Improving Quality Score
Google doesn't exactly tell you what formula they use to determine quality score, but there has been plenty of testing done by experienced marketers to give us a few guidelines. If you have a quality score of 0-3 that is considered "poor" while 4-7 is just "OK." The scores of between 8-10 are "great" and it means you are definitely on the right track. If you are in the 0-3 category then you might need a major revamping of your whole website, but a few simple tweaks can turn those OK ads into great ones.
1. Improve Your Click Through Rate - How do you do this? By split testing your ads, waiting until you get at least 30 clicks and then throwing out the loser. Then test the winner against a new ad you create. Rinse and repeat until you have the ad with the highest possible CTR.
2. Put Your Keyword In Your Ad - Are you using one ad for several different, related, but not totally similar keywords? Then get more specific with your ads, putting the keyword somewhere in the ad. This will also help your CTR as the keyword will be in bold.
3. Check Your Landing Page - You need a lot of keyword-relevant content on your landing page. This again goes with your keywords, if you are sending a lot of related but not similar keywords to the same page you could be hurting your score. Maybe it's time you create a specific landing page for a tunneled down version of your keywords.
4. How Quick Your Visitors Leave - Are you matching your visitors needs with what you are offering? Give them plenty of options with links to other sections of your site. The days of just having an opt-in page are long gone. You need the visitor to stick around and not hit the back button or just leave and go elsewhere.
Follow these four simple steps to improve your quality score and to help keep you from receiving the dreaded "Google Slap".
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