How to Improve Your Google Ads Quality Score
Why Quality Score Matters for Your Bottom Line
Quality Score is not just a vanity metric. It directly affects how much you pay per click and where your ads appear. Google's Ad Rank formula multiplies your bid by your Quality Score, so a higher Quality Score gives you the same ad position at a lower cost. The financial impact is substantial. Moving a keyword from a Quality Score of 5 to 7 can reduce your cost per click by 28% to 37%. Moving from 5 to 9 can cut costs by 44% to 50%. Across an account spending $3,000 per month, that is $1,320 to $1,500 in monthly savings, or $15,840 to $18,000 per year.
Quality Score also determines whether your ads show at all for certain searches. Keywords with Quality Scores of 1 or 2 may have their ads suppressed entirely because Google determines they provide such a poor user experience that showing them would degrade search quality. If important keywords in your account have very low Quality Scores, you might be invisible for searches that should be generating sales.
Google calculates Quality Score from three components, each rated as "Above Average," "Average," or "Below Average": expected click-through rate (how likely people are to click your ad), ad relevance (how closely your ad matches the searcher's intent), and landing page experience (how useful and relevant your landing page is for people who click). Improving each component has a cumulative effect on your overall score and your advertising costs.
Step-by-Step Improvement Process
In Google Ads, go to your Keywords tab and add the Quality Score column along with the three component columns: Expected CTR, Ad Relevance, and Landing Page Experience. Sort by Quality Score ascending to see your worst performers first. Focus your improvement efforts on keywords with Quality Scores of 3 to 6 that get significant impressions and clicks, because these represent the biggest opportunity. Keywords with scores of 1 or 2 often have fundamental relevance problems that may require removing them entirely rather than optimizing. Keywords already at 7 to 10 are performing well and offer less room for improvement.
The most common cause of low ad relevance scores is ad groups that contain keywords with different intents. When "running shoes" and "dress shoes" share an ad group, the same ad copy appears for both searches, and it cannot be highly relevant to either one. Split these into separate ad groups. Each ad group should contain 10 to 20 keywords that share the same core intent and can be served effectively by the same ad copy. For an online shoe store, create separate ad groups for "men's running shoes," "women's running shoes," "men's dress shoes," "hiking boots," and so on. The tighter the keyword theme, the more relevant your ads can be, which directly improves both ad relevance and expected click-through rate scores.
Your ad copy must include the primary keyword for each ad group in at least two of your headlines and one description. Google bolds text in your ad that matches the search query, so including the keyword makes your ad visually stand out and signals direct relevance. In a responsive search ad, write 15 headlines where at least 3 to 5 contain the exact keyword or close variations. Pin your most relevant keyword-containing headline to position 1 to guarantee it always appears. Write descriptions that address the specific need behind the keyword, not generic store messaging. An ad for "waterproof hiking boots" should mention waterproof protection, trail performance, and specific boot features, not general "shop our great selection" language.
The landing page for each ad group should directly match the keyword intent. If someone searches "women's waterproof hiking boots" and clicks your ad, they should land on a page showing women's waterproof hiking boots, not your homepage or a general boots category page. Page load speed is a major factor, with Google penalizing landing pages that take longer than 3 seconds to load. Compress images, minimize JavaScript, use browser caching, and test your pages with Google PageSpeed Insights. Mobile experience matters especially because most Google searches happen on mobile devices. Ensure your landing pages are fully responsive, have easily clickable buttons, readable text without zooming, and no intrusive pop-ups that cover the content.
Expected CTR measures how likely searchers are to click your ad compared to other ads competing for the same keyword. Improving this requires making your ads more compelling than your competitors' ads. Add all relevant ad extensions: sitelinks to popular categories, callout extensions highlighting free shipping, returns policy, and review counts, structured snippets listing product types or brands, and price extensions for specific products. Test compelling headline variations that include specific numbers, promotions, and differentiators. "Women's Hiking Boots, Waterproof, Free Shipping, 4.8 Stars" gets more clicks than "Shop Hiking Boots at Our Store." Run A/B tests with different headline approaches and let data guide which messaging performs best.
Quality Score changes gradually as Google collects more data about how searchers interact with your ads and landing pages. Check your Quality Score columns monthly and track changes over time in a spreadsheet. When you see a keyword's Quality Score drop, investigate which component declined and address it. When you see scores improve, note what you changed so you can apply the same principles to other ad groups. Test new ad variations monthly, replacing the lowest-performing headlines and descriptions with new options. Continuously refine landing pages based on bounce rate, time on page, and conversion rate data from Google Analytics.
Improving Each Quality Score Component
Expected Click-Through Rate
This component predicts how likely your ad is to be clicked when shown for a keyword, relative to other advertisers' ads for the same keyword. It is based on historical click-through rate data adjusted for ad position, extensions, and other factors. To improve it, write more compelling ads with specific benefits and calls to action, use ad extensions to make your ad larger and more informative, and test different messaging angles. Ads that stand out from the typical competitor messaging in your industry tend to achieve above-average expected CTR.
Removing low-CTR keywords from an ad group also helps because Google evaluates expected CTR partly at the ad group level. If one keyword in your ad group has a 1% CTR while others have 5% to 8%, that underperforming keyword drags down the expected CTR assessment for the group. Move it to its own ad group with dedicated, more relevant ad copy, or pause it if the search volume does not justify the effort.
Ad Relevance
This measures how closely your ad copy matches the intent behind the keyword. The fix is almost always structural: tighter ad groups with more specific ad copy. If your ad relevance is "Below Average" for a keyword, the ad that shows for that keyword does not contain the keyword or address its specific intent closely enough. Create a new ad group for that keyword with ad copy written specifically around it.
Ad relevance also considers whether your ad addresses the searcher's broader intent, not just whether it contains the keyword text. An ad for "best laptop for students" that mentions student-specific features like portability, battery life, and affordability scores higher on relevance than one that just says "Buy Laptops" even if both contain the word "laptop."
Landing Page Experience
Google evaluates your landing page on relevance, usefulness, ease of navigation, and page speed. For ecommerce, the most impactful improvements are matching the landing page content to the keyword (sending "running shoes" traffic to a running shoes category page rather than the homepage), improving page load speed (compress images, use a CDN, minimize render-blocking resources), and ensuring a clean mobile experience. Original content on your product pages, such as unique descriptions, customer reviews, and detailed specifications, scores higher than pages with thin or duplicated manufacturer content.
Quality Score Myths to Ignore
Quality Score updates in real time. The Quality Score you see in your account is a historical snapshot that updates periodically. The actual ad rank calculation uses real-time quality signals that may differ from the displayed score. Use the visible Quality Score as a directional guide rather than an exact measure.
Adding more keywords improves Quality Score. Adding irrelevant or loosely related keywords to an ad group lowers the overall relevance and can decrease Quality Score for your good keywords. Quality comes from tight theme matching, not keyword volume.
Quality Score applies to Shopping campaigns. The Quality Score metric visible in Google Ads applies only to Search keywords. Shopping campaigns use a different relevance and quality assessment based on your product feed quality, landing page experience, and Merchant Center data. The principles are similar, but the scoring system is different.