If you’ve been making and releasing content for quite some time, you might be familiar with Google Rankings. After all, getting your content on Search Engine Results Pages is your primary goal! Chances are you want to ensure that your website ranks high on the SERPs when your audience does a search. So, the Website Quality Score then becomes an essential catalyst for measuring how well your post or ad is doing compared to competitors.
The score determines how much you must bid on keywords to get a strong position in the Search Engine Results Pages. But how can you check the quality of your website? What criteria do you need to check? And is it even a Google Ranking Factor?
This article will walk you through everything you may need to know about Website Quality Score.
What’s a Website Quality Score?
Quality Score is Google Ads’ measurement of the relevancy of your Pay-Per-Click (PPC) ads. Google calculates the score from 1 to 10 by analyzing the combined performance of three specific components:
- Expected Click-Through Rate (CTRS)
The probability of clicks your ad will get if shown;
- Ad Relevance
How closely your ad matches your user’s search intent; and
- Landing Page Experience
The relevancy of your landing page when people click your ad.
Each component will be evaluated with a status that ranges from Above Average, Average, and Below Average. This assessment is based on a comparison of other advertisers’ ads that appeared for the same keyword in the last 90 days.
If any of these components score average or below average, you may need to make some modifications or improvements.
The higher your Google Quality Score is, the less you’ll spend to have your ad appear in your desired spot.
How can you check the Quality Score of a website?
Checking the quality of your website is as easy as following the instructions below. So before anything else, you have to make sure that you sign in to your Google Ads account. Afterward, follow these steps:
- On the left side of your menu, select Keywords;
- Click the columns icon in the upper right corner of the table; and finally,
- Open the Quality Score under ‘Modify columns for keywords.’ Choose any of the following components to add to your statistics table:
- Quality Score
- Landing Page Experience
- Expected CTR
- Ad Relevance
You can also view your past Quality Scores by choosing the same component metrics as the four above but with the words ‘(hist.)’
And this is how your statistics table should look:
Image Source: Search Engine Journal.
You can also use other website quality metrics such as WordStream to get an instant report and overall grade for your Google Ads Account.
Tips to Improve Your Quality Score
If, by chance, your results are the same as the example shown above, with most of these components gaining below average to average results, worry not. After all, it’s not the end of the world for you or your webpage. You can still do something about this by improving your Quality Score in four ways!
Keyword Research and Relevant Keywords
By conducting a keyword search, you are helping your business and website find relevant keywords. Of course, these should be suited to your ad and your audience. Also, concentrate on the terms most likely to bring qualified visitors to your website and sales team. Using Long-Tail Keywords would be one of the best options, as this drives your business’s best results.
Long-Tail Keywords also keep your CPC low because they’re so precise that fewer organizations try to target them.
Try to Improve Your Click-Through Rate (CTR)
Expected CTRs define the probability of how likely your ad will be clicked if shown to the people. So, you must improve your CTR if it’s low! Here are some ways you can go about it:
- Hook in your audience by making compelling ad copy and Calls-to-Action. The more convincing you are, the more chances there are for people to check you and your products out.
- Make sure that the details in your ad match your keywords’ intent. If your keywords and details contradict each other, this may confuse your customer. As a result, you may lose out on the possibility of sales.
- Highlight a unique benefit of your service/product. This will intrigue your customers because of the possible advantages they can get. These benefits can range from free shipping, percentage offs, or sales.
Monitor and Update Your Landing Pages
Ensuring that your users have a smooth Landing Page Experience will make them want to return to you. Thus, you must give them what they want as you initially promised. For example, if they’re looking for vintage cabinets, they’ll click on your ad about vintage cabinets. Therefore, it’s best to make sure that they’re brought immediately to your cabinet directory and not elsewhere.
Conversion Rates can also be used as an alternative Landing Page experience. It may not have any bearing on the status of your Landing Page, but it can be a helpful tool for measuring and optimizing it. Last but not least, it’s in your best interest to make sure that you make your site as mobile-friendly as possible. We’re in the digital age, where phones are primarily used for browsing and searching. So, making sure that they can easily navigate between your pages is something these users deeply value.
The Mobile-Friendly Test can help you see how well your landing pages work on mobile devices.
FINAL THOUGHTS
A Website Quality Score indeed is an excellent tool that can tell you how a page is currently doing. Understanding how to check the quality of a website is an excellent practice, especially if you’re handling one. But like Google themselves said, this Quality Score shouldn’t be optimized or aggregated with the rest of your data. After all, it’s not a Key Performance Indicator.
It is, however, a diagnostic tool that can determine how ads for specific keywords affect the user experience.
Website Quality Score also allows you to monitor your progress, but is it a Google Ranking Factor? It might be, and also, it might not. No one knows yet; even now, Google has yet to confirm nor deny if it’s actually a ranking factor. But it’s undoubtedly an advantage for all websites.
