Google Ads Quality Score: How to Improve It

Two advertisers target the same keyword, in the same city, on the same day. One pays $4.80 per click. The other pays $2.30. The advertiser paying $2.30 sits in position one. The one spending more than double languishes in position three. The mechanism behind this disparity has a name: Quality Score. It is the single most underappreciated lever inside a Google Ads account, and most advertisers either ignore it completely or misunderstand how it actually works.

Quality Score is Google’s way of measuring whether your ad deserves to show up. Search advertising relies on an auction system, but unlike a traditional auction, the highest bidder does not automatically win. Google factors in ad quality because showing irrelevant ads damages user trust, which reduces search volume, which reduces Google’s revenue. The incentive structure is clear: Google rewards advertisers who give searchers what they are looking for.

In the UK and US markets, average cost per click keeps rising. Legal keywords now exceed $6.50 in some US metros. Insurance keywords in London regularly hit £5.00 or more. Finance, SaaS, and home services have all seen double-digit CPC increases year over year. In that environment, a high Quality Score isn’t a nice-to-have. It is the difference between a profitable campaign and one that bleeds money every month. A one-point Quality Score improvement can reduce CPC by 8-12%. Move from a score of 4 to 7 and you are looking at 25-35% lower costs for the same traffic volume.

What Quality Score Actually Is (and What the 1-10 Number Means)

Quality Score is a diagnostic metric that Google assigns to each keyword in your account. It ranges from 1 (worst) to 10 (best) and reflects how well your ad, keyword, and landing page work together to deliver a good experience for the person searching. It is not a single measurement. It is the combined output of three separate evaluations, each scored as “Below Average”, “Average”, or “Above Average”.

Google built this system for a straightforward reason. When someone searches for “emergency plumber near me” and the ad they click sends them to a generic homepage with no mention of plumbing, that person has a bad experience. They lose trust in Google’s search results. They might switch to a different search engine. They will almost certainly bounce from the advertiser’s site. Nobody wins. Quality Score exists to prevent this scenario at scale.

The three components that feed into the overall score are:

• Expected Click-Through Rate (Expected CTR): How likely your ad is to be clicked when shown for that keyword
• Ad Relevance: How closely your ad copy matches the intent behind the search query
• Landing Page Experience: How useful, relevant, and easy to navigate your landing page is after someone clicks

Each component receives one of three ratings. The combination of these ratings produces the final 1-10 score. Two keywords with identical component ratings will receive the same Quality Score, but the reverse is not always true. Two keywords could both show a 6, but one might have “Above Average” CTR with “Below Average” landing page, while the other has all three at “Average”.

One detail that catches many advertisers off guard: the Quality Score visible in your Google Ads dashboard is not the number used in real-time auctions. The dashboard figure is a snapshot, updated periodically. The actual auction-time calculation is more dynamic, incorporating additional signals such as the user’s device, location, time of day, and other contextual factors. Think of the dashboard score as a lagging indicator. It tells you the general direction of your quality, not the precise value being used at the moment someone searches.

What Happens with Brand-New Keywords

When you add a new keyword to your account, Google has no performance data for it yet. During this initial period, the system relies on your account’s historical performance and the behaviour of other advertisers using the same or similar keywords. Most new keywords start with a score around 5 or 6. As impressions and clicks accumulate – typically after a few hundred impressions – the score begins to shift based on actual performance data.

Account history matters here more than people realise. If your existing campaigns have strong click-through rates and solid landing page scores, new keywords tend to start with a slight advantage. Conversely, an account with a track record of low-quality ads may see new keywords penalised before they have even had a chance to prove themselves. This creates a compounding effect: well-managed accounts get easier starts; poorly managed accounts face an uphill battle with every new keyword they add.

The Three Components of Quality Score, Dissected

Expected Click-Through Rate

This component answers one question: when your ad is displayed for this keyword, will people actually click on it? Google estimates this using your ad’s historical click-through rate, normalised for ad position. That normalisation detail is important. An ad in position four will naturally get fewer clicks than one in position one. Google accounts for this, so a lower-position ad with a decent CTR relative to its placement will not be penalised.

The evaluation compares your expected CTR against other advertisers competing for the same keyword. You are not measured against an absolute benchmark; you are measured against your direct competition. This means Expected CTR is harder to improve in highly competitive markets where multiple sophisticated advertisers are all writing strong ad copy.

If your Expected CTR shows “Below Average”, work through this list:

• Does your headline include the keyword or a close variant? Someone searching “accountant Manchester” wants to see “accountant” and ideally “Manchester” in the ad headline. Generic headlines like “Professional Services Available” will not cut it.
• Are you including specific, concrete numbers? “Save 20% on your first month”, “15 years’ experience”, “Delivery within 48 hours”. Specificity increases click probability because it signals the ad is not generic filler.
• Is your call to action clear and action-oriented? “Get a Quote Today”, “Book Your Consultation”, “Compare Plans” all outperform vague language like “Learn More” or “Visit Our Website”.
• Have you activated ad extensions? Sitelinks, callout extensions, and structured snippets increase the physical size of your ad on the results page. A larger ad occupies more visual real estate, which directly increases CTR. Google’s own data shows sitelinks alone can lift CTR by 10-15%.

Do not underestimate the impact of ad extensions on this metric. Adding location extensions for local businesses can increase CTR by up to 20% on relevant searches. Call extensions on mobile ads make the phone number tappable, removing friction entirely. And the cost structure is favourable: clicks on extensions are charged at the same rate as clicks on the main ad. There is no premium for the additional real estate.

Ad Relevance

Ad relevance measures how well your ad text aligns with the user’s search intent. This sounds simple. In practice, it is the component most often damaged by poor account structure.

The most common structural problem we see in audits: ad groups containing too many unrelated keywords. A dental practice puts “teeth whitening”, “dental implants”, “root canal treatment”, “orthodontics”, and “tooth extraction” into one ad group. The ad copy reads: “Expert Dental Care | All Treatments | Book Now”. That ad is not particularly relevant to any individual search. Someone looking for implant pricing sees a generic dental ad. Someone interested in whitening sees the same generic dental ad. Neither person feels the ad was written for them.

The fix is structural, not creative. Each cluster of closely related keywords needs its own ad group with dedicated ad copy. The “dental implants” ad group should contain only implant-related keywords: “dental implant cost”, “implant dentist London”, “tooth implant procedure”. And the ad copy should be specific: “Dental Implants in London | 2026 Price Guide | Consultation Available”. Now the user sees their search term reflected in the ad. Relevance goes up. Quality Score follows.

Google does not require exact keyword matches in your ad text. Semantic relevance counts. An ad for “digital marketing agency” can reasonably appear against “online advertising services” because the intent overlaps. But an ad for “web design” showing against “PPC management” will receive a poor relevance score because the services are fundamentally different, even if the same company offers both.

Ad group sizing: practical guidance

The SKAG approach (Single Keyword Ad Group) maximises relevance by building one ad group per keyword. It works, but managing hundreds of ad groups becomes unwieldy, and Google’s shift towards broad match with smart bidding has made the approach less practical than it was five years ago. A more balanced method: group 3-7 semantically similar keywords together. “Dental implant cost”, “implant treatment price”, “tooth implant fees” all belong in one group because a single ad can be genuinely relevant to all three searches. The grouping principle is meaning, not alphabetical proximity or keyword volume.

Landing Page Experience

The user clicked your ad. Now what? Google evaluates the page they land on using several criteria, and this component is where many advertisers lose points without ever realising why.

Page load speed. This is the most measurable factor. Run your landing page through Google PageSpeed Insights and look at the mobile score first. A mobile score below 60 is a problem. Below 40 is an emergency. The most common culprits: uncompressed images, render-blocking JavaScript, excessive third-party scripts (chat widgets, analytics tools, social media embeds all adding up), and slow server response times. In the UK, where mobile connections outside major cities can be inconsistent, and in the US where rural coverage varies, a heavy page creates measurable friction. Google recommends pages load within 3 seconds on a mobile connection. Many landing pages take 6-8 seconds. That gap costs money in every auction.

Mobile usability. Over 60% of Google searches in both the UK and US happen on mobile devices. If your page has text that requires pinching to zoom, buttons too small to tap accurately, or horizontal scrolling, your landing page experience score will reflect it. Responsive design is a minimum requirement, not a differentiator.

Content relevance. If your ad promises “kitchen renovation costs in Bristol”, the landing page needs to contain pricing information about kitchen renovations, ideally visible above the fold. Sending users to a homepage – the most frequent mistake we encounter during account audits – almost guarantees a poor score. The homepage is designed for general visitors. It is not designed to answer the specific question that prompted the search. Every high-spend ad group should point to a dedicated landing page or, at minimum, a specific service page.

Trust signals. Google looks for indicators that the page belongs to a legitimate, transparent business. Visible contact information. A physical address. An SSL certificate (HTTPS). A privacy policy. Customer testimonials or reviews. These elements do not need to be flashy, but they need to exist. A landing page with no phone number, no address, and no social proof sends a clear signal: this might not be a trustworthy destination for the user.

Navigation clarity. Pop-up overload, confusing menu structures, hidden contact forms, auto-playing video with sound – these all contribute to a poor experience. The principle is straightforward: can the user find what they want and take action without unnecessary obstacles?

How Quality Score Directly Affects CPC and Ad Position

The Ad Rank Formula

Google determines ad position using a calculation called Ad Rank:

Ad Rank = Maximum Bid × Quality Score + Ad Extensions Impact

This is the simplified version. The actual calculation incorporates additional factors that Google does not fully disclose, including auction-time signals, competitive thresholds, and format requirements. But the core logic holds: a higher Quality Score means you need a lower bid to achieve the same or better position. The relationship is multiplicative, not additive, which is why the financial impact compounds so aggressively.

Real-World Scenario: Three Advertisers, Same Keyword

Consider three businesses bidding on “personal injury solicitor London”:

Firm B bids the least but ranks first. Its Quality Score of 8 produces the highest Ad Rank. Firm A bids the most, ranks last, and pays the highest CPC. The financial penalty for poor quality is severe: Firm A spends more than double per click while appearing in a worse position. Across thousands of clicks per month, that gap adds up to tens of thousands of pounds in wasted budget.

The actual CPC calculation works like this: Google takes the Ad Rank of the advertiser below you, divides it by your Quality Score, and adds £0.01. For Firm B: 50 / 8 = £6.25 (the actual figure will be slightly lower due to extension adjustments and other factors). The point is clear: your Quality Score directly determines what you pay, not just where you rank.

The Annual Cost Impact Is Staggering

To make the financial implications concrete, consider a campaign generating 2,500 clicks per month:

Moving from a Quality Score of 3 to 7 saves $147,000 / £120,000 per year in this example. These are illustrative figures, but the ratios hold across industries. Published research and Google’s own documentation suggest that each point of Quality Score improvement reduces CPC by approximately 8-12%. A four-point improvement from 3 to 7 translates to roughly 32-48% lower costs. In competitive verticals like legal, insurance, or home services in the US and UK, those percentages represent substantial sums.

When CPCs across both markets continue to climb year on year, Quality Score optimisation is the most cost-effective way to keep acquisition costs under control. Increasing budget is the brute-force approach. Improving quality is the strategic one.

Seven Steps to Raise Your Quality Score

Step 1: Diagnose Before You Treat

Open your Google Ads account. Navigate to Campaigns, then the Keywords tab. Click “Columns”, expand the “Quality Score” section, and add these metrics: Quality Score, Expected CTR, Ad Relevance, and Landing Page Experience. Now you can see, for every keyword, exactly where the problem lies.

Start by filtering for keywords with a Quality Score of 5 or below. For each one, note which component shows “Below Average”. If all three components are problematic, begin with Ad Relevance. Fixing relevance through better ad group structure almost always improves the other two components as a side effect, because tighter ad groups lead to more targeted ad copy (improving CTR) and more specific landing page targeting (improving landing page experience).

Do not try to fix everything at once. Rank your low-scoring keywords by spend. The keyword consuming £500/month with a Quality Score of 3 should be addressed before the keyword spending £15/month with the same score. Prioritise by financial impact.

Step 2: Restructure Your Ad Groups

This is where the biggest gains come from, and it requires the most work. If you have ad groups containing 15, 20, or 30 keywords with a single set of ad copy trying to cover all of them, your relevance scores will never improve.

The target: 3-7 closely related keywords per ad group. “Closely related” means the same ad copy can truthfully and specifically serve all keywords in the group. “Plumber emergency”, “emergency plumber 24 hour”, and “urgent plumbing repair” belong together. “Plumber emergency” and “bathroom renovation quote” do not, even though a plumbing company offers both services.

A practical method for identifying which ad groups need splitting: pull the Search Terms report. Look at the actual queries triggering ads within each ad group. If you see wildly different search intents being served by the same ad, that group needs dividing. An ad group where “boiler repair cost” and “new boiler installation” are both triggering the same ad is a candidate for separation, because someone whose boiler just broke has different needs than someone planning a new installation.

Start with your highest-spend ad groups. Restructure those first. Moving to low-spend groups can wait. Trying to restructure an entire account in one go is a recipe for mistakes and burnout. Work through it systematically over 2-4 weeks.

Step 3: Write Ad Copy That Matches Keyword Intent

Each ad group should have at least 2-3 ad variations. Within each variation:

• Headline 1 should contain the primary keyword or a close semantic match
• Headline 2 should communicate a specific differentiator – pricing, experience, speed, guarantee, or a unique selling point
• Description lines should include a concrete detail and a clear call to action

For Responsive Search Ads (RSAs), write at least 8-10 headlines and 3-4 descriptions. Google will test combinations to find the best performers. The critical requirement is that any combination of your headlines must make sense together. “Emergency Plumber London” + “Lowest Prices Guaranteed” + “24/7 Availability” works in any order. “Emergency Plumber London” + “Wedding Photography Packages” obviously does not. Review every possible combination before publishing.

Use the pin feature sparingly. Pinning Headline 1 to always show your primary keyword can make sense, but pinning too many assets restricts Google’s ability to test and optimise. Pin Headline 1 at most. Leave everything else unpinned.

One pattern that consistently performs well: including the geographic location in at least one headline when targeting a specific city or region. “Accountant in Manchester” or “Chicago Estate Planning Lawyer” grounds the ad in the user’s context and increases both relevance and CTR.

Step 4: Fix Your Landing Pages

Landing page optimisation is not a one-time task. It is ongoing. But if you have never audited your landing pages against Google’s criteria, start with this checklist:

Speed. Run every landing page through PageSpeed Insights. Mobile score is what matters most. Above 70 is good. 50-70 is mediocre and should be improved. Below 50 requires immediate attention. The three most impactful fixes are almost always the same: compress images to WebP format, defer non-critical JavaScript, and ensure your hosting provider delivers fast server response times. If you are on shared hosting and your Time to First Byte exceeds 800ms, consider upgrading.

Content alignment. Whatever your ad promises, the landing page must deliver on immediately. If the ad says “Kitchen Renovation Costs in London”, the landing page should show pricing information above the fold. Not three scrolls down. Not behind a form gate. Right there, visible without any action from the user. The disconnect between ad promise and page content is the single most common landing page failure we see during audits.

Forms and CTAs. Keep forms short. Name, email, phone number, and a message field are sufficient for most service businesses. Every additional field reduces completion rates. On mobile, ensure form fields are large enough to tap without zooming and that the keyboard type matches the input (numeric keyboard for phone fields, email keyboard for email fields).

Above the fold. The most important content should be visible without scrolling on both desktop and mobile. This includes the headline matching your ad copy, a brief value proposition, and a visible CTA. Users decide within seconds whether the page is relevant to their search. If they have to scroll to find out, many will not bother.

Step 5: Maintain Your Negative Keywords List

Negative keywords do not appear as a direct component of Quality Score, but their indirect impact is significant. When your ad appears for irrelevant searches, people do not click on it. Non-clicks on impressions drag your CTR down. Lower CTR feeds directly into the Expected CTR component, pulling your Quality Score with it.

Establish a weekly routine of reviewing the Search Terms report. Add any irrelevant terms as negatives. Common negative keywords that apply across many B2B and B2C accounts in the UK and US:

• “Free”, “cheap”, “DIY” (if you sell premium or professional services)
• “Jobs”, “careers”, “salary”, “internship” (unless you are recruiting)
• “How to”, “what is”, “tutorial”, “guide” (informational intent rarely converts for commercial services)
• “Complaint”, “scam”, “review” (brand protection)
• Competitor brand names (unless you are deliberately targeting them)
• “Reddit”, “forum”, “Quora” (users looking for community opinions, not vendor pages)

Build a shared negative keyword list at the account level so you only need to add each term once. Apply it across all relevant campaigns. This five-minute weekly habit prevents budget waste and protects your CTR.

Step 6: Activate Every Relevant Ad Extension

Ad extensions (now called “assets” in Google’s updated terminology) influence Quality Score indirectly through CTR improvement. Larger ads attract more clicks. More clicks improve Expected CTR. The logic is circular, and it works in your favour.

Extensions that many UK and US accounts leave unused or incomplete:

• Sitelink extensions: Add at least four. Each should link to a different, relevant page. “Pricing”, “Case Studies”, “About Us”, “Contact” is a solid starting set for service businesses.
• Callout extensions: Short value propositions. “No Contract Required”, “Same-Day Estimates”, “Established 2005”, “Serving All of London”. These do not link anywhere; they simply add persuasive text to your ad.
• Structured snippets: List specific service types, brands, or product categories. “Services: SEO, PPC, Social Media, Web Design” helps users understand your offering before clicking.
• Location extension: If you have a physical office or shop, connect your Google Business Profile. Location extensions are particularly powerful for local service searches.
• Call extension: Show your phone number directly in the ad. On mobile, this becomes a tap-to-call button. For businesses where phone enquiries matter, this is essential.
• Image extensions: Still underused. Adding a relevant image to your search ad can increase CTR meaningfully, especially in competitive auctions where visual differentiation matters.

Setting up all relevant extensions takes 15-20 minutes. The CTR impact lasts as long as the campaigns run. There are very few optimisation tasks with a better effort-to-reward ratio.

Step 7: Run Continuous A/B Tests

Ad copy optimisation is not a project with an end date. It is an ongoing process. Markets change, competitors update their messaging, seasonal shifts alter user behaviour. The ad copy that performed best in January may underperform by July.

When testing, isolate a single variable. If you are testing Headline 1, keep everything else identical. Changing the headline, description, and landing page simultaneously makes it impossible to attribute any performance change to a specific modification.

Wait for statistical significance before drawing conclusions. A minimum of 200-300 clicks per variation provides a reasonable sample. With 40 clicks, one ad showing 6% CTR and another showing 3% CTR might simply be noise. At 300 clicks, the difference is more likely to be meaningful. Google Ads’ built-in ad rotation reporting will flag when one variation is significantly outperforming another, but understanding the sample size yourself prevents premature decisions.

Document every test and its outcome. After twelve months of continuous testing, you will have a body of knowledge about what resonates with your specific audience that no competitor can replicate by simply copying your current ads.

Five Mistakes That Destroy Quality Score (and Their Fixes)

Mistake 1: Sending All Traffic to the Homepage

This is the single most prevalent issue we find in account audits, notably among small and mid-sized businesses. The reasoning is understandable: “Everything about our business is on the homepage, so it should work for any keyword.” It does not work. Someone searching “commercial contract lawyer fees” who lands on a law firm’s homepage – featuring a hero image, a welcome message, and links to six different practice areas – has to work to find the information they searched for. Most will not. They will click back and try the next result. The bounce damages your landing page experience score, and the wasted click costs you money.

The fix: Create dedicated landing pages for your highest-spend ad groups. If budget or time constraints make that impossible, at least direct ads to the most relevant service page rather than the homepage. A service page for “commercial contracts” is dramatically better than a homepage, even if it is not a purpose-built landing page.

Mistake 2: Broad Match Without Guardrails

Adding “plumber” as a broad match keyword and leaving it unsupervised will trigger your ad for “how to become a plumber”, “plumber salary UK”, “plumber TV show”, and dozens of other irrelevant queries. These impressions generate no clicks, your CTR drops, and your Quality Score follows.

The fix: If you use broad match, pair it with smart bidding strategies that can learn which queries convert and which do not. Otherwise, stick to phrase match or exact match for tighter control. Either way, review Search Terms reports weekly and add negatives aggressively. Broad match combined with neglected negative keyword lists is one of the fastest ways to degrade Quality Score across an entire account.

Mistake 3: Ignoring Ad Extensions Entirely

A surprising number of accounts we audit have no extensions configured, or only one or two partially set up. Without extensions, your ad appears smaller than competitors who have them. Smaller ads receive fewer clicks. Fewer clicks mean lower CTR. Lower CTR pushes Expected CTR toward “Below Average”.

The fix: Add a minimum of four sitelinks, four callout extensions, and one structured snippet. If you have a physical location, add a location extension. If you accept phone calls, add a call extension. This takes 15 minutes and the impact on CTR begins immediately.

Mistake 4: Neglecting Mobile Landing Page Experience

A landing page that looks polished on a 27-inch monitor can be unusable on a phone screen. Text overlapping images, buttons too small to tap, forms that require horizontal scrolling, images loading so slowly the user gives up. Given that over 60% of search traffic in the UK and US comes from mobile devices, a broken mobile experience affects the majority of your ad clicks.

The fix: Segment your Google Ads performance data by device. If mobile conversion rate is considerably lower than desktop, your mobile landing page has a problem. Test every landing page on an actual phone, not just a browser resize. Pay attention to tap targets, text readability without zooming, and load time on a 4G connection. Mobile is not a secondary consideration. For most accounts, it is the primary one.

Mistake 5: Obsessive Daily Monitoring

Quality Score does not update in real time. Google recalculates it periodically, typically every few days. Checking the score daily and reacting to small fluctuations leads to a cycle of unnecessary changes that disrupt Google’s learning process. Worse, making frequent ad copy or landing page changes before sufficient data has accumulated means the system never has a stable baseline to learn from.

The fix: Check Quality Score weekly, not daily. After making changes, wait at least 7-10 days before evaluating impact. Major structural changes – splitting ad groups, launching new landing pages – can take 2-3 weeks to fully reflect in scores. Patience is not optional here. It is part of the methodology.

Quality Score Optimisation Checklist

Review this list every two weeks. Each item directly or indirectly affects at least one Quality Score component:

Transfer this list into a spreadsheet. Add date and status columns beside each item. If your account has more than 50 keywords, focusing on the 10-15 highest-spend keywords each week is more practical than trying to optimise everything simultaneously. Consistency matters more than comprehensiveness. A weekly 30-minute review habit will produce better results over six months than a one-off full-day audit.

Quality Score and Performance Max Campaigns

Performance Max (PMax) campaigns do not display keyword-level Quality Scores. Google uses signal-based automation in PMax and does not expose granular quality metrics. But the underlying principles remain identical. The quality of the assets you provide – headlines, descriptions, images, and landing pages – directly determines how effectively Google can serve your ads. Strong creative assets and fast, relevant landing pages produce better PMax results, even without a visible 1-10 score to track.

If your Search campaigns have well-optimised landing pages, those same pages will perform well in PMax. The work transfers directly.

Quality Score in Display and Video Campaigns

The 1-10 Quality Score metric is specific to Search campaigns. Display and Video campaigns use different quality evaluation systems: ad quality, targeting accuracy, and landing page experience all factor in, but the scoring mechanism differs. However, an account with strong Search Quality Scores tends to perform better across all campaign types. The landing page improvements, site speed optimisation, and creative quality discipline required for high Search scores create a foundation that benefits every campaign format in the account.

Industry Benchmarks: What Score Should You Target?

Quality Score benchmarks vary by industry because competition intensity and keyword specificity differ dramatically:

Chasing a score of 10 on highly competitive generic keywords is rarely worthwhile. The effort required to move from 7 to 10 is disproportionate to the CPC savings. A better use of time: raise your worst-performing keywords from 3-4 up to 6-7, where the cost reduction per point is largest.

Frequently Asked Questions