Keyword & Ad Relevancy - How They Boost Your Quality Score

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Keyword & Ad Relevancy - How They Boost Your Quality Score

By Reena Shohet | Published on 06/10/2008 | AdWords Resources , Improving Conversions , Keyword Research , Pay Per Click Basics |

Build high quality relationships between your ads and keywords

The relevance of each keyword to its ad group and ad creative has a tremendous impact on your Quality Score.

The below diagram demonstrates how a strong relationship between all components of your PPC campaign leads to increased:

Relevancy
Click through rates
Quality Score
Conversion-oriented metrics

The relationship path from keyword to ROI

Compare these relationships:

Keyword: Dell laptops

Ad group: Notebook general terms
Ad text:

Notebooks on Sale
Great range of notebooks
Amazing Prices. Buy Now
www.addisplayurl.com

Immediately there's a disconnect between the keyword and the ad group. Ideally, the ad group and ad text should be focused on the keywords "Dell" and "laptops". Now look at:

Keyword: Dell laptops
Ad group: Dell laptops
Ad text:

Huge Range of Laptops
Visit our online store for great prices
on an amazing range of laptops.
www.addisplayurl.com

This one starts better, but the relationship between the ad group and the ad text lets it down. Although the "laptop" terminology matches the user's query, "Dell" is not mentioned.

So here's the 3-step process to make sure your keyword relevancy is as air-tight as possible:

Group your keywords into focused ad groups - remember your ads are created per ad group. The more focused your ad group, the easier it is to create a relevant ad.

For precision targeting, you could potentially create one ad group per keyword as with the example below. It really depends on what you're marketing and what your objective is. Certainly I wouldn't put more than 20 words in an adgroup.

Created highly focused ad groups

Write targeted ads for each ad group and enter keywords or keyword if creating one ad group per keyword for granular targeting
Use your keyword in your ads - ideally in both your ad title and text. There is then a clear relationship between the user's search query and the ad.

It's also far more attractive to the searcher as they're seeing exactly what they asked for.

Using the previous example, for a search term of "Dell laptops" we could write an ad such as:
Dell Laptops on Sale
Great range of Dell Laptops &
Accessories at Amazing Prices.
www.addisplayurl.com
Send visitors to a landing page that also contains the keyword (we take a deeper look at landing pages in the next post).

To check you've achieved this, ask yourself:

Can I write one ad that would apply for every keyword in this ad group?

If not, warning bells should go off. You could probably concentrate your ad group further and break the 'odd-one-out' keywords away into their own ad group. Then ask yourself again whether one ad could successfully target all keywords in the group.

Example

I have a 'low cost keywords' ad group that contains the keywords:

Cheap widgets
Cheap widget
Budget widgets
Budget widget
Discount widgets
Discount widget

Writing one targeted ad to include all the above keyword variations is not ideal. Ideally, you'd split these keywords into 3 separate ad groups - cheap widget, budget widgets, discount widgets.

Three separate ad groups

Each ad group would then have ads that were focused on one main search term. This one's a bit obvious but it demonstrates the point.

Campaign Structure

Given what we've learned about keyword relevance, it makes sense that we structure our campaigns based on this relevancy chain.

A themed campaign that's structured into targeted keywords, ad groups, and ad creative contributes to your Quality Score and is also far easier to measure.

Campaign Building Help

Specialized software can build the perfect campaign structure for you, while forging a strong chain of relevancy between every part of your campaign. From keyword to ad group to ads to landing pages.

Example
SpeedPPC builds powerful PPC campaigns, starting with a foundation of specific search phrases. Ad groups and unique URLs can be created per keyword - automatically. Text ads can be created for every single keyword, and dynamic landing pages generated for every search term.

Through SpeedPPC's automatic process, this takes minutes of your time, instead of months.

You are also able to track every part of SpeedPPC campaigns in your tracking software.

Take the time and check out what Campaign Building tools like SpeedPPC can bring to your business. More advertising reach with higher Quality Score, lower minimum bids and less of your time adds up to powerful campaigns with far greater profits.

In the next post we'll take the relevancy chain further and talk about achieving higher Quality Score with better landing page quality.

Article series: This is article 3 in a 5 part series. Other articles in the series are shown below:

1. Quality Score – Best Friend or Worst Enemy?
2. Raise Your Click Through Rates for Better Quality Score
3. Keyword & Ad Relevancy -How They Boost Your Quality Score
4. Achieve Higher Quality Score with Better Landing Page Quality

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About the Author

Reena Shohet is a PPC marketing specialist and the Product Manager for SpeedPPC. Increase your profits by overcoming the Top 7 Challenges of PPC marketing. Discover how and sign up for a FREE Email Course to Improve your PPC marketing - visit www.SpeedPPC.com.

Article Series

This article is part 3 of a 5 part series. Other articles in this series are shown below:

Quality Score – Best Friend or Worst Enemy?
Raise Your Click Through Rates for Better Quality Score
Keyword & Ad Relevancy - How They Boost Your Quality Score
Achieve Higher Quality Score with Better Landing Page Quality
Indirect Quality Score Influences - Do You Know Them?

Comments

Comment #1 (Posted by Nat) |

Do I understand you to be saying, by way of your second ad group example, that the name of the ad group itself makes a difference, in addition to whatever quality the ad copy itself has?

Comment #2 (Posted by Reena Shohet) |

Not exactly, quality score is impacted by the relevance of keywords & ads (within that ad group) to the search query. I've just used similarly named ad group names in my example to make it clearer to follow.

Comment #3 (Posted by Nat) |

1. Thank you for your response. I added a privacy policy as you suggested but how long (if ever) will it take for Google to notice and alter my quality score as a result? How much of a change in score can I anticipate from this alone?

2. I noticed my name was hyperlinked, and was very dismayed to see it is a mailto: link that gives anyone - and presumably including spam bots - access to my name and email address. this is a serious problem you should have your web master correct (or fire him and get someone else to correct) immediately.

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