Jun 12

How to Quickly Improve Your Quality Scores

quality score 21 Comments »

Here’s a nice visual step-by-step tutorial on how to quickly improve quality scores in your AdWords account. The new interface gives you the ability to add filters that instantly show you Big Trouble spots within your account, as well as Big Opportunities.

Like this sort of blog post? If so, let me know in comments and I’ll do more of them. Got more questions? Let me know those as well.

View All Ads

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Click the Ads tab to view all ads in your account.

Filter Your Ads

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Near the top right, click the Filter and views dropdown button and then select Filter ads.

Filter for Low CTR, High Impression Ads

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1. From the dropdown menu, change the > ("greater than") sign to < ("less than"). Then enter the CTR percentage for the ads you want to see. All these ads will be below the CTR you set. In the example above, I’ve set the threshold CTR at 0.1%. That means only ads with 0.09% CTR or lower will survive this filter.

2. Click the + Add filter rule link to bring up another row for a rule. Change CTR to Impressions. The comparison should automatically change to >= ("greater than or equal to"). Select the threshold amount of impressions. In the example above, I’ve chosen 1000. So only ads that have received 1000 or more impressions will survive the filter.

3. Select the Save filter checkbox to bring up a text box for naming the filter. In the example above, I call it Low CTR, High Impr. I will now call upon this filter whenever I want to find the lowest CTR ads that are getting a lot of impressions.

Click Apply to save and activate the filter.

 

Find the Low CTR, High Impr. Ads

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The ads that remain in the dashboard will be your worst performing ads with a significant number of impressions.

Go to the Ad Group with the Low CTR Ad

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Click the ad group name to go to that ad group.

Check the Current Keywords

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Click the Keywords tab to show all the keywords in the ad group of the low CTR ad.

Study the keywords, then either peel some keywords into a different ad group, pause or delete some keywords, or rewrite the ad to be more relevant to the keywords in the ad group.

Make Changes – Edit the ad

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Return to the Ads tab.

Mouse over the text of an ad to bring up a pencil icon to the right of the ad. Click the icon to begin editing the ad. If you’re doing this for the first time, you’ll see the warning message shown above. Select Don’t show this message again by checking the box, then click Yes, I understand to reassure Google that you’re OK with your ad statistics being reset.

Edit and Save the New Ad

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Change any of the five lines of your ad, then click the Save button.

By constantly targeting the lowest performing of your ads, you can systematically improve your quality scores across your account.

*Note: if you’re split testing ads in an ad group, then make sure you pay attention to the split tests before making changes to a single ad. Respect the test, and wait for a winner or a statistical dead heat before making changes.

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Let’s end with a joke:

 

Feb 11

Atoning for the Twin Sin

Landing Pages, Testing, quality score 3 Comments »

Save the dates: February 23 and March 2, 2009, from 10-11am EST, for a two-part telecourse on AdWords Checkmate. Learn an advanced technique for doubling CTR and conversion rate – even (heck, especially) in highly competitive markets. Check it out before your competitors do…

Whenever you encounter twins in a movie or novel, you know there’s trouble brewing. From the Biblical account of Esau and Jacob to the Shakepearean mishaps in "A Comedy of Errors" (where there are two sets of twins with identical names, Antipholis and Dromio, which is why so many people get stoned before watching the Bard), to the wily conniving of Hallie and Annie in The Parent Trap (or Sharon and Susan, if you’re into the 1961 Hayley Mills original), duplication has always brought in its wake confusion and opportunities for mischief.

(Now don’t get offended if you’re a twin – I’m talking about the other one, not you ;)

Duplicate Content Penalty

Google doesn’t like twins much either. Or triplets. Or octuplets.

That is to say, Google penalizes web pages that it deems to be near-exact copies of existing web pages. It won’t let them appear in search results.

You can understand why. If I have a page that ranks highly for "game show buzzer" (don’t ask ;), Google doesn’t want me making 9 more copies of the page and dominating the entire first page of search results.

So Google rewards the first page it finds with all the search engine mojo it deserves, and slaps all subsequent copies with Duplicate Content Penalty.

And that, boys and girls, is about all I know about Search Engine Optimization. And all I thought I needed to know.

Until…

The AdWords Quality Score Duplicate Content Penalty

Google decided to apply the very same rule to AdWords landing pages. This means, if you’re split testing landing pages to find the very best one, you may end up with Poor quality scores for all the keywords pointing to that landing page.

And the landing page will look perfect. The right title tag, the right content, the right format, everything perfect.

Except that it’s a copy of a page already indexed by Google.

How to Avoid the Twin Sin

If you haven’t yet made this mistake, here’s how to avoid it:

1. If you have a landing page that’s already indexed by Google (that is, it shows up on the left "organic side" of search results), test it as a destination URL in AdWords to make sure you’re getting a good quality score for your important keywords. If not, fix the title tag, header tags, content, inbound and outbound links, etc. All the basic SEO stuff we AdWords people have been forced to learn. (See Grade Grubbing with Google for details.)

2. Add the following meta tag between the <head> and </head> tags at the top of every new page you create to test against the original:

<meta name="robots" content="noindex,nofollow">

How to Atone for the Twin Sin

What if you’ve already made the mistake? And your quality score is miserable, and you can’t afford clicks, and you don’t know what to do to improve that landing page any more?

Google, in their infinite benevolence, has given us mortals a chance to receive absolution for the Twin Sin. We can petition the Mountain View Olympians to remove pages from its index. Here’s how:

Go to https://www.google.com/webmasters/tools and sign in with your Google account. Add your site and get it verified by adding tags or a tiny HTML file to the site (so Google knows you have FTP access to it and therefore can be assumed to be the owner).

Then, from the Dashboard, select "Tools" and click the "Remove URLs" link.

Then select + New Removal Request and enter the URL of the page you want removed from the index (make sure you don’t choose a page that’s got good search engine rank right now).

The best practice is to index your best-performing landing page, since that’s the best place to send organic traffic (remember, that kind of traffic is free!).

Then add the "no index" tag to all the new landing pages you’re testing against the original. When you find a winner, change the original page to reflect the improvements. That original page is still indexed, recently updated (which Google loves), and a more effective sales tool. And then you repeat the process with your next round of split tests, always keeping the new pages off the Google radar with the "no index" tag.

And now, if you’ll excuse me, my evil twin wants to go eat some cake for breakfast.

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Bonus Quotes

When I was born the doctor took one look at my face, turned me over and said, "Look, twins!" 
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When I have a kid, I want to put him in one of those strollers for twins, then run around the mall looking frantic. 
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Jan 09

Will Good SEO Help My AdWords Campaigns?

quality score No Comments »

A reader wonders:

You say in the book that the number of websites that link to your website can infleunce your adwords rank. I thought links only helped your organic listings.

So you are saying that a website with solid SEO would be ranked higher on adwords than the same website, ad etc. without optimized SEO?

My response:

Yes, that’s right. Your quality scores are determined in part by the relevance of your website for the search term. Google determines this by on-page and off-page factors (including quality inbound links).

AdWords is definitely turning into "SEO-lite" as Google recognizes that maintaining a high quality search experience requires applying the same standards to ads as to organic listings.

For more information, see my recent newsletter article, "Grade Grubbing with Google."

Jan 03

Resuscitating keywords with poor Quality Score

quality score 1 Comment »

A reader wonders:

I took some of my most active keywords and moved them out of one ad group into their own ad specific ad group. The only problem is they are being copied with their crappy quality score intact. I was hoping they would generate a new, higher quality score in their own specialized ad group. Any way to circumvent the bad history and start a star out with a clean slate?

My reply:

Quality score is based on the interaction between keyword, ad, and landing page – and wrapped up in the overall quality assessment of your account and website. If you simply move a keyword into a new ad group with a different ad, you’ve changed only one small part of the equation.

If you create a different landing page specific to your keyword (one that follows Google’s guidelines), you will see an improvement in quality score as soon as Google sees your new keyword.

Now – some keywords are never going to have great quality scores, regardless of what you do. That’s because they have a “Google-wide” history of low CTR, or just don’t get searched much. In that case, realize that Google is grading on a curve, and that everyone bidding on that keyword is suffering the same indignity. All you have to do is be better than your competitors – you don’t need to see that Gold Star of “Great” next to every keyword.

So to answer your question – there’s no “clean slate.” There’s just improvement. But as long as you’re playing the game according to Google’s rules (which basically means aiming to give a good quality experience to the humans who see your ads), you should see better quality scores by adhering to the best practices Google preaches.

For a comprehensive guide to improving your quality score,

Dec 26

How to Save an Account with Lousy Quality Score

quality score No Comments »

A reader wonders:

I now manage several campaigns for clients who had someone else initially set up their campaigns. They are a terrible mess and have horrible CTRs. I’m curious (since part of the Quality Score is calculated by keyword history) if I should just kill off those old campaigns (delete or pause?) and start new ones that are better organized?

My response:

You should definitely stop doing things that annoy Google. And poor quality score is the most important "Google is Not Amused" metric.

Horrible CTRs are bad for you, regardless of what Google thinks. So immediately start writing better ads.

Pause poorly performing keywords based on profitability first. If the keyword is losing money (costing more than it’s bringing in), then pause it.

You don’t need to delete entire campaigns, since Google attaches quality score only to the elements within those campaigns: keywords, ads, and landing pages.

In fact, even if you delete the entire account and start over, that won’t help your quality score if you send traffic to the same lousy web site.

Check out this month’s Seismograph at the Ring of Fire online marketing club: an interview with AdWords account manager and Quality Score expert Kristie McDonald about upgrading your quality score. This interview is only available within the Ring of Fire. Give the Ring of Fire a try – the first month is free. Learn more here: http://askhowie.com/ring2009.

 

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