Optimising PPC Campaigns by Improving your Quality Score
A high click through rate (CTR) has always been relevant to appearing high in Google and an advert’s Quality Score is a key factor in deciding the minimum bid.
Google is always looking for ways of ensuring adverts are highly relevant and now looks closely at the website being advertised, particularly landing pages.
Google defines Quality Score as CTR + Ad text relevance + keyword relevance and landing page relevance. This has caused steep increases in minimum bids for some advertisers because of a poor quality score. These increases seem to be related more to the website and landing pages.
The positive way to view this is to remember that the overall aim is to make user experience better, so Google rewards more relevance.
To achieve a good quality score you need to consider the following:
- Relevance between keywords, ad wording and landing page – the keyword needs to be in the heading and two or three times in the copy. Visitors are more likely to convert;
- Send people to separate landing pages;
- The landing page needs to have useful material that will get people to take action; Information needs to keep them there to avoid bounces. Otherwise Google thinks your landing page is irrelevant. So you need a compelling message to keep them there and to sign up and register to capture contact details;
- A standalone name squeeze page – this gives two options – to sign up for a freebie and register or quit. Limiting choices tends to increase conversions. There have been discussions whether Google likes this approach, but they don’t have anything specific against it. Some advertisers have suffered for name squeeze pages, but there are other factors such as poorly done pages that cause bounces. Sometimes having one or two links makes a difference. Test options and see what happens.
- Sometimes if a standalone page is an entire website, Google gets concerned. It likes larger, more established sites. It is wary of websites with just one or two pages that could border on scams. Google wants to see well established, reputable businesses. So add pages to your website.
Phil Yarrow Consulting can help you improve your Google Quality Score and get you the best results for your PPC campaign. Click here or give us a call NOW on 0800 082 7010.
Written by Martin Boulton
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