AdWords Quiz - How Good Are You?

Do you think you know AdWords? I thought I did, until I took the following 6 question pop quiz.

Question 1

A long page with high keyword density will always beat a short page with lower keyword density for quality score?
True or False?

Question 2

How much do images impact your landing page quality score?
A) a little
B) a large influence

Question 3

How important is it to have a site structure with your landing page? Is it ok to just have a landing page or should you create a “site” with links to relevant content, about us, contact us, privacy policy, etc?

A) Site structure is very important
B) Having links to other content pages is not important

Question 4

An opt-in squeeze page, can often have a better quality score than a long form sales page?
True or False?

Question 5

If Google originally gives you a poor QS, you can make changes to your website and Google Adwords will re-evaluate your website (hint do it right from the start!)
True or False?

Question 6

Common, Search Engine Optimisation techniques help quality score for AdWords landing pages?
True or False?

Answers

1. False! Quantity does not effect Quality score. Very suprised here. My guess is that long worded sales letters do not provide instant relevancy for the end user so they are penalised. Write your web copy short and concise so that a user can find they information they want quickly.

2. B! Images have a very high effect on QS? What? Well looks like those images of piles of cash do pay off!

3.  It is VERY important to have a SITE structure.  Increase your site ‘legitimacy’ in the eyes of Google by including links to site map, about us, contact us, privacy policy and related content

4. TRUE, an opt in sqeeuze page may have a better QS than a long worded sales page? Confusing I know!

5. FALSE, often best to resubmit with new campaign name and URL.

6. TRUE, organic SEO techniques can often help with improving your laning page QS.

I’m sure you were just as suprised as I was after taking this quiz. If you are worried don’t be as you can read my article

Adwords and Quality Score tips - Part 1

Good luck with your Google Adwords Advertising

Utopian Web Strategy

Does AdWords Hate Marketers?

Does Google hate or penalise marketers? You would think the answer is no, but the actual answer is YES! Why would Google AdWords penalise the main majority of people that generate their income? It is part of the AdWords Quality Score algorithm. Google strives to provide ‘relevant’ content for its users.

The below text is paraphrased directly from Google AdWords help section.

Web pages that merrit low landing page ‘quality scores’

“Users have consistantly provided negative feedback on several types of websites, in effect to provide a better user experience for advertisers and users, ads promoting these types of websites may recieve a low landing page Quality Score”

websites that will be penalized:

• data collection sites
• arbitrage sites
• malware
• ebook sites
• get rich quick sites
• comparison shopping sites
• travel aggregators
• Affiliates

You can read the article for yourself

http://adwords.google.com/support/aw/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=66238

Don’t get worried if you are an Adwords marketer in any of the above cases. Yes you should be concerned, but we can get around these problems.

Please read my Post on Adwords Quality Score Part 1 to start you off on tips on improving your AdWords Quality Score.

Good luck with your Google Adwords campaigns.

Utopian Web Strategy

AdWords and Quality Score - free tips Part 1

Quality score is a means by which Google AdWords passes judgement on your landing page and your pay per click advertising campaigns.  By judging the ‘value’ and ‘relevance’ of your campaign AdWords will then assign you a ranking between 1 and 10 for your keywords. Is this fair? Some say yes, some say no!

Every web strategist who uses AdWords for a living has at one stage in their career became frustrated with the power and control that Google has over them. Instead of getting frustrated and angry it is better to work out  how Quality Score works and adjust our campaign to improve its ‘relevancy’ and ‘value’.

Why did Google create the ‘Quality Score’ - It improves relevance and enhances the experience of users, according to them! Problem - we can’t do anything to change this! Solution - Work out what are the elements of the Quality score and deliver it!

Some tips for improving your AdWords Quality Score

• Click through rate ( it must be relevant if its got a high CTR right?)
• Aim for a click through rate of a least 1% - below this is deemed ‘poor’
• Keep your keywords in small adgroups to maintain ‘relevancy’
• Quality Score has 3 main elements, your landing page, keywords and click through rate
• You need related content (8-10>) pages in your website, but not necessarily on the landing page
• Site structure plays a big role in increasing your landing page QS and legitimacy. E.g privacy policy, site map, about us, related content etc.
• Make your site a real site, not just a landing page!
• Images can help to improve Quality Score

Stay tuned for part two when we delve into more tips on how to imporove your Quality Score. We will also delve into tips on creating websites for Adwords in mind.

From Utopian Web Strategy