Google Ads Quality Score: What It Is and How To Improve It

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If you’ve run ad campaigns on Google for your business, whether across search, video, or Google’s Display Network, you’ve most likely come across the term “Quality Score.” 

If this is the case and you’re not sure what Quality Score means and how it affects your business, let Galactic Fed enlighten you!

We’ll help you grasp what Quality Score is, what the formula is for calculating Quality Score, and how to locate your business’s Quality Score. Want to improve your business’s Quality Score? We also offer up five tips for doing just that: 

What is Quality Score?

Google rates the user experience (UX) of your ads and landing pages provided to users when they use your keywords to search for something. This rating is between 1 and 10, with 1 being the lowest and 10 being the highest. In other words, your Quality Score indicates how useful your landing pages and ads are to people. Your Quality Score tells you how well Google thinks your content is doing to solve people’s problems or give them the information they need with ease.

What is the Quality Score formula? 

Google uses three factors when calculating your Quality Score:

• Expected Click-Through Rate (CTR): What is the likelihood of someone clicking on your ad when Google shows it to people using your keyword to perform a search?
• Ad Relevance: Does your ad match your keywords? Does it make sense for your ad to appear when someone searches using a particular keyword?
• Landing Page Experience: Do the details on your landing page correspond to what your ad offers to people? 

What’s a good Quality Score for Google Ads?

It depends.

A “good” Quality Score depends on what keywords you are using. 

Wordstream explains that generally speaking:

• a good Quality Score for branded keywords is between 8 and 10,
• a good Quality Score for high-intent keywords is 7 to 9, and
• 7 is a good Quality Score for low-intent keywords.

High-intent keywords display clear intent to do X, where X is your conversion goal. These keywords are the bread and butter of your Google Ads account. Low-intent keywords are typically navigational or informational and tend to cost you less money when it comes to your bidding strategy. 

So if you have an e-commerce business selling rocket ships, a high-intent keyword may be “buy a rocket ship online,” whereas a low-intent keyword may be “how to build a rocket ship.” 

How do you find your Quality Score?

There are three ways to check up on your Google Ads Quality Score:

• Use the customize columns function in your Google Ads account.
• Click “status” next to your keywords in your account.
• Create a keyword performance report in your Google Ads account

Using “customize columns” will tell you if each of your keyword’s Quality Score is “Poor,” “OK,” or “Great.” Here’s how you do it:

• Log into your Google Ads account.
• Select the target campaign and ad group.
• Choose the “keywords” tab.
• Select “customize columns” at the top of the ad group table
• Click on “show Quality Score” using the drop-down menu.
• Select “done.” 

Using status will tell you the actual numerical value of each Quality Score. To view your Quality Scores this way, follow these instructions: 

• Log into your Google Ads account.
• Select the target campaign and ad group.
• Select the “keywords” tab.
• Choose the icon in the “status” column next to each keyword. You’ll see the Keyword Analysis field. The second part of this field indicates each keyword’s Quality Score.

Finally, you can view your Quality Scores by running a keyword performance report. Here’s how you do it: 

• Log into your Google Ads account.
• Choose the “reporting” tab at the top of the page.
• Select “reports.”
• Click on “create a new report.”
• In the “report type” section, select “placement/keyword performance.”
• In the “Advanced Settings” section, click Add or Remove Columns.
• Click the “keyword Quality Score detail” checkbox.
• In the “templates, scheduling and email” section, choose “create report.”

How does your Quality Score affect your Google Ads?

Strong Quality Scores save you money by lowering both your cost per click and your cost per conversion.

So if you fancy a higher return on investment, improving your Quality Score is the way to go. 

Five tips for improving your Quality Score

Here are Galactic Fed’s top five tips for improving your Quality Scores:

Increase your ad relevance 

Is your ad as relevant as it could be for the keywords you are targeting?

An excellent paid ad tells your customers what value your product or service brings to them. Always include a compelling call to action (CTA) that appeals to people across all devices. Take a look at our guide on how to write Google Ad copy that converts, to learn more. 

Boost your expected click-through rate (CTR)

You can boost your expected CTR by ensuring the search term someone uses will exactly match your chosen keyword.

Take a laser-focused eye to the ad copy linked to each of your keywords and include more mentions of the keyword within your ad, if possible. Don’t overdo it, though. Google doesn’t like keyword stuffing.

Focus on the landing page experience 

How can you improve your landing page experience? Try answering these questions first:

• Does your landing page solve a problem for your customers?
• Is it useful to your customers?
• Is it accessible to everyone? Are there headings, bold text, high-contrast colors, and bullet points that are easy to follow?
• Do you use inclusive language, and is your tone of voice on brand? 
• Does your landing page have a clear CTA? 

See our tips on creating a high-converting landing page to help get you started.

A/B test your ads 

Here at Galactic Fed, we are pretty big advocates of data-driven digital marketing, and we believe nothing is more powerful than an ad that’s been user-tested. 

Subtle changes to language and tone and even the placement of a button on a landing page can dramatically affect your CTR and, in turn, your Google Ads Quality Score. Learn more about A/B testing, why it matters, and what you can test. 

Enhance the user experience 

Google promises more emphasis on user experience with the expected launch of their Page Experience signal in May 2021. It’s not a ranking factor currently, and in no way will it be a primary factor, but it will form some part of the formula Google uses to rank your landing pages soon, which will, in turn, impact your Google Ads Quality Score.

Follow the well-known Scout’s motto: Be prepared!

Gain a higher ROI with an improved Google Ads Quality Score

The bottom line? Your Google Ads Quality Score matters. 

Lower both the cost per click and cost per conversion of your Google Ads by building stronger Quality Scores for your business. 

You can achieve this by increasing your ad relevance, boosting your expected CTR, and focusing on your landing page experience. 

The best ad campaigns are backed up by and continuously use research and insight. A/B testing your ads is a great starting point and can help improve your Quality Scores. 

Our final suggestion for improving your Quality Score is to enhance the user experience of your website. Google will use this to rank you in the near future, so ensure all of your landing pages are a pleasure to use and meet people’s needs. 

Have we won you over to the power of an excellent Quality Score? Keen to improve your own and want some help in doing so? We helped Repurpose.Jobs drive up their Quality Score recently, and we’d love to help you do the same. Let’s talk!