There are two people that are keeping score on your Pay Per Click campaign and one of them is you! You are keeping tabs on the amount of money you are spending – so we can consider that you are keeping score. The other is Google as they are reviewing your campaigns, more importantly your keywords and giving them a Quality Score.
While there are many factors to watch in a paid campaign as I have mentioned in a few other blogs – Did You Pay for That Click, Part 1 and Part 2, I wanted to dive a little deeper into the Quality Scores. The Quality Scores are issued to your keywords by Google and range from 1 to 10. The higher your score is the better. (This is weird to be because I would thing you would strive to be #1, but whatever! Lol) It also has to do with the frequency of your ads showing up, the better ranking position and the lower your cost per click could be.
Why does the Quality Score dictate all that?
The Quality Score is Google’s way of determining how relevant your keywords are, to the ad that it brings up, to the landing page you direct the consumer to and more importantly – to the search query that the consumer typed in the search box. The action of the consumer helps to determine your relevance by whether they clicked on your ad, or not. Similarly, if they clicked on your ad, did they stay awhile or instantly leave (bounce)?
The effects of the ever dreaded – Bounce
A bounce can be two-fold in that you could have directed them to the correct landing page, they got the information they needed (ie- phone number, address, or answered the question) and bounced – which isn’t a bad thing. The other side of that is that they realized that this was not the page or the website they wanted with the information they were seeking, so they bounced. So, how would Google know which it was? There are some factors that would help determine this which could be whether the searcher typed in another query, whether they left that page after a few minutes or the like. A lot of this has to do with the other dreaded – algorithm and some ESP which I am sure Google cannot read my mind, trust me there! LOL
How to increase my Quality Score?
You always want to be watching the Quality Score, among other things. You will clearly see your Quality Score, usually to the far right of the keyword view. If you aren’t seeing it, check your column filters to be sure you show it. Similarly, Google will indicate under Status whether the ads are of poor quality – “Rarely shown due to low quality score”. This is telling you, hey, pay attention to your score.
So, there are a few reasons why this could be the case:
- The keywords aren’t relevant to the ads – meaning your ads may be pretty general with a large group of keywords just stuck in there. It would be a great idea to have more ad groups than one ad group with all the keywords within it.
- The keywords and ads aren’t as relevant to the landing page – meaning your landing page might need to be optimized to include the keywords so Google understands better that you are in fact taking the customers to the right page, about that topic.
Those are pretty much the main reasons to see a low Quality Scores and doing the leg work can be lots of work, which is another reason why it is a good idea to outsource your PPC campaigns. Otherwise, you are paying top dollar for your keywords, but then again, if they aren’t being seen, then you aren’t wasting money, but wasn’t the point to get traffic to your website? Yes, so now you have wasted all this time – which is money.
Hopefully, you see more and more of the importance of reviewing your paid ads campaigns on a regular basis and work them often. Let me know if you have any questions or would like help running your campaigns. PPC can be very valuable to your business and I love to help businesses grow! Contact me and let me know how I can help.
~Kristen
Wow! Very informative. I’ve been a bit hesitant to use PPC campaigns in the past — perhaps I just need an expert to help me!
Yes, an expert can definitely save you some time and well… money – for your time and for wasting money on clicks!
I didn’t even know there was such a thing as a Quality Score, which is why I would hire you do to my AdWords campaign. Good stuff, Kristen; thanks for sharing.
Yes ma’am… and I thank you for that. You are welcome!
You explained that really clearly Kristen. I find my clients often get frustrated with quality scores. I’ve been there too. You work really hard at writing great copy and top notch content, but still struggle with your quality scores. PPC on Google is something I would outsource to someone such as you any day rather than struggle on my own.
Thanks Clive, I appreciate it. QS are a tough one since you don’t always know what Google is thinking, but that’s part of the “fun”, right? lol
I’ve read about PPC but never realized it is so complicated. I can see why businesses have knowledgeable people like you do it for them.
I have a few other blogs on PPC if you are interested.. but it is definitely more complicated than most think. Thanks!
I didn’t realize there was a quality score either. There is so much online to learn and remember to give you an edge in this industry. Thanks for the information. All of this can be overwhelming.
Yea, that is just one little piece in PPC… and again explains why it is important to know what you are doing. Glad to help Yakini.
Thank you for demystifying that subject a bit!
You got it Indira.. feel free to check out a few other of my blogs.
Great article and well explained. Thank you.
Thank you Vicky and you are welcome.
PPC (Pay Per Click), is a difficult strategy to thriving your webpage, but, after all you will get the best rank ever. Furthermore, I am still taking studies about PPC and other online business related… Thank you so much Kristen, for letting us to know this informative information.
PPC IS very difficult despite the point that Google Adwords thinks that anyone can do it. Sure, anyone CAN do it.. but do it well and not toss money out the window is the catch. Thanks Elsie and while PPC is great, and it does get you on page 1 immediately, SEO is longevity and should be worked on as well. Thanks for stopping by!
Hello Kristen, you have a good point of about the pay per click. I have just one question, hope you can answer, is there a specific time or situation to use a PPC on your business? Thank you..!
Yes Maria, if your business needs some extra help showing up on page 1 and you could use the extra traffic. If you are interested, please send me a message and I can look at what your goals are.