SEO & Ads
Quality Score: what it is and how to raise it to pay less per click
Quality Score is the 1-to-10 grade Google gives your ads. It looks at three things: how likely people are to click, how well the ad matches what they searched for, and what they find when they land on your page. A high score means you pay less per click and rank higher without raising your bid.
The three components
- Expected CTR: how likely someone is to click your ad for that search.
- Ad relevance: how well the ad copy matches the keyword's intent.
- Landing page experience: whether the page delivers what the ad promised, loads fast and works on a phone.
Why sending all your traffic to the homepage is expensive
Google evaluates relevance at the keyword level. If your ad says "branding agency" and the person lands on a homepage that talks about six different services, landing page experience drops. Quality Score drops with it, and CPC goes up.
The structural fix is one page per intent: a dedicated page for each service, with its own H1, its own copy and its own proof. The ad, the keyword and the page say exactly the same thing.
Core Web Vitals count too
Landing page experience includes speed and stability. The reference thresholds are LCP under 2.5 seconds, CLS under 0.1 and INP under 200 ms. A heavy landing page makes every click you buy more expensive.
Action plan
- One landing page per ad group, with literal message match.
- A short form above the fold and WhatsApp as an alternative.
- Optimized images, fonts and JavaScript.
- Monthly review of search terms and negatives.