Anyone who has recently used Google AdWords knows of the Quality Score rating. This rating can be your best friend, or it can be a nightmare that forces you to pay extra for ads. The problem is that many people are using the old SEO mentality of trying to tweak their keywords for the best performance, but this is an obsolete metric that Google isn’t prioritizing as much as other aspects of your campaign and website. The landing page has changed, and it’s time to keep up with these changes if you want to have the most successful advertising campaigns.

Keyword Importance

Keywords are exceedingly important to the success of your advertising campaign. Using a keyword like “candles” when you’re selling shirts will doom your campaign and leave Google scratching their heads. At the same time, you have to consider how important keywords really are.

In the past, people would keep tweaking and changing their keywords in order to get the highest Quality Score. They would use their keywords in the title, description and content to show Google how relevant the keyword was to their website and campaign.

While that was fine before, it doesn’t impress Google any longer. You’re now expected to produce a landing page that performs well. Just building one that considers keyword relevancy isn’t going to give you a high Quality Score.

Experience Metrics

The new landing page is built for experience. Google has long considered itself a search engine that praises user experience, and it’s getting better at finding websites that truly deliver on these expectations. While relevancy is important, you now have to consider how people interact with your website.

Landing pages should be made with quality material and content that can produce the most page views while keeping people on the website as long as possible. For example, using a link bait title that practically forces people to click your link isn’t enough. Those people also need to stay on the website for your landing page to be successful.

Google will also check your landing page for basic information, such as contact information and a privacy notice. This shouldn’t be surprising since Google has been pushing marketers to add this information for a long time, and it will directly affect your landing page.

The new landing page has the right keywords, but it should primarily be a place that offers consistent quality to visitors. Failing to do this will reduce your Quality Score regardless of which keywords you use.

Rapid Changes

You should also understand that your Quality Score will constantly change based on how your landing page performs. What started as a Quality Score of three can change to a two or four at the end of the day depending on how many visitors you got and how they interacted with the page.

The change in Quality Score will also affect your landing page’s performance in AdWords. Be sure to always consider quality and not just keyword relevancy. Not only will this produce better results from users because they demand quality, but it will also keep Google happy in regards to your advertising campaign.

Quality Score is an important metric that will determine how much you have to pay for ads and how frequently those ads will show up. At the same time, you also have to remember that this isn’t the only thing to consider when running a campaign. You can sometimes get a low Quality Score but still have a successful campaign with the right keywords and content. Just remember to change your landing page so that it always produces the best user experience.