Ads Next™ Local Internet Advertising, Annapolis, Maryland, Internet Advertising Solutions, Search Engine Optimization, Website Design and Integration, Social Media Marketing

People often think that if you pay more per click that guarantees you a higher position in the search results.  This may have been the case years ago however now Google factors in two things when determining your Ad Rank.  One being the amount your bid and the other is your “Quality Score.” Maintaining a good quality score allows your ads to be in top postitions at a lower cost per click.

What is Quality Score?
Quality Score for Google and the Search Network is a dynamic metric assigned to each of your keywords. It’s calculated using a variety of factors and measures how relevant your keyword is to your ad group and to a user’s search query. The higher a keyword’s Quality Score, the lower its cost-per-clicks (CPCs) and the better its ad position.

Here are 8 steps to improve your Adwords Quality Score

1. Generate a Relevant Keyword List
Generate a list of your business’s products and services.  Then use a keyword tool to research exactly how people search online for these products and services.  There may be many different variations for each product or service.  Start by picking the keywords that users search on the most.  And then test these keywords accordingly overtime to determine which ones perform best in your Adwords Campaign.

2. Separate Keywords into Groups
It is important to keep a very targeted list of keywords in each Adgroup. Focus on one product and service and group all related keywords to that product or service in one Adgroup. Driving traffic is important but it’s more important to drive the most qualified traffic to your website.  So keep your keyword lists very specific and focus on the goals you are trying to achieve from this traffic.

3. Create Relevant and Compelling Ads for Each Group
Create Ad Copy that is relevant to the list of keywords in each Ad Group.  Again the more specific and relevant the Ad copy is to your group of keywords the higher your quality score will be.  Also create ads that stand out above your competition.  Intrigue the user and make them want to find out more about what you are offering so they will then click on to your website and potentially become a new customer.

4. Split Test Your Ads
It’s important to run two or more ads at the same time to determine which ad will perform better.  You will want to monitor the performance.  If you notice that one ad is performing the best allow that one to display more frequently to improve overall quality score.

5. Make Your Landing Page Relevant
When you create your landing page, you want to make sure that your content is consistent with both your keywords and ad copy. Make sure that keywords are carried through to title tags, headers and body content.

6. Don’t Mislead a User
Make sure to deliver on the content people expect to find. Even if all of your keywords, ad copy and landing page content is relevant, if people don’t see what they thought they were getting, they will leave. A high bounce rate is another factor that will erode a high quality score.

7. Make it Clear and Easy
When you drive people to a landing page make sure the call to action is obvious.  Don’t display too much text.  Users don’t typically read all the text on a page they just scan through it.  Also having too many graphics will slow down the load time of the page and people will leave your site.

8. Constantly Monitor
It is very important to implement analytics and keep an eye on your campaign performance. Getting in the habit of monitoring key metrics will help identify problem areas quickly. Continuous improvement will improve your quality score, lower your campaign costs and increase conversions.

Link Building is an important part of Search Engine Optimization.  It is the process of getting other websites to link to your website.  It is more important to have relevant links from a website rather than have an irrelevant link from a site that has a high Page Rank.  The search engines weigh heavier on relevant links.

It is important to continuously build links to stay on top of the search results for a website’s targeted keyword phrases.  The more links the better.  It is important however to make sure the number of inbound links increase in natural way.  The search engines to do not like it when a new site gains a lot of links in a very short period of time.  So it is best to accumulate links at a steady rate.

If your link text is the same as your targeted keywords then this will have a strong effect on your search rankings for those keywords.  Again however make sure all the link text are not the same.  You should use several different keyword phrases throughout your link text so that the links to not appear unnatural.

Content on the pages that link to your website is another important factor on determining how relevant your inbound links are.  So for example, if your site is a restaurant site then you should have inbound links from a dining guide or a site that has restaurant reviews.  With relevant link text associated with these links they will probably be the links that help your site rank high in the search engines.

How Quality Score Affects your Search Rankings. A landing page’s quality score plays an important factor in where your ad will be placed in the search engines. Google was the first search engine to release this new Quality Score rule. Yahoo followed shortly after. Before the quality score was introduced you could simply bid higher than your competitors and rank above your competition in the search engine results. However this is not the case anymore. Now search engines care more about the relevancy of your landing page, so a high quality landing page gets a better PPC ranking for less money.

To increase your landing page's quality score you should have your keywords, ad copy and landing page all relevant to each other. This will improve your quality score and move you higher on the search engine page. Even if your bid is lower than your competitors you may still rank above them if your landing page is more relevant and holds a higher quality score. Having a more relevant landing page gets your more conversions for less money.