What is Google Ads Landing Page Score? And How to Improve It

Your Google ad isn’t like the advertising of yesteryear; it’s less a picture than a doorway. When customers click on your ad – be it Search, Display, or Discovery – they’re transported to your website. Where they end up is called the landing page.

People, they say, make their first impressions in just a few seconds. That’s doubly true on the internet. Just as a simple click can take them to your site, it’s just as easy to leave. For businesses, that means your site needs to be compelling and informative. You need to deliver on the promise of your advert.

But your landing page doesn’t solely affect your conversion and bounce rates. It also determines your Google Ads Quality Score. This key metric not only controls the likelihood of appearing when bidding for an ad slot but also affects how much you’ll spend on advertising.

Below I’m delving into the key information to consider when selecting and optimising your landing page for a Google Ads – I’ll explain what the Quality Score is and how your landing page can improve it.

What is the Google Ads Quality Score?

Google uses the Quality Score to assess the relevance of your ad’s keywords to your copy, your landing page, and the user’s intent. It is graded from 1 to 10, with 10 being the highest.

Businesses often make the mistake of assuming Google wants them to appear – or at least puts businesses first. After all, you’re paying Google for the privilege of advertising. Except, it’s not true. Google’s real intention is to match searchers with answers – the more relevant the answer, the better. Nothing else matters.

The Quality Score distils this belief into a single numerical factor, and it’s key to determining your ad rank and the success of each bid. Put simply, the higher your Quality Score, the lower your cost per click (CPC).

When Google determines your ad’s ranking in the Search Engine Results Pages (SERP), it checks the CPCs and the Quality Scores. Here’s the formula:

Max CPC x Quality Score = Ad Rank

To improve your ad’s rank, you have two options: (1) increase your bid or (2) improve your Quality Score. With the landing page a key component in the Quality Score, altering it can see your CPCs substantially reduce. Let’s see how.

What is a Landing Page Quality Score?

While the Quality Score is provided as a single number to advertisers, it’s actually a sum of its parts. Starting with 1 – the lowest possible value – additional points are added depending on how well you meet Google’s criteria.

The three factors are:

• Expected Click Through Rate (eCTR)
  
• Ad Relevance
  
• Landing Page Experience

Compared to most Google models, its scoring system is surprisingly simple. See here:

As you can see, the Landing Page score is ranked from 0 to 3.5 – composing over a third of the possible points available.

eCTR relates to how likely someone is to click on your ad when searching for an associated keyword. This metric does not account for ad positions, extensions, or other formats. Ad relevance is also related to your keyword. In short, it’s how well your ad matches the search intent behind the keyword. It disincentivises advertisers from going too broad – but capturing more clicks – thereby reducing the relevance of results to the end user.

Landing page experience isn’t directly related to keywords. It measures “how relevant and useful your website’s landing page will be to people who click your ad,” according to Google. Your landing page should be “clear and useful.”

What are Google Ads Landing Page Requirements?

“Related” and “useful” are vague terms that don’t readily explain how your landing page should connect to your keyword. Think about it from your customer’s perspective. Does your landing page deliver on the promise of the advert?

Let’s go through these requirements:

• Your landing page should quickly and easily answer a customer’s query. If you advertise holiday deals in London in your ad, your landing page should allow customers to skim an engaging, informative page to find what they’re looking for. Think of this as the “design” factor. Complex, confusing designs and dense, laborious copy will harm this factor.
  
• Does your landing page help your customer? Does it answer their question? Deliver the desired service? Does it make them want to stick around? If the answer is no, consider how to closely match your ad’s promise to the information or tools you provide on the landing page – that could even mean picking a different, more specific landing page.
  
• Specificity is also important for relevance. A common mistake is to direct site traffic to your home page. Your page should directly match your ad’s copy. If you talk about a specific product or product collection, ensure that’s where you link. That should also include mobile pages – if customers are accessing your site from their phones, your landing page needs to be mobile-optimised.

Simple Techniques to Boost Your Landing Page Score

Your landing page experience can skyrocket with a few simple tweaks:

1. Improve page speed. Slow page loading times are frustrating. Every second your customer waits results in a higher bounce rate. Reducing image quality is an easy way to turbocharge load times.
   
2. Mobile optimised. Mobile is the future of the internet. Ensuring your site is mobile-optimised allows customers to see your landing page on the go, reducing your bounce rate.
   
3. Tailor your landing page. Matching landing pages to ads is powerful; matching ads to an audience segment is cheating. Target your landing page to audience segments by creating unique ad campaigns.
   
4. Add a clear CTA button. Your call to action is what you want a customer to do. Adding a compelling CTA button funnels customers towards your final goal – be it scheduling a consultation or buying your services or products. Trust me – it works!

Want to learn more about landing pages? Choose from one of these posts below:

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