The Top 10 AdWords Quality Score Myths
Anyone who has used Google AdWords knows that:
- High Quality Score = Lowest possible pay-per-click advertising costs
- Low Quality Score = Absurdly high pay-per-click advertising costs!
Yet, clearly, PPC marketing is a critical element of a successful search engine marketing (SEM) campaign. And, Google's Quality Score stands between most online professional marketers and their profits! The cryptic formula remains shrouded in mystery that forces advertisers to "guess" what Google actually means by such vague terms as quality or relevance.
Naturally that vagueness has led to much speculation about what it takes to boost your critically important Quality Score. Numerous misconceptions abound. This article will trade misconceptions for realities to help you proceed with confidence as we show you how to get more clicks for less money with your AdWords campaigns.
Now, let's debunk some myths!
The 10 Most Common Quality Score Myths
Myth #1. Each AdWords account has just one Quality Score that affects all keywords.
Actually, nearly every aspect of your AdWords campaign has its own Quality Score. There's an overall Account Quality Score, an Ad Group Quality Score (used for ranking in the Content Network), and a Keyword Quality Score (used for ranking in the Search Network, plus a few others we'll discuss.
Your Keyword Quality Score, combined with your maximum Cost-Per-Click (CPC), is what determines the position of your ad on the search network. Each keyword has its own Quality Score, which you can access by following Google's instructions on how to view your keyword's Quality Score.
Each keyword is rated either 'Great', 'OK', or 'Poor'. Your Keyword Quality Score is made up of...
Keep in mind that if you leave a lot of low Quality Score keywords active in your campaign, that can cause your overall Account Quality Score to tank-thereby affecting the Quality Scores of all your keywords, even your good ones. So ditching low Quality Score keywords that aren't performing is generally a good idea.
Note that the relationship between Keyword Quality Score and Account Quality Score is circular in that each affects the other. Account Quality Score is made up of the sum of all your Keyword Quality Scores, but your Keyword Quality Scores are in turn affected by your Account Quality Score.
If you've got just a few low Quality Score keywords, they're unlikely to drag down your Account Quality Score. But if you have large number of poorly performing keywords, that can have a negative impact on your Account Quality Score, which can then drag down the Quality Scores of your good keywords. (Are we dizzy yet?)
So if you've got a lot of keywords rated 'Poor', you may want to ditch them to elevate your Account Quality Score. Of course, don't ditch them if they're still bringing in the kind of traffic that converts into money. But also don't leave them hanging around if they're not doing you any good-because they could be hurting your campaign by increasing your PPC costs.
You should also bear in mind that Account Quality Score is primarily how Google determines minimum bid prices for new keywords where Google doesn't have much existing data. So, if you're regularly adding large numbers of keywords to your account, you'll want to maintain a good Account Quality Score to keep those initial minimum bids low.
Finally, there's also a Landing Page Quality Score, which impacts your keywords' minimum bid price-but does not affect your ad's actual position in the search results.
Your Keyword Quality Score, combined with your maximum Cost-Per-Click (CPC), is what determines the position of your ad on the search network. Each keyword has its own Quality Score, which you can access by following Google's instructions on how to view your keyword's Quality Score.
Each keyword is rated either 'Great', 'OK', or 'Poor'. Your Keyword Quality Score is made up of...
- Your ad copy's relevance to your keywords.
- Your keyword click-through rate (mostly your click-through rate over the past 2 weeks, but lifetime click-through rate is also a factor).
- Your overall Account Quality Score.
- Other relevancy factors (such as geotargeting and demographic targeting; factors that have only minor impact on Quality Score).
Keep in mind that if you leave a lot of low Quality Score keywords active in your campaign, that can cause your overall Account Quality Score to tank-thereby affecting the Quality Scores of all your keywords, even your good ones. So ditching low Quality Score keywords that aren't performing is generally a good idea.
Note that the relationship between Keyword Quality Score and Account Quality Score is circular in that each affects the other. Account Quality Score is made up of the sum of all your Keyword Quality Scores, but your Keyword Quality Scores are in turn affected by your Account Quality Score.
If you've got just a few low Quality Score keywords, they're unlikely to drag down your Account Quality Score. But if you have large number of poorly performing keywords, that can have a negative impact on your Account Quality Score, which can then drag down the Quality Scores of your good keywords. (Are we dizzy yet?)
So if you've got a lot of keywords rated 'Poor', you may want to ditch them to elevate your Account Quality Score. Of course, don't ditch them if they're still bringing in the kind of traffic that converts into money. But also don't leave them hanging around if they're not doing you any good-because they could be hurting your campaign by increasing your PPC costs.
You should also bear in mind that Account Quality Score is primarily how Google determines minimum bid prices for new keywords where Google doesn't have much existing data. So, if you're regularly adding large numbers of keywords to your account, you'll want to maintain a good Account Quality Score to keep those initial minimum bids low.
Finally, there's also a Landing Page Quality Score, which impacts your keywords' minimum bid price-but does not affect your ad's actual position in the search results.
Myth #2. The quality of your landing page impacts your Quality Score and your ad's position in the search results.
This is a common misunderstanding. While it's true that landing page quality does impact your Quality Score in the Content Network (aka AdSense), it has no impact on your Quality Score in the Search Network.
And getting your ads to show up in Google's search results is important
because that's typically where the highest levels of traffic and
conversions are.
However, while landing page quality does not impact your Search Network Quality Score, it does have an effect on your minimum bid (the minimum amount you can pay and still have Google allow your ads to appear on the Search Network). Clearly, you want your minimum bids to be as low as possible, so landing page quality is still important even if it doesn't effect your Quality Score.
There may be times when you see that a keyword has a high Quality Score but Google still wants a very high minimum bid (more than $1.00) in order to activate the keyword for search. That almost always means you've got landing page problems. Fix those problems and you'll often be able to get that keyword for fairly cheap.
While your landing page does not directly effect your Quality Score for search, it still plays a big role in keeping your clicks affordable, since you want to achieve the lowest minimum bids possible. If you're not sure what your minimum bids are, Google has a great tutorial on how to determine your keywords' minimum bids.
However, while landing page quality does not impact your Search Network Quality Score, it does have an effect on your minimum bid (the minimum amount you can pay and still have Google allow your ads to appear on the Search Network). Clearly, you want your minimum bids to be as low as possible, so landing page quality is still important even if it doesn't effect your Quality Score.
There may be times when you see that a keyword has a high Quality Score but Google still wants a very high minimum bid (more than $1.00) in order to activate the keyword for search. That almost always means you've got landing page problems. Fix those problems and you'll often be able to get that keyword for fairly cheap.
While your landing page does not directly effect your Quality Score for search, it still plays a big role in keeping your clicks affordable, since you want to achieve the lowest minimum bids possible. If you're not sure what your minimum bids are, Google has a great tutorial on how to determine your keywords' minimum bids.
Myth #3. Creating an individual Ad Group for each of your keywords can improve your Quality Score
False. What's most important is that your ad groups contain
keywords that are highly relevant to each other and to the ads you're
displaying for them. Take a look at your ad group. Does each keyword
match the theme of the ad it's triggering? Although it isn't necessary
for the keyword itself to be found in the actual ad (although it helps), it is necessary that it be highly relevant to what the ad is offering.
If some of your keywords don't closely match the ads in your ad group, you should probably move those keywords into their own ad group. This generally means your ad groups will be small-but creating an ad group for every single keyword is not only overkill, it's also an account management headache.
On the opposite end of the spectrum, neither is the long tail approach to keyword research the best approach. Every AdWords campaign starts with a 50k keyword limit, which can be adjusted upwards later by your account rep. But if you're dumping hundreds or thousands of keywords into your ad groups you're going to have a hard time keeping them all relevant to the ads and to each other.
You're much better off starting with a smaller set of keywords and keeping any long tail keywords limited to 2-4 word phrases. Once you start using 5 word phrases or longer, Google won't likely have enough historical data on such specific phrases to avoid assigning them lower quality scores and high minimum bids right from the beginning.
Once we've established high Quality Scores for our initial smaller set of keywords, we can then branch out to a broader range of keywords. The many keyword tools available today make it easy to create huge keyword lists, but when it comes to PPC marketing, bigger is not always better.
We like to keep most of our ad groups limited to about 10 keywords, and rarely go over 20 keywords for any ad group. Some marketers we know use up to 100 keywords per ad group and it works for them, but we find our targeting is most effective when we keep our ad groups small.
Most importantly, we make sure all the keywords in the ad group are tightly targeted to each other as well as to the ad itself. This point can not be emphasized enough, as it is almost always the most effective way to boost your Quality Score.
If some of your keywords don't closely match the ads in your ad group, you should probably move those keywords into their own ad group. This generally means your ad groups will be small-but creating an ad group for every single keyword is not only overkill, it's also an account management headache.
On the opposite end of the spectrum, neither is the long tail approach to keyword research the best approach. Every AdWords campaign starts with a 50k keyword limit, which can be adjusted upwards later by your account rep. But if you're dumping hundreds or thousands of keywords into your ad groups you're going to have a hard time keeping them all relevant to the ads and to each other.
You're much better off starting with a smaller set of keywords and keeping any long tail keywords limited to 2-4 word phrases. Once you start using 5 word phrases or longer, Google won't likely have enough historical data on such specific phrases to avoid assigning them lower quality scores and high minimum bids right from the beginning.
Once we've established high Quality Scores for our initial smaller set of keywords, we can then branch out to a broader range of keywords. The many keyword tools available today make it easy to create huge keyword lists, but when it comes to PPC marketing, bigger is not always better.
We like to keep most of our ad groups limited to about 10 keywords, and rarely go over 20 keywords for any ad group. Some marketers we know use up to 100 keywords per ad group and it works for them, but we find our targeting is most effective when we keep our ad groups small.
Most importantly, we make sure all the keywords in the ad group are tightly targeted to each other as well as to the ad itself. This point can not be emphasized enough, as it is almost always the most effective way to boost your Quality Score.
Myth #4. PageRank and incoming links to your landing page impacts Quality Score.
This one surprised us a bit, as it's been our experience that
starting an AdWords campaign on a site with established links made it
easier to maintain a high Quality Score. But Google's official position
is that organic search and paid search rely on two completely separate algorithms, and that links to the landing page itself do not impact Quality Score.
However, the results from our testing do suggest that landing pages on domains with established links outperform landing pages on domains with no links at all. But it isn't necessary that the landing page itself performs well in the organic search in order to perform well in paid search. So it appears that links to the domain help somewhat, but pointing them at the actual landing page is not strategically important. And, we are still testing this to determine for sure.
Obviously this is one area where we differ slightly with the official Google line of information. Even though Google says PageRank and inbound links don't affect Quality Score, we continue to begin our own PPC campaigns on an established domain with lots of inbound links and unique content whenever possible.
We can say for certain that linking out from your landing page to other relevant and unique articles on your site does indeed boost your landing page's Quality Score. So try not to make your landing pages stand-alone islands that don't link out. We suggest you link to your Privacy Policy, Contact Us, and About Us pages, as well as 10-20 relevant articles with unique content.
Bear in mind that it isn't necessary to link out to all 20 articles from every landing page. Instead you can just link to a single page which in turn links to your article content. We typically put these links in the footer of our landing pages.
However, the results from our testing do suggest that landing pages on domains with established links outperform landing pages on domains with no links at all. But it isn't necessary that the landing page itself performs well in the organic search in order to perform well in paid search. So it appears that links to the domain help somewhat, but pointing them at the actual landing page is not strategically important. And, we are still testing this to determine for sure.
Obviously this is one area where we differ slightly with the official Google line of information. Even though Google says PageRank and inbound links don't affect Quality Score, we continue to begin our own PPC campaigns on an established domain with lots of inbound links and unique content whenever possible.
We can say for certain that linking out from your landing page to other relevant and unique articles on your site does indeed boost your landing page's Quality Score. So try not to make your landing pages stand-alone islands that don't link out. We suggest you link to your Privacy Policy, Contact Us, and About Us pages, as well as 10-20 relevant articles with unique content.
Bear in mind that it isn't necessary to link out to all 20 articles from every landing page. Instead you can just link to a single page which in turn links to your article content. We typically put these links in the footer of our landing pages.
Myth #5. Click-through rates on broad match keywords impact your Quality Score.
The truth is that Quality Score is based on exact match impressions only. However, this does not mean
that Quality Score is only calculated on keywords you have set to exact
match. Instead, it means quality score is only impacted when someone
does a search for the exact keyword phrase you have listed in your ad
group-regardless of whether your keywords are set to exact, phrase, or
broad match.
Setting some of your keywords to expanded broad match can be a great way to find new keywords. Doing so will expose your ads to a broad range of queries related to the keywords you're targeting. If you closely track the keywords which are leading to sales, you'll often find many new converting keywords
However, when doing keyword research using expanded broad match, be sure to closely monitor your budget and make use of negative keywords to block irrelevant queries so that you don't end up losing money.
By the way, we've learned exact match, phrase match and broad match don't offer much value to having the same keyword phrase listed three times in your ad groups. Instead, we like to use phrase match with negative keywords added in so our ad isn't displayed for irrelevant searches. And if we're researching the niche, we might use broad match as mentioned above.
Setting some of your keywords to expanded broad match can be a great way to find new keywords. Doing so will expose your ads to a broad range of queries related to the keywords you're targeting. If you closely track the keywords which are leading to sales, you'll often find many new converting keywords
However, when doing keyword research using expanded broad match, be sure to closely monitor your budget and make use of negative keywords to block irrelevant queries so that you don't end up losing money.
By the way, we've learned exact match, phrase match and broad match don't offer much value to having the same keyword phrase listed three times in your ad groups. Instead, we like to use phrase match with negative keywords added in so our ad isn't displayed for irrelevant searches. And if we're researching the niche, we might use broad match as mentioned above.
Myth #6. Dynamic Keyword Insertion automatically makes ads more relevant and boosts Quality Score.
Dynamic Keyword Insertion
is an AdWords feature that automatically places the user's search query
in your ad if the query matches the keyword you are bidding on. While
this can make your ad appear more relevant to users, it doesn't effect
Google's perceived relevancy of the ad.
Google expects you to have ad groups tightly themed around a specific set of related keywords and does not consider Dynamic Keyword Insertion as a substitute for this. We recommend you work on creating small ad groups with keywords highly relevant to each other as well as to the ad. This is the best possible way to boost your quality score.
Used wisely, however, Dynamic Keyword Insertion can help boost your click-through rate which, in turn, can boost your keyword ad performance and Quality Scores. So, indirectly, Dynamic Keyword Insertion can have a positive impact on Quality Score.
Google expects you to have ad groups tightly themed around a specific set of related keywords and does not consider Dynamic Keyword Insertion as a substitute for this. We recommend you work on creating small ad groups with keywords highly relevant to each other as well as to the ad. This is the best possible way to boost your quality score.
Used wisely, however, Dynamic Keyword Insertion can help boost your click-through rate which, in turn, can boost your keyword ad performance and Quality Scores. So, indirectly, Dynamic Keyword Insertion can have a positive impact on Quality Score.
Myth
#7. You must bid high when you first launch your campaign in order to
boost click-throughs and achieve a high Quality Score.
In the past all it took to push ads to the top and get lots of
clicks was to bid high. Once you established a high click-through rate,
you could lower your bids while continuing to maintain high positions
due to your keywords' great click-through rates.
These days, Google takes into account that ads displayed lower on the page are less likely to get clicked. Now Google simply expects you to maintain a good click-through rate relative to what other ads in your position are achieving. So if you're getting a 2.5% click-through rate in position 9, Google might consider that great. But that same click-through rate when you're in position 3 may be looked upon poorly.
Google also expects different click-through rates for different keywords. Highly specific keywords with a great deal of commercial intent (like buy Canon EOS 40D) are expected to have higher click-through rates than a generic keyword like camera.
Note that click-throughs on Google's Content Network or search partners does not impact your ad's ranking. Where you rank is determined only by clicks that are tracked on Google's own search pages
So while a high click-through rate is going to be important to your ad's success, you don't need to bid yourself to the top of the page right away. Just make sure your ad does well for the position you're currently in
Be sure to factor in the reality that low-positioned ads often won't get much traffic, so it can take a while to determine if that keyword is worth bidding on. Thus, you may want to bid higher to speed up the process of determining if the keyword is target worthy
Although Google tracks the lifetime click-through rate history of your keywords when determining ad ranking, it places the most emphasis on how that keyword performed over the past two weeks. So, it is possible to salvage keywords sometimes, even if they've done poorly in the past
These days, Google takes into account that ads displayed lower on the page are less likely to get clicked. Now Google simply expects you to maintain a good click-through rate relative to what other ads in your position are achieving. So if you're getting a 2.5% click-through rate in position 9, Google might consider that great. But that same click-through rate when you're in position 3 may be looked upon poorly.
Google also expects different click-through rates for different keywords. Highly specific keywords with a great deal of commercial intent (like buy Canon EOS 40D) are expected to have higher click-through rates than a generic keyword like camera.
Note that click-throughs on Google's Content Network or search partners does not impact your ad's ranking. Where you rank is determined only by clicks that are tracked on Google's own search pages
So while a high click-through rate is going to be important to your ad's success, you don't need to bid yourself to the top of the page right away. Just make sure your ad does well for the position you're currently in
Be sure to factor in the reality that low-positioned ads often won't get much traffic, so it can take a while to determine if that keyword is worth bidding on. Thus, you may want to bid higher to speed up the process of determining if the keyword is target worthy
Although Google tracks the lifetime click-through rate history of your keywords when determining ad ranking, it places the most emphasis on how that keyword performed over the past two weeks. So, it is possible to salvage keywords sometimes, even if they've done poorly in the past
Myth #8. Optimizing your campaigns will delete your keyword history.
To optimize your various Quality Scores within AdWords
campaigns, you must rearrange your keywords into tightly focused ad
groups. You must also hone your ads to make them increasingly more
relevant to specific keywords and ad groups.
Of course, you might have built up some nice history on those keywords which is helping you achieve low minimum bids-and you don't want to have to start over. Fortunately, you don't have to. Provided that you never delete anything you can optimize your campaign without losing your history.
Whenever you move a keyword into a different ad group, use the Cut feature in AdWords Editor to move it. Do not insert it into an ad group and then delete it in the old ad group (or vice versa) because when you delete something you lose the history that is attached to it.
Google has detailed instructions on moving keywords in this tutorial. If you cut and paste the keywords from one ad group to another without deleting them, you should be able to hang onto the history for those keywords
Of course, you might have built up some nice history on those keywords which is helping you achieve low minimum bids-and you don't want to have to start over. Fortunately, you don't have to. Provided that you never delete anything you can optimize your campaign without losing your history.
Whenever you move a keyword into a different ad group, use the Cut feature in AdWords Editor to move it. Do not insert it into an ad group and then delete it in the old ad group (or vice versa) because when you delete something you lose the history that is attached to it.
Google has detailed instructions on moving keywords in this tutorial. If you cut and paste the keywords from one ad group to another without deleting them, you should be able to hang onto the history for those keywords
Myth #9. You need a long performance history with AdWords in order to achieve high Quality Scores.
Actually, it typically only takes about two weeks to establish
your performance history. While it appears that Google likes accounts
that have been around a while and have lots of history for Google to
reference, once your new account has been live for two weeks you
shouldn't be at any significant disadvantage to competitors with more
seasoned accounts.
Myth #10. Each landing page must be unique and devoid of duplicate content.
Partially true-but it only applies when you're duplicating your content on outside domains. As Google says in their landing page guidelines...
So if you've got multiple landing pages with very similar content
that you're using to split-test, that won't cause you duplicate content
problems. But if the same content is being displayed on other sites,
then you are in violation of Google's rule.
The Key to Slashing PPC Costs
Feature unique content that can't be found on another site.
Achieving an optimum Quality Score can have a supremely positive impact on your PPC campaign. We're are not surprised to see click costs drop by a factor of 10 once a keyword's Quality Score is fully optimized. The best part is that oftentimes it only takes only a day or two after making improvements to see click costs go down and profits go up.
Source :
0 comments:
Post a Comment
Note: Only a member of this blog may post a comment.