Looking for
ways to gain an advantage in paid search? Columnist Kevin Lee has some ideas to
increase Quality Score metrics and surpass your competitors.
As you are
no doubt aware, Google recently added additional reporting and transparency to
the Quality Score (QS) metric that’s all-important in terms of calculating Ad
Rank. (If you’ve never watched the updated Ad Rank explanation video by Hal
Varian, Google’s chief economist, I recommend you take a look.)
Determining the relative importance of Quality Score components
Google has
provided advertisers with data on Quality Score for some time; what’s new here
is historical trend data visibility into three key QS components: expected
click-through rate, ad relevance and landing page experience.
While being
able to inspect these new, granular metrics is great, it’s important to realize
that all we’re gaining is an estimated importance of each of these QS
components. And just as in cooking or baking, the mere fact that you’ve got
some ingredients on hand, plus a vague idea of how much of each ingredient to
use, doesn’t predict (or result in) the best possible outcome.
Think about
these factors and scores as indicating the quality of each ingredient in a
given dish (for example, meatloaf). While great ingredients are necessary for a
great outcome, knowing the quality of each ingredient alone isn’t sufficient.
To create a world-class meatloaf, we also need an understanding of their
relative importance. Unfortunately, Google’s latest tweak doesn’t tell us
anything about this.
But while we
don’t know for certain the rank order of the quality factors that have the
highest impact on the final Quality Score, we do have a pretty good
(anecdotally derived) idea that predicted CTR is the most important one (the
others count as well, but likely less so). Expected CTR is likely to remain the
most important for many reasons, not the least of which is that it makes Google
the most money per search for them to calculate QS based heavily on that data.
It’s
important to remember that — as Varian indicates — it’s in Google’s best
interest to incentivize marketers to do things that improve their ads’
relevance (or CTR) while also making the post-click user experience better.
(Admit it, there’s still a lot of room for improvement out there — and not just
on your site!) We also have to remember that higher CTRs and relevance make
Google (and Bing, too) more money in the long run, so these incentives are
completely aligned.
TIP: If
you’ve seen a historical jump in cost per click (CPC) required to maintain
historical position, being able to inspect the historical Quality Score is a
great way to determine whether the surge in CPC was based on a QS fluctuation
on your end, or if it’s due to increased auction pressure in the AdWords
marketplace.
Improving Quality Score and other key metrics
Google
continues to make it clear that we should pay attention to improving Quality
Score. One of the great things about obtaining Quality Score improvements is
that these provide you with an edge in paid search. This edge is key — not just
to achieving the high positions for the searches that can drive substantial
profitable volume for you, but also because if you don’t have it, your
competition does (which means they’ll kick your butt).
But
improving your Quality Score isn’t the only way to ensure your ability to
remain in top positions profitably. Improvement in other areas can make a huge
difference in your long-term success. My favorites are (starting from the
things you can do at the AdWords side of things):
Reorganize
your accounts. Having poorly structured campaigns and ad groups will depress
your Quality Score. This is a change you can make at the AdWords side of the
equation.
Fix lousy ad
copy or creative. When ad copy resonates against the keywords in an ad group,
your CTR goes up (and CTR is the biggest component of QS).
Improve
targeting. This includes anything from using the right negative keywords to
eliminating poorly targeted ad impressions to using audiences and dayparting to
be there in the SERP when your most targeted customers are itching to click.
Improve
conversion rate. Whether you’re an e-commerce or multichannel merchant
business, B-to-B, lead gen or services business, anything you can do to get a
greater percentage of site visitors to take actions you value is a leverage
point. If more of your clicks convert, your allowable bid goes up.
Strive for
mobile-friendliness. This factor is related to improving conversion rate.
Remember, the mobile site visitor is increasingly important to Google, and so
Google is grading you on mobile-friendliness. (TIP: While using the Google
Search Console can identify the more glaring problems, also make sure you walk
around the office, grab a bunch of devices and test your site yourself.)
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Increase
average shopping cart size (for retail). This includes getting high gross
profit customers to call in and get upsold by reps.
Increase
social media engagement of clicks that come in through search. Social can have
a multiplier effect on marketing.
Improve your
own response rate or fulfillment rate. Customers like speed. That’s why Amazon
Prime rocks. But speed in follow-up is also important in any service business.
Don’t forget
that all of the above strategies will help your overall business, not just your
performance in search. They will eliminate friction, make your other media more
effective and deliver conversions at higher values, thus delivering a win to
your company’s top and bottom line.
Source: - http://searchengineland.com/quality-score-leverage-points-275327
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