Keyword Quality Score has a big impact on the success and costs of your PPC marketing campaigns. Try WordStream FREE to raise your Keyword Quality Scores.

1. Keyword Quality Score – How to Increase the Quality Score of Your Keywords Keyword Quality Score has a major impact on both the success and the costs of your pay-per-click (PPC) marketing campaigns. High keyword Quality Scores mean you end up paying less for more ad exposure and higher conversion rates. The following two best practices will raise your Quality Score at every level, from your entire AdWords campaign down to a single keyword: Practice ongoing keyword grouping: Effective organization of your keyword database is crucial for successful PPC and will greatly increase your chances of achieving high keyword Quality Scores. Write compelling, relevant ad text: Better ads mean better click-through rates, which raise your keyword QS and save you money. Let's take a closer look at how you can use WordStream's keyword management tools to start improving your Quality Scores today. What Does Keyword Quality Score Mean to You? Keyword Quality Score is a dynamic figure, meaning AdWords calculates a Quality Score on the fly for each of your keywords whenever they match a user's search query. Your keyword's Quality Score may vary based on location, search query and search network. In other words, if your keyword performs better on certain searches than others, in certain areas than others, or on certain search network sites than others, its Quality Score will be higher under those circumstances. That's a lot to keep track of! But one thing is always the same: The higher your keyword Quality Score, the better your ad positioning, and the lower your costs. Basically, Google uses Quality Score to ensure that users only see the sponsored links that are most relevant to their queries. This system is good for you too, because more relevant ads get more clicks and bring you more business. Aside from variable factors like location, your keyword's Quality Score is determined by: The click-through rate (CTR) of the keyword and its matched ad. Relevance of the keyword to its Ad Group. Landing page quality. Relevance of your ad text. Historical account performance. These factors are closely related and reinforce each other. For example: Tight keyword groupings make it easier to write relevant (and compelling) ad text. Compelling and relevant ad text translates to higher click-through rates. Creating small, focused keyword groups at the outset and then building self-reinforcing campaigns gives you strong historical account performance and compounding pricing and positioning benefits. But how exactly are you supposed to organize the thousands of keywords (or more) that you need to manage for successful search engine marketing? You can't possibly look at every single keyword individually, hand-sort it into an appropriate group and then write the perfect ad for it. There's not enough time in the day. So how do you raise your keyword Quality Score so you can start increasing your visibility at lower costs? How WordStream Can Help You Increase Keyword Quality Score The WordStream keyword management system helps you create and maintain high Quality Score keywords and Ad Groups with two key functionalities: Keyword grouping tools that guide you in creating tight, relevant keyword groups, which you can easily convert into high-performing Ad Groups. Ad text creation tools that make it fast and easy to write relevant, compelling ads that get more clicks. Creating strong keyword groups is the single most important step you can take toward improving your Quality Scores and overall PPC performance. WordStream's sophisticated AdWords keyword grouping tools make it easy to segment your proprietary keyword database into manageable, closely knit groups on an iterative basis. These groups pass value down to each individual keyword, increasing the chances that your ad will show (at a low cost) for a relevant search. Let's say you're the owner of an online pet supplies store. You know the keyword group for "
dog"
is too large and too broad, but how do you begin to segment it down into narrower, more manageable groups? If you manage your keyword database with a spreadsheet application, going through all your keywords and trying to sort them into logical groups can be monstrously time-consuming and tedious. But in WordStream, you simply segment the keyword group you want to subdivide with the click of a button: This opens the Keyword Group Segmenter, which sorts through your many keyword phrases and provides intelligent grouping suggestions in a fraction of a second: Now you can begin segmenting the “dog” keyword group. Highlight a suggested term to preview the new, smaller keyword group. Start with those suggestions at the top of the list – these are the keywords with the highest frequency and most visits, so they should be your first priority. This is one of the ways that WordStream helps you determine where to spend your time to get the most return on your search marketing efforts. Learning to trust WordStream's suggestions will greatly improve your search marketing workflow. To create a keyword group, select the term in the Keyword Group Segmenter and click "
Create Keyword Group"
. You'll then see the group in WordStream Explorer on the left, under “dog.” Now, rinse and repeat! Further segmenting your parent-level keyword groups into tighter subgroups will result in increased relevance and higher Quality Score for each keyword. WordStream Makes Writing Highly Relevant Ad Text Easy Another way that WordStream increases keyword Quality Score is by helping you write more relevant ad text, thereby increasing the click-through rate of your keywords and their corresponding ads. Because WordStream is integrated with AdWords, it's incredibly easy to convert the keyword groups you've created into AdWords Ad Groups: Just right-click the keyword group and select “Create Google AdWords Group for Selected Group” from the pop-up menu. Then select the AdWords campaign you want the Ad Group to belong to. As soon as you've set the Ad Group's properties, you're ready to start crafting high-CTR text ads. After creating an Ad Group, click the Text Ads tab and then "
Add New Text Ad"
. WordStream will automatically suggest text for your ad's headline, description lines, display URL and destination URL, based on the Ad Group's keywords and properties – a big timesaver. You can (and should) adjust the ad text to your liking; the preview box on the right shows what your ad will look like when it appears in Google SERPs. Here are some factors to keep in mind when writing ads to ensure high click-through rate and Quality Score. Your ad text should be: Relevant to your product. Relevant to the keyword (and therefore the searcher's intent). Relevant to your landing page. Be sure to include the keyword and variations of it in the headline and description lines, and the display URL if possible. The ad should draw the user in and tell them what they'll gain by clicking. The destination URL should take the searcher to a landing page that corresponds to their search query and intent (not something too broad or too narrow). Remember, your ads will be useless if they don't actually help people find what they're looking for! Plus, when more people click on your ads, your AdWords Quality Score goes up and your keywords, Ad Groups and account all gain value – leading to more and more low-cost impressions as your campaign goes on. That's more opportunities for conversions, all for lower costs per ad! Try WordStream and Start Improving Your Keyword Quality Score Today Don't waste another day paying more than you have to for less than desirable ad positioning. Increase the effectiveness of your PPC campaigns, and save time and money while raising your keyword Quality Score. Try WordStream's keyword Quality Score tools free Request a live demo Sign up for a search marketing webinar Subscribe to our newsletter