I've been running a few ads for the past 3 weeks and making a profit but I want to increase that profit. The quality score is killing me! I have the keyword in my url like (www.domain.com/keyword.php), I only target 1 keyword per ad, I have the keyword in h1 tags and throughout my page and still my quality score is 3 at best. It is always low due to, "keyword relevancy".

What can I do differently to increase this? My ads are spot on because conversions are around 50% on my page and I'm getting about .5 - 1% ctr but I'd like about 20k more impressions out of it!!

I'll gladly pay anyone that can provide me with solid advice that works.

Rather than the keyword density, does the content fit together and is related to the keyword, or is it just keyword stuffing??

Originally Posted by farahato

Rather than the keyword density, does the content fit together and is related to the keyword, or is it just keyword stuffing??

Pretty much just keyword stuffing but I did try to write the keyword(s) into a sentence or 2...

I started a new ad, this time instead of doing domain.com/keyword.php, I made it domain.com/keyword (keyword is a folder and has index.php within it). Now this is for a new keyword that I wasn't previously targeting. It is based on the same, competition crushing idea as the other keywords, this time, my quality score is 7 of 10!! On the page, I also don't have anything that represents the keyword, actually there isn't many words on the page, just a few links and a form.

I'm scared to change my other keywords to use that same idea because they are doing good and I don't want to mess anything up. I would like them to do great though so here is what I'm going to do... compete with myself! I'm going to create another ad, the same as the original and use the idea from above without pausing my old ad. Reason I don't want to change my old ad or pause it is, adwords like continuous running ads. I'll report back if this works or not.

UPDATE: The quality score is now only a 1 of 10... The keyword relevance is still good but the overall quality score is crap! I don't know what changed from now and then. I want to master this shit because I know I can pull in $500+ per day from it.

When you create new ads or add keywords, the system does a first pass at estimating your QS. Once it does a second pass, visits your landing page for one to see if you follow their guidelines, your QS can change dramatically.

A QS of 1 is normally an indication that you are not following one or more of the guidelines. This is in effect the off switch. Depending on the infraction, as well as how often you break it, you may get suspended or worse, banned.

The vast portion of QS is your CTR. You just need to create better ads. Stuffing the page with keywords will not increase your QS. But first, you need to fix your page to comply with the guidelines. I can help with that and everything else, just contact me.

Shifty My Man I too hope there is some method to get the QS higher you know we could make a decent amount if that was the case.

I will try some stuff later once my site gets bloody sorted hopefully and let you know on skype :P

Can you post here your sample of landing page ?

I didn't abandon this... well I sort of did. My attention is focused on something else right now. I don't usually abandon something this soon but I ran into another situation that steered my focus in another direction. I have an idea that I'll put into effect once I can clear my schedule a bit. Thanks everyone for their help.

Just bumping this.

It's certainly a strange algo and I'll tell you why.

I went to the keyword tool and punched in my landing page URL.

It came back with 46 keywords which even Google themselves think that page relates to.

So... I created a new Ad Group and added those keywords; created an Ad which pointed to the page I checked on the KW Tool and wrote an Ad which included the most important keyword that the majority of these 46 keywords had in them... avoided any marketing words such as 'free' and the Quality Scores ranged from 2 or 3... with 1 keyword given a 10/10!

I've used the same landing page in other Ad Groups which have QS up to 7/10 so the page can't have been flagged, otherwise they'd all be low.

Thoughts?

Surely, if Google have suggested that these keywords are related to my landing page, then the QS shouldn't be *that* low?

I know about the 1st and 2nd pass, as mentioned below, but I'm not holding my breath.

It appears that keywords are often given high or low QS randomly as it's obvious that some keywords are more related to the onsite content.

How do you have a chance when even Google themselves award the keywords which they deem relevant to your page, a low QS?

Yeah, being helpful is the last thing on G's agenda. Have you considered using your keyword in your domain name? Even a . info should work if your domain contains your keyword, with or without hyphens and nothing else.

Originally Posted by muchacho

Just bumping this.

It's certainly a strange algo and I'll tell you why.

I went to the keyword tool and punched in my landing page URL.

It came back with 46 keywords which even Google themselves think that page relates to.

So... I created a new Ad Group and added those keywords; created an Ad which pointed to the page I checked on the KW Tool and wrote an Ad which included the most important keyword that the majority of these 46 keywords had in them... avoided any marketing words such as 'free' and the Quality Scores ranged from 2 or 3... with 1 keyword given a 10/10!

I've used the same landing page in other Ad Groups which have QS up to 7/10 so the page can't have been flagged, otherwise they'd all be low.

Thoughts?

Surely, if Google have suggested that these keywords are related to my landing page, then the QS shouldn't be *that* low?

I know about the 1st and 2nd pass, as mentioned below, but I'm not holding my breath.

It appears that keywords are often given high or low QS randomly as it's obvious that some keywords are more related to the onsite content.

How do you have a chance when even Google themselves award the keywords which they deem relevant to your page, a low QS?

Originally Posted by hugh14

Yeah, being helpful is the last thing on G's agenda. Have you considered using your keyword in your domain name? Even a . info should work if your domain contains your keyword, with or without hyphens and nothing else.

Yeah it is included in the domain, that's the thing.

It's a Network Marketing website so perhaps Google doesn't like them, even if they are genuine?

That's a definite possibility. The only thing you could do about that would be to use cloaking. Risky? Yes, but if your cloaker is secure enough it can make the risk acceptable.

Basically you show bots, manual reviewers a high QS site without any attempt to make sales. Then redirect real visitors to a high-converting site where you don't need to worry about QS at all.

If your account is banned you make a new one and you can still direct real people to your same high converting site.

I've put a very small group together where we chip in to pay a coder who works full time coming up with secure scripts for stuff like this. If interested PM me.

Originally Posted by muchacho

It's a Network Marketing website so perhaps Google doesn't like them, even if they are genuine?

Thank you. Very useful info.

Originally Posted by muchacho

Surely, if Google have suggested that these keywords are related to my landing page, then the QS shouldn't be *that* low?

Once again, people completely misunderstand the concept of QS. So I'll say it again, QS is not about the landing page. Yes, there is a component, a small one and the keyword relevancy but these are only about one third of the story. The rest is click rate. If your click rate is higher than other advertisers for that keyword at that position, your QS will be higher. It really is that simple, provided you follow all the rules otherwise your QS will be 1, in which case, there is something wrong with the landing page.

Read more in the Adwords FAQ.

Originally Posted by LucidMarketing

Once again, people completely misunderstand the concept of QS. So I'll say it again, QS is not about the landing page. Yes, there is a component, a small one and the keyword relevancy but these are only about one third of the story.

What you're saying is a contradiction.

First your say Quality Score isn't about the landing page.
Then your say the landing page is only a component
Then you say a landing page is a third ... a 1/3 of it.

I'm pretty damn sure if I can nail 1/3 and be fine on the rest, I'd be looking at a QS more than 4. CTR is of course a part of it, but I've got QS of 4 with no problems according to Google and high CTR, so there's much more to it.

Having worked directly with Google before on a Google Grant client (G has to approve the CPC campaign because they are donating money to a non-profit) here are some ideas.

Tighten up your adgroups. No more than 20 KWs per group. They do not like long tail, they want relevance.

Pause every KW with less than a 1% CTR.

Once you change something on a KW it should go into review and the QS will be reassessed. So if you have KWs that are high QS, don't touch them or it could be reassessed lower. It usually takes about 24 hours for these changes to show.

I inherited a PPC campaign that was entirely QS of 1/10 and the only thing that brought life into it was pausing all the KWs that were under 1% CTR.

Lots of good advice here. Here is my 2c:

1) Group keywords into tightly related groups of 15 to 20.
2) include all variations below your match level. Example, if you want phrase match, also include exact match. For broad match include all 3 variations.
3) The landing page should contain semantically related content, not just keyword stuffed meta tags.
4) kill under performers before they accumulate large amounts of impressions.
5) write 4-6 ads with keywords in the ad text. Keyword insertion does not count.
6) give the dust time to settle.

Originally Posted by qwiktrade

Lots of good advice here. Here is my 2c:

1) Group keywords into tightly related groups of 15 to 20.
2) include all variations below your match level. Example, if you want phrase match, also include exact match. For broad match include all 3 variations.
3) The landing page should contain semantically related content, not just keyword stuffed meta tags.
4) kill under performers before they accumulate large amounts of impressions.
5) write 4-6 ads with keywords in the ad text. Keyword insertion does not count.
6) give the dust time to settle.

1: Yep, I generally have 1 Keyword to 1 Adgroup IF they are generating enough impressions.

2: You never have all 3 match types in the same Adgroup. Even Google themselves have hinted of that in the past.

3: To be fair, that's pretty obvious. The keyword stuffing went in the 90s.

4: I generally give a keyword 200 impressions before I'm giving them an orange flag. How many impressions would you give? It can always mean the Max CPC isn't high enough though

5: I've always done Split Testing. 4-6 is plausable when you've started off right from the bat, but if I went down that road it would be 8.

6: Not really sure what you mean there, lol. What am I waiting for? Quality Score should be calculated on it's '2nd run' within 48 hours so the waiting is for enough impressions.

I'm not explaining it clearly enough I guess. QS is really not about the landing page per se. Having the keywords in the domain or URL does nothing and is not a factor.

Here's the lowdown. QS, at least in Adwords, but very similar in Bing and others, is composed of about 65% CTR, 25% keyword relevancy and 10% "other". Of this other factors, most if not all of it is page loading time. The keyword relevancy, unless you got so little text the system can't figure it out, should not be a problem. It will be a problem only if your page is about cat food and you use dog food as a keyword. This would make your ad irrelevant anyway and people wouldn't click on it. You also don't need to have each and every keyword on the page. Google is smart, it knows "feline nourishment" is equivalent to "cat food". It's called latency.

So if you want to say that keyword relevancy is a landing page component, fine. That's 25% of the score plus the 10% for loading time and probably a few other small things. Total is 35%, give or take, that's one third of the score.

I'm sure you can nail that one third. There's no reason you can't. If you have irrelevant keywords however, you just lost most of it. But it doesn't mean you'll be fine on the rest (the two thirds). That's all CTR. You may think your CTR is high but that doesn't mean anything because you have no way to compare to others. Actually, that's what your QS is doing. So if your QS is 4, while the average QS would be 5, it means you are doing worse than average. Doesn't matter what your actual CTR is which depends on positioning anyway.

QS is calculated taking position into account and compares your CTR there against what others have done with that keyword. Again, if your QS is 4, it means you are below average. You can have any QS for any CTR. I've seen average QS for what I thought was high CTR myself, often 10% or more in the top spots. It was only telling me that others have done much better. I've also seen QS of 10 in top positions for low CTR, a few times below 1%. It was telling me that my CTR was above average, which means others were not doing any better. It's all relative.

A QS of 1 is the off switch and usually means you're violating a rule.

Using all three (actually four) match types in a group is perfectly fine. No need to split hairs and have only one keyword per group. Besides, Adwords treats all keywords in different match types as the same. So "dog food" = [dog food] and the QS will always be the same for those. Of course, if there's a good reason to split into a separate group, the QS will be different.

Don't kill under-performing keywords. Find out why they are. Maybe you need to tighten your group. Groups should be themed. Therefore, you may have a general dog food group and others themed around small dogs, big dogs, diabetic dogs.

The cutoff should not be impressions but clicks. Test two ads only at one time. When they both get 20 or more clicks, replace the underachieving one with a new test ad. Rinse and repeat. With 20 clicks each ad, you have about a 90% certainty that the better one (higher CTR) will consistently outperform the other. The more clicks, the higher the certainty. That's what is meant by give time for the dust to settle.

Never test more than two ads against each other at a time. Three if you have lots of searches each day, talking thousands here, which doesn't happen often.

Originally Posted by toots

On issues like this I would trust sources that have systematically tested on a large scale.

Check out the site tenscores. By far the best, concise explanation of quality scores I have seen.

Only downside is you have to sign up for a $10 membership to get the e-book.

But trust me, well worth it if you are serious about Adwords.

Self advertising alert!!

Plenty of free information out there without having to pay.

You're obviously a member of that site (and own it), so why not put it in the members download section as a freebie?

Haha! I wish I owned it.

Sorry for sounding like an ad. As the OP said, "I'm willing to pay for..." information I thought I'd be helpful. But wtf do I know? A daily ad spent of $X,XXX, hundred of hours searching and learning about QS...all so I can troll BHW?

What I find strange is muchacho deleting the post yet quotes it. Good since his post wouldn't make sense on its own and we can check out the site. I agree there's information out there without having to pay for it. I put out that information myself. The site is interesting and more of an application to monitor QS from what I can tell. It tells you where to concentrate your efforts, not how to do it, unless the ebook does that. I do that myself with my Adwords FAQ where I explain QS and sell Building PPC Campaigns That Get Results that tells you how to actually do it.

Now that's self advertising.

The thread itself is very informative
gonna share the link with Adwords Noobs

I think it is necessary to optimize ad before optimizing focus website. namely the query must match the content of your ads.

then do it.

I am looking for ads software for adwords.