Is your Adword Marketing Killing your Web Site?

Google's Page Quality Score might be costing you more than you realize.

If you don't understand the term Quality Score, and you use Google's Adwords as part of your marketing plan, then you are probably paying 10%-30% more for your Adwords campaign than you need to; why? Because Google charges you more if your Landing Page Quality is Poor.

This might come as a surprise to you, but I assure you that it is well documented and declared throughout the Adwords area – its not an underhanded way of fleecing you, its all above board (the board hidden back behind the Terms of Service, and under several levels of dull mind draining Help Files... but its there, on the board... just past that hungry lion).

Seriously, did you think Poor, Average, Great denotation beside your ad campaigns meant your ad sucked? Or that you were a Great Adword Writer? No, it has nothing to do with your ad -- the Quality Score is talking about the match-up between your Landing Page and your Adword Ad.

Quality Score is used in several different ways, including influencing your keywords' actual cost-per-clicks (CPCs) and estimating the first page bids that you see in your account. Quality Score also partly determines if a keyword is eligible to enter the ad auction that occurs when a user enters a search query and, if it is, how high the ad will be ranked. In general, the higher your Quality Score, the lower your costs and the better your ad position.

As straightforward as this is, some web site owners aren't aware that Quality Score exists, however unlike many of the SEO Pop phrases out there, this one is directly taking money out of your coffers for little or no reason at all, and certainly no ROI value.

There is another object lesson here which should not be ignored by anyone doing business on the Internet, because this demonstrates a basic understanding of the Search Engines mentality (and not just Google) – the goal of a Search Engine, is that you search, you click, and you don't come back.

Let me repeat that slowly, and let it sink in. The Goal for every visitor's experience, is that you will:

1. search for a term
2. see the page listed which answers your need
3. click on that page's link, and
4. find fulfillment on that page

...so that you do not come back asking for another page for the same search.

This goal is paramount to all other goals for a successful search engine. Google is stating this in very clear terms with the Quality Score arrangement. They are stating very clearly that if your landing pages suck, we would rather not have you as an advertiser, than to send our searches to your web site, and we don't really care how much you are willing to pay... we simply won't show the ad if you are willing to keep paying an exorbitant amount for placement.

So while Quality Score has surfaced and has been laser focused in the main stream SEO media out there as a Adwords concern, trust me, your total SEO efforts depend on your landing page's Quality Score, whether your are using Adwords or not. This is a really big deal for them, and it should be a very big deal for you as well.

Quality Score is the number one reason for sudden changes in SERPs (Search Engine Ranking Position).

A poor Quality Score is costing you much more than a few more dollars a click on your Adwords listings.Â