You Love a Keyword but Your AdWords Quality Score Stinks – What to Do

So you love a keyword in your AdWords account, it is right on target with what you sell, but AdWords has given it a very low Quality Score, what can you do?

1. First make sure that this keyword phrase is reflected specifically back on your website and on the landing page you use. You’d be surprised to find that in many cases the word you like is nowhere to be found.

2. If the word you like is only one word, pause that single word and come up with two word and three word phrases that are still a good match. You may find that Google has simply considered a single keyword simply too general and so the CTR on the single word is simply not high enough to warrant a good to excellent quality score.

Here’s an example. If you are a dentist and one of your keywords in your AdWords account about general dentistry keywords is dentist (all by itself), you may very well overtime get a low Quality Score on the word dentist. Typically a single word like this will get many impressions and relatively few clicks; negatively impacting Quality Score over time. A better phrase to use would be Auburn Hills Dentist – adding a location descriptor may very possible raise the Quality Score on this term. If you really want to use the term dentist or another single keyword in your account exact match it like [dentist].

3. If the Quality Score is poor on really on target two or three keyword phrases, try to improve the Quality Score by using dynamic text insertion in your ad text.

4. If the score does not improve in 30 days and you really need this keywords phrase, pause the phrase in the existing ad group, move the phrase and other variations of the keyword into its own ad group and use dynamic text insertion in the ad text and at the end of the display URL to see if you can improve the Quality Score. But if you take this approach, make absolutely sure that the landing page you are using also has this very specific use of the phrase in the content.

5. If the Quality Score is still bad on the phrase you like, start digging deeper to identify the problem. Consider is this phrase really pertinent to what you offer or sell? Do you have enough content back on your website to help Google to understand that this is important to your needs? Are you bidding enough to get enough exposure to even get a high enough position to improve your CTR?

If you need help with your AdWords problems, I invite you to check out the pricing and details on our AdWords account management programs. In many cases a Google AdWords Certified Partner, such as McCord Web Services, is able to unlock the performance you need to boost sales using AdWords.