Internet Marketing Blog » Quality Score

Freshen Up Your PPC Campaigns

Alan — Fri, 08 Jan 2010 08:10:31 +0000

To keep your PPC campaigns fresh and up to date it’s important to keep updating and adding keywords. This will keep you ahead of the game in your market place but a word of warning – it sounds easier to do than it actually is and maintaining momentum can be a challenge. Very quickly you can find that you are duplicating keywords and losing focus on your services and products. It's easy to wander away from relevant keywords so here are some ways you can maintain concentration:

Google’s Keyword Suggestion Tool

The Keyword Suggestion Tool can be found in the AdWords Tool section.

The suggested keywords are generated from data that has been built up from past Google searches. They are just suggestions so keep your website and its products and services in mind at all times so you don’t include something needlessly. The aim should be converting leads so needless amounts of traffic with low conversion rates should be avoided.

Search Query Reports in Adwords

A search query report shows which searches led to a minimum of one click on an advert. If your campaign is heavy in broad matching they can be useful. Aim to have your top keywords exactly matched to reduce the CPC and increase the Quality Score. You can also identify irrelevant traffic and also reduce irrelevant impressions.

Google Insights

This tool allows you to examine trends in your keywords and also provides extra information such as breakout keywords and the percentage number of searches carried out over a month.

At Click Consult, we help keep our client’s pay per click campaigns ahead of the competition.

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Pay Per Click Landing Page Optimisation

Laura — Fri, 18 Dec 2009 08:10:28 +0000

A well designed website will undoubtedly increase your conversion rates and sales. Professional designs instill trust and create credibility with users. Website design and the relevant use of landing pages can play a big part in creating successful PPC campaigns.

By optimizing PPC landing pages you can significantly increase your Quality Score which in turn will improve your ad position for a lesser cost. In addition it can quickly convert more people that use your website.

Here are some tips for improving your lead generation:

Call to Actions

By adding a Call to Action or button and positioning it in a noticeable way on the PPC landing pages, you are more likely to get conversions. You have to tell users what you want from them – don’t assume they will know what to do themselves.

Minimal Navigation

Good PPC landing pages do not distract users. Take away the left, right or top navigation from the PPC landing pages. Keep it simple with your company logo at the top of the page with a link to the homepage.

State All Important Information Clearly

People who are searching for a service can be in a hurry. Make sure that they can find all the information they need within the first five seconds. If they can’t they are likely to go elsewhere.

Easy to Scan Text

Use copy that is concise and to the point. Don’t be tempted to fill your PPC landing pages with reams of industry language. Users need to find information quickly so break up copy into bite-size chunks of information or bullet points.

At Click Consult we can help you to develop profitable PPC campaigns. Contact us to find out more.

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How A New Website Will Affect Your PPC Campaign

Laura — Mon, 07 Dec 2009 08:08:44 +0000

If you are launching a new website, this will have a major impact on your PPC account. In truth it can break your pay per click campaign. Launching a new website is a global change that has huge repercussions.

Over time you will naturally learn more about your audience, what engages them, how to provide a better user experience and how to maximize your conversion rates. With this your website will evolve. There may also come a time when your website needs to change its name or take a new URL. If you have looked into everything thoroughly and have an experienced PPC team to support you then this decision is likely to be a good one. Yet no matter how well prepared you are, there will be some bumps along the way.

The launch of a new website is a global change and will affect your performance quite severely.

Every PPC ad will need the display and destination URLs updating. This requires you to pause all your existing ads and launch new ones with the updated website information. Google AdWords will view these new ads as new submissions which means your Quality Score needs rebuilding.

Google AdWords then evaluates the website site or landing page. It can take time for this to happen.

Any global changes to a PPC campaign are flagged up. Search engines like to see slow, gradual changes which increase performance over time. By changing all the ads at once you can shock the system.

To get expert advice on how to manage global changes to PPC campaigns such as launching a new website contact us at Click Consult.

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Getting Your Quality Score Back on Track

Laura — Fri, 27 Nov 2009 08:11:32 +0000

Your Quality Score may become dented due to some major overhauls on the PPC account – perhaps you are launching a new website. There are times when this simply cannot be avoided but how do you get that account back on track?
Take this time to optimise the account structure by creating tighter ad groups and using more relevant and focused ad text. This should attract higher click-throughs. Review these changes every couple of weeks before you launch your new website or make the restructure changes. The aim is to make these changes gradually.

If you are launching a new website, you need to pause old ads and write new ones. Even if the old ads are paused, AdWords will still acknowledge their presence and this will aid the re-build of your quality score. So, rather than changing your existing ads, pause them and write new ones.

If you require increased search volume, carry out keyword research to add new terms. Again, do this well in advance of the launch.

You can also temporarily increase your keyword bids. Your ad position is going to drop so by increasing bids you can increase volume and, for a time, increase the click-through rate. However Google is aware of this tactic and will take this into account when assessing a Quality Score.

Be patient. It will take a little time for the account to readjust and gain back its Quality Score.

To help you through challenges with your PPC account contact Click Consult.

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Ad Text Optimisation

Laura — Tue, 24 Nov 2009 08:08:13 +0000

Global adjustments to your PPC account will undoubtedly affect the performance of your campaigning for better or worse. Even small changes can have big consequences so getting the changes right is crucial.

Ad text optimisation should be an ongoing process. This is where you constantly analyse your ad text to eliminate those that underperform and add new variations to run in tandem against those ads that are top performers. However there are times when a drastic overhaul is called for and you need to apply changes to your ads all at once.

Within E-commerce, special offers are always changing and you need to highlight any changes in your pay per click ad text. There are some great ways to improve your click-through rate such as adding ‘25% off', ‘Free delivery’ and ‘Buy 1 Get 1 Free’ offers, but a word of warning – making big changes to ad texts can cause problems with your Quality Score.

Keywords and ads have an accrued performance history and if you make sweeping changes it can negatively affect the PPC account. This means if all your ads in a group are amended your Quality Score may dip.

To avoid this, use foundation ad texts. These are the ads that are within the ad group but do not highlight your special offers. They still use keywords and are benefit driven but will not mention constantly changing offers.

For more advice on ad text optimisation and for help with pay per click, contact us at Click Consult.

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Should you choose PPC?

Laura — Mon, 26 Oct 2009 09:20:53 +0000

The internet has opened up a whole new world to society. In essence it has created a completely different society of its own. With the birth of a new society comes new innovations in every day matters. One of the ways in which the internet has revolutionised the world is with marketing. Online marketing is a completely different ball game to traditional marketing.

The same mistakes may apply to a certain extent, but with new territory comes new dangers. Internet marketing is a vast and all encompassing subject. There are many different types of internet marketing to choose from – you are literally spoilt for choice. The key to your online success is to choose the right one.

Is PPC for you?

PPC may not be your ideal marketing method, but there are a few attractive factors about it that you may want to give a try. Most businesses, if not all, can benefit in some way from PPC advertising campaigns. PPC is a form of affiliate marketing with other websites. Basically you will be placing your ad on the web page of another site.

The advantage of this is that you hit your target market with a huge percentage of accuracy. With PPC, if it is done right, you will only expose your PPC advertising to your chosen target market. This improves your chances of making profits and turning those who see your ads into paying customers.

This target market accuracy is a huge benefit that any company can do with to improve their profit margin. The Google Quality Score is a valuable tool to be used to improve your accuracy in attracting your target market.

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The Right Questions to Ask

Laura — Fri, 16 Oct 2009 08:13:37 +0000

You may think that by managing your pay per click campaign alone you are saving money on management fees. However, it may be time to think again as hiring an agency can increase your PPC campaign’s performance and save your budget in the long term.

If you’re new to working with a PPC agency you may find the prospect daunting, and feel unsure of what you should be asking and how to identify whether their quotation is inline with their service offering. Here are some basic questions to ask any potential PPC agencies:

1. How is the Google Quality Score Managed?

This is based on ad text, keywords and landing page relevance. They should be aiming to provide you with smaller, targeted ad groups requiring fewer keywords. This then enables the agency to write specific ad text which will in turn increase your click-through rates. Keywords should be contained in the landing pages to ensure relevancy and ultimately increase conversions to sale.

2. What will the agency do first when the account is taken over?

The best response would be to carry out an account restructure or fix incorrect settings.

3. What reporting do they offer?

As a standard, you should be getting reports to outline completed work and also provide you with a concise analysis of the account.

4. Will the agency provide access to Adwords and Google Analytics?

A good agency will set up a Google Analytics account on your behalf and provide access to Adwords. However this should only be to view. Leave changes to the agency.

If you are looking for help with your pay per click campaigns contact us at Click Consult.

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Real Improvement to Google Quality Score Calculation

Click Consult — Mon, 24 Nov 2008 11:20:17 +0000

As a PPC campaign manager it is very pleasant to see Google make a change to Adwords that actually will help a PPC advertiser like myself with what seems like little gain for themselves. I feel that while Google are an excellent company at providing the best service to its customers it is constantly finding new ways to get more money from PPC advertisers.
The change to the Quality Score calculation that is now in place basically takes into account the position of your ad against click-through-rate (CTR). Because ads in higher positions tend to have a higher CTR in the past these would accrue a better Quality Score than a potentially more relevant ad below purely because an advertiser has a higher bid. This is now not the case as the fact an ad is in a lower position is taken into account in the CTR part of the Quality Score calculation.
This change leads to the overall aim of preventing PPC advertisers from bidding their way to the top and continuing to reward better quality ads regardless of position a higher quality score. Thanks Google, I often see much less relevant ads appearing above my customers’ ads purely because the competitor can afford a much higher bid, hopefully this will stop happening in the future.
The biggest change that this will make to actual PPC campaign management is when I set new campaigns live. In the past I would also start with a high bid, monitor it very closely and lower it down through the first few days. This would help the campaign gain a good early CTR and start to build a good Quality Score. Now I can start campaigns with lower bids in the knowledge that their average position will be taken into account and Quality Score will still start to build up despite a potentially lower CTR.

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Quality Score Crunch

Click Consult — Tue, 28 Oct 2008 11:20:51 +0000

Google always has been telling us that Relevancy and hence Quality Score should be the main campaign objective. It’s even introduced an improved magnifying glass tool to assist in doing so.

But after a few years of long battles for ad & keywords relevancy I can assure you that the Quality Score is propaganda designed to detract our attention form real issues. Let me explain myself…

As a PPC (Pay Per Click) consultant I spend a lot of time on keywords and negatives research, keywords categorisation and creation of specific ad texts. But in case of broad match it can be a waste of time as Google Quality Score based ad display generally tends to display ads for more general keywords with higher Click Through Rate (CTR) which leads to higher CPCs and CPA. In other cases Google takes a really liberal approach to your keywords set interpretation, which leads to the same results.

There are other mysteries surrounding Quality Score … In many cases if you have an old campaign with a few really general keywords on broad match with no negatives and badly versed ads, it will work better than a new campaign with all the Quality Score tricks that Google tells you to use!!! Obviously Google rewards you more for spending money on a long run, than Quality Score.

If you really want to bit Google’s system, use analytics and additional keyword research tools (outside Google boundaries) to discover niche keywords and negatives, but I can guaranty you, you will never know 100% what your ads are appearing for.

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Pay Per Click – the Changing Face of Google Quality Score

Mike — Tue, 23 Sep 2008 07:47:09 +0000

Google recently announced that they are changing the way their algorithm awards quality score to your pay per click account.

There are 3 main changes which are occurring to the current system:

Firstly there will no longer be a static per keyword quality score. Ad quality will now be evaluated each and every time a user performs a search. Google say that this will help improve the accuracy of served pay per click ads with the most accurate and up to date being displayed. Effectively, the theory is that your ads will be served on a greater filter of relevancy, enhancing the user experience further.

'First page bid' will be replacing 'minimum bid'. This 'first page bid' will give you an estimate of what bid price it will take for you to achieve first page pay per click listings, these estimates are based on the exact match version of the keyword, quality score and advertiser competition. In my opinion this change creates a greater battle to achieve first page listings. When you see advertiser competition is growing month on month for pay per click and Google’s recent change to serve fewer ads per search query, this latest change looks again to be a way for Google to increase the likelihood of higher CPC’s being paid.

The other main change being made is that keywords will no longer marked 'inactive for search'. Under the previous system if your keyword was of a poor quality score and under the minimum bid required it would be made inactive for search. With the new 'first page bid' system this will no longer be the case. It is important to remember though, that poor quality keywords will not achieve a great level of traffic. This is because their quality score and bid probably aren't good enough to have competitive placement on the pay per click search listings.

I'm not too sure what to make of these latest changes to the quality score system, with anything related to pay per click; the proof will be in time. One thing is for sure, these changes promote the need for high quality score to be achieved, especially given the every growing market of pay per click advertisers.

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