Most in the know believe clickthrough rate is the most important of many factors that go into Quality Score.

For me, the next most important factor has got to be “relevance”.

Relevance can be defined in terms of how well you have integrated these elements:

-The searcher intent when using a particular keyword in a search query.
-The ad copy
-The landing page

Basic SEO and AdWords Best Practices will help cover these bases. Let’s take a look at the product Golden Widgets. Here’s your checklist:

Searcher Intent

-Get in the mind of the majority of searchers. Google has. Know if you have an intent problem. For instance, if Golden Widgets is the name of a popular TV show, and you are selling fancy doorknobs called Golden Widgets, you have a searcher intent problem that is going to make Quality Score a challenge. Awareness of the problem is the first step in dealing with it.

The Ad Copy

-Golden Widgets in the header.
-Golden Widgets in the two line body
-Golden-Widgets in the display URL

To the extent you can do this naturally anyway. It is more important to have compelling ad copy than have it stuffed with keywords.

The Landing Page

I am not an SEO “expert”, but my understanding is that these elements represent much of SEO basic best practices.

-Golden Widgets in the URL
-Golden Widgets in the Title Tag
-Golden Widgets in the Header
-Content relevant to what most are looking for when they use that search term (pivoting, without bait and switch, to your goal as artfully as possible)

So we come full circle with searcher intent. As it should be. Quality Score is Google’s best guess at how aligned your advertising is to the needs and desires of the searcher, both before and after the click.

If the same keyword means one thing to a majority of searchers, and another within the context of your website, then the harder it is going to be to implement this strategy. Do the best you can without looking spammy, or making the searcher feel mislead.

I understand that the above template may not be practical or desirable in many situations. But as a guideline, it is not a bad way at all to think of Quality Score

One last reminder, any pundit’s advice is only as good as the test you can put it to. Any “hot tip” should be looked at as fodder for testing, not as a silver bullet.

-Tom Hale
AdWords Specilaist

 I believe Quality Score will become more and more important. Google continues to try and reward those that advertise in a way most relevant to the divined intent of the searcher.

Here is what I see so often.

1. AdWords Account Opened.
2. Obvious Keywords Entered
3. Bidding Strategy is Arbitrary due to lack of Conversion and/or Quality Score Strategy.
4. Poorly Chosen Keywords, and  Ads result in low Clickthrough Rates which kills Quality Score.
5. Estimated First Page Bid and Cost per Click go through the roof.
6. The new or weary AdWordian is upset and confused –  Thinks Google is a Rip Off (which is unfortunate, I certainly do not think that is true.)

Am I right you AdWords Pros? Don’t you see this over and over?

Be targeted Neophytes! Think Quality Score, not volume of clicks, as you build or rehabilitate your AdWords account.

As you are starting out, be hyper aware of your Quality Score and clickthrough rates. Build your account Quality Score by focusing initially on those things that AdWords is telling you are most relevant as represented by “OK”, or better yet, “Great”, quality scores.

You may not agree with your Quality Score grades. You may even be totally baffled by them. But follow Google’s  lead until your account Quality Score is strong enough that you can start pulling up the Quality Score of individual terms that you feel are relevant in spite of their initial Quality Score grade.

It is still an imperfect science, but Google does have an amazing asset in the volume of data they can process when it comes to divining the intent of the average searcher for any given term. Let Google help you succeed by relying on AdWords Quality Score as your first indicator of how well you are targeting searcher intent.

-Tom Hale,  AdWords Specialist