain to these themes. In the puppy ad group, I’d create ads appealing to people who have just adopted a puppy. Same goes for the dog ad group – ad text would be targeting people who have owned their dogs for over 2 years. The goal is to make the Adwords process seamless, tying in the ad groups to the keywords to the ad copies. In turn, Google will reward you with higher ad rankings and lower costs. It’s a win-win.

So, it’s no real secret how you can increase your Quality Score. If you have an account with underperforming keywords, try to research new, highly relevant keywords. Take out the trash by eliminating keywords with low CTR. Take ads to appropriate landing pages with relevant content. Add negative keywords that are sucking up your budget and giving you nothing in return. Giving your account a makeover is as simple as taking the time to weed through the components and trimming the fat, if you will.

So go ahead, give your Adwords account the creme de la creme – then treat yourself to a nice meal of filet mignon afterwards.

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