I am sure our clients, and others who take advantage of advertising using Google AdWords, wonder why I frequently talk about landing pages and quality score. Well, they are simply two things you can’t ignore!
The people of Google write about understanding landing page experience, and it is important to know what they say about it. It is also important for anyone wanting to maximize their investment in Google AdWords to use the advice they offer.
Here is how they start their article about landing pages, “Landing page experience refers to how good we think someone’s experience will be when they get to your landing page (the web page they end up on after clicking your ad). You can improve your landing page experience and Quality Score by focusing on three things: relevant and original content, transparency, and ease of navigation.”
How do your landing pages stack up?
Don’t forget the ever important quality score. Here are a few considerations that Google says can come into play when calculating “Quality Score.”
- The keyword’s past click through rate (CTR): How often that keyword led to clicks on the ad
- The display URL’s past CTR: How often the display URL received clicks
- The account history: The overall CTR of all the ads and keywords in the account
- The quality of the landing page: How relevant, transparent, and easy-to-navigate your page is
- The keyword/ad relevance: How relevant the keyword is to the ads.
- The keyword/search relevance: How relevant the keyword is to what a customer searches for
- Geographic performance: How successful the account has been in the regions targeted.
- If targeting the Display Network – The ad’s performance on a site: How well the ad has been doing on this and similar sites.
It is important to note the number of times in the above list that Google looks at account performance. It is easy to not worry about a particular keyword or a handful of keywords that are not performing well, but it is a costly mistake to ignore the impact poor performing keywords can have on your ad display placement.
Here is more from Google on Quality Score.
Don’t forget. When it comes to Google AdWords campaigns, there are “Two Things You Can’t Ignore: Landing Pages and Quality Score.”