Can't Get Above 4/10 Quality Score?

[joemagaro]

I'm having a really hard time getting much more than 4/10 quality score on a lot of my keywords in Google Adwords. It's really frustrating because my website is HIGHLY relevant to each of the keywords that I'm using, but for some reason Google's algorithm doesn't think so.

The website is a2xanxiety -dot- com. We sell an herbal remedy for social anxiety. So all of our keywords are like, "social anxiety remedy," "social anxiety cure," "herbal anxiety relief," etc. The best I've gotten was 7/10 on "social anxiety dating" for whatever reason. But some of the keywords that I think are most relevant can't get any higher than 4/10.

I've divided the keywords into several different ad groups where keywords are grouped into categories based on relevance and then a relevant ad is shown for that whole category. And each ad goes to a different landing page where I include the keyword several times in the sales copy and in the meta keyword and description tags.

I thought that I might be able to improve the quality score by further dividing the keywords into more categories. So I took just a handful of keywords and made landing pages specifically for those keywords. One of which was "alternative anxiety treatment." The specific page is a2xanxiety -dot- com/alternative-anxiety-treatment . I jammed the page with keywords to the extent that it showed up a lot, but not in an obnoxious way for someone reading the page. I used the SEOBook Keyword Density tool to find out how the density of that keyword on the page, because I heard that you should have between 2 and 4% keyword density for your main keyword. Each of the keywords that I based the page off had slightly more than 2% keyword density. Sounds perfect, right?

I make the Google ad specifically for that page. I include part of the keyword in the title of the ad (can't fit the entire keyword) and the entire keyword in the body of the ad. I link to the landing page for that specific keyword. And BAMM!!! 4/10 quality score.

WTF??

Can anyone help me here? I'm willing to do this for each keyword, but I don't want to waste my time if it's not going to help...

[friendclk]

I sometimes get keywords that start out as 4/10 but within a week or two they are already 5 or 6 out of 10.

You just need to keep your bid high, so you get lots of clicks, and high CTR. Usually your quality score will go up when you do this.

[KenThompson]

Joe,

I took a look at your landing page for alternative anxiety treatment, and
I can see why your quality score is so low.

The page is not optimized for alternative anxiety treatment. It seems more
like it's optimized for social anxiety.

The page title, your H1 tag, I didn't see any mention of alt anx treatment
until significantly below the fold - like, in the basement.

If Google did not tell you, my guess is they think your landing page is a thin
site. I have to say I would agree.

Each landing page must be optimized for the keywords you're using. I know
you realize that, but at least that page does not seem to reflect it very well.

Back to thin sites. I did not see much content about alt anx treatments. You
would do well to post articles for that and provide links to them on that landing
page.

Then, do the same for every ad group. Pain to do, but for Google it's what you
need to do.

Just try it with one ad group and landing page, and I guarantee you will see an
improvement.


Ken

[joemagaro]

Originally Posted by KenThompson

Joe,

I took a look at your landing page for alternative anxiety treatment, and
I can see why your quality score is so low.

The page is not optimized for alternative anxiety treatment. It seems more
like it's optimized for social anxiety.

The page title, your H1 tag, I didn't see any mention of alt anx treatment
until significantly below the fold - like, in the basement.

If Google did not tell you, my guess is they think your landing page is a thin
site. I have to say I would agree.

Each landing page must be optimized for the keywords you're using. I know
you realize that, but at least that page does not seem to reflect it very well.

Back to thin sites. I did not see much content about alt anx treatments. You
would do well to post articles for that and provide links to them on that landing
page.

Then, do the same for every ad group. Pain to do, but for Google it's what you
need to do.

Just try it with one ad group and landing page, and I guarantee you will see an
improvement.


Ken

Thanks for the detailed advice, Ken. I thought that even though I had a lot of mentions of "social anxiety," it would count as being relevant for "alternative anxiety treatment" because they are both related to anxiety. I mean, it's not like I'm trying to sell lawnmowers on the website. But I guess Google is a stickler about having that specific keyword or something very similar repeated over and over again.

I was kind of hesitant to change anything above the "basement" in the main copy because we have been getting a 4% conversion rate from the traffic that we're driving. But if we want to make Google more cost-effective so that we can increase our CPC bids and our traffic, it's not going to cut it to just have 4/10 quality score.

For the record, though, for several "social anxiety" related keywords I have only 4/10 or 5/10 quality scores. Go figure.

What do you mean by linking to articles? Are you suggesting to write articles on eZineArticles or something like that that are relevant to the keyword? Just the link to them on the landing page will increase the quality score? I'm skeptical of doing anything that will distract them from the main purpose of the landing page, which is to get a sale.

[joemagaro]

Just tried a quick adjustment by getting rid of all the "basement" copy and putting "alternative anxiety treatment" in the H1, the metas, and throughout the copy. According to SEOTools, the keyword density is 2.97% for "alternative anxiety treatment." Google still tells me the quality score is 3/10.

If you want to check it out, the page is a2xanxiety -dot- com/alternative_anxiety_treatment

[Bruce NewMedia]

I put your site page address into Google 's external KW tool.
These are some of the words Google sees associated with the page. In order from top of list(there were more btw)

herbal remedy for anxiety
herbal anxiety relief
social phobia
herbs for anxiety
anti anxiety medication
panic attack treatment
stress and anxiety
natural remedies for panic attacks
panic attacks
anxiety panic attacks
anxiety relief
anxiety medication
relief anxiety
anxiety and depression
relief from anxiety
stop panic attacks
anti anxiety herbs
panic attacks treatment
panic attack symptoms
treatment for panic attacks
panic anxiety attacks
cure anxiety and panic attacks
stress management
medications for anxiety
anxiety attacks
_____
Bruce

[joemagaro]

Originally Posted by brucerby

I put your site page address into Google 's external KW tool.
These are some of the words Google sees associated with the page. In order from top of list(there were more btw)

herbal remedy for anxiety
herbal anxiety relief
social phobia
herbs for anxiety
anti anxiety medication
panic attack treatment
stress and anxiety
natural remedies for panic attacks
panic attacks
anxiety panic attacks
anxiety relief
anxiety medication
relief anxiety
anxiety and depression
relief from anxiety
stop panic attacks
anti anxiety herbs
panic attacks treatment
panic attack symptoms
treatment for panic attacks
panic anxiety attacks
cure anxiety and panic attacks
stress management
medications for anxiety
anxiety attacks
_____
Bruce

Yes, I use most of those keywords. In fact, "alternative anxiety treatment" was one of the keywords that Google recommended. Ironic that they recommend it, and yet they don't think it's relevant lol

[KenThompson]

Originally Posted by joemagaro

Thanks for the detailed advice, Ken. I thought that even though I had a lot of mentions of "social anxiety," it would count as being relevant for "alternative anxiety treatment" because they are both related to anxiety.

I understand. But no, that's not how it works with adwords.

If your ad group is for alt anx treatment, then those are the
words that must be on the destination page for that ad in
that ad group.

It's really pretty easy. But that is exactly what you must do.

Change the landing page title, skip the stop words and just
put alternative anxiety treatment in the title for the landing
page.

Put it in the H1 tag, other words are ok in the H1 but no other
keywords besides that phrase.

Avoid keywords stuffing, as I'm sure you know, but make the
content only about alt anx trtmnt. Other LSI words are fine as
you would naturally use them.

Landing page articles...

They will make that particular landing page for that phrase more
relevant.

Just write, or get, about 3-5 articles on different aspects or topics
related to alternative anxiety treatments. Avoid going overboard
with writing "seo'd" articles. Just natural writing about that topic.

Make sure you use that phrase in the article titles. But make the
titles unique with no other keyword phrases in them.

Upload to your site and link to them on the landing page for that
phrase. Do not link to them from any other pages on your site.

Google does think your site is relevant for that phrase, but that
result has nothing to do with adwords. Totally different ballgame
with adwords and landing page relevancy.

Do the above and see what happens.


Ken

[joemagaro]

Originally Posted by KenThompson

I understand. But no, that's not how it works with adwords.

If your ad group is for alt anx treatment, then those are the
words that must be on the destination page for that ad in
that ad group.

It's really pretty easy. But that is exactly what you must do.

Change the landing page title, skip the stop words and just
put alternative anxiety treatment in the title for the landing
page.

Put it in the H1 tag, other words are ok in the H1 but no other
keywords besides that phrase.

Avoid keywords stuffing, as I'm sure you know, but make the
content only about alt anx trtmnt. Other LSI words are fine as
you would naturally use them.

Landing page articles...

They will make that particular landing page for that phrase more
relevant.

Just write, or get, about 3-5 articles on different aspects or topics
related to alternative anxiety treatments. Avoid going overboard
with writing "seo'd" articles. Just natural writing about that topic.

Make sure you use that phrase in the article titles. But make the
titles unique with no other keyword phrases in them.

Upload to your site and link to them on the landing page for that
phrase. Do not link to them from any other pages on your site.

Google does think your site is relevant for that phrase, but that
result has nothing to do with adwords. Totally different ballgame
with adwords and landing page relevancy.

Do the above and see what happens.


Ken

At least overnight, this has seemed to improve the quality scores a little bit. I don't have any 3/10 quality scores any more. Everything seems to have moved up 1 point or so (i.e. 4/10 became 5/10, etc.)

One thing I noticed is that I accidentally made one of the ads link to a page that I hadn't even uploaded yet. I still had the campaign paused so nothing ever happened, but even that had a quality score on it. I wonder how they based the quality score off a landing page on my site that didn't exist yet. Is it possible that the score came purely from the ad and the keyword's relevance to my site as a whole? How much time does it usually take for Google to crawl my new landing pages and update the quality score on them?

[Carl-Reed]

The CTR of your ads has a larger effect on your quality score than the optimization of your page.

Keep split testing different ads, spot the winners and dump the losers.

You should aim to have an average CTR of at least 5% on each campaign to boost your QS.

[joemagaro]

Originally Posted by Carl-Reed

The CTR of your ads has a larger effect on your quality score than the optimization of your page.

Keep split testing different ads, spot the winners and dump the losers.

You should aim to have an average CTR of at least 5% on each campaign to boost your QS.

!!!

5%!!!???

None of my campaigns are getting more than 1%.

That's got to be a symptom of the subject of the search though. If you're searching to buy a handicap scooter, there's a much higher chance that you're going click on an ad than on something like an herbal supplement. That makes sense though that a high CTR would improve the quality score. The keywords that I was using that had low CTR's probably had the lowest quality scores.

[EndLevelSEO]

I can usually get 7/10 without doing anything. Make sure you have your Keyword in your Title. Also your short description should be the same as your meta tag.

Also check to see you use your keyword and it's variations in your H1, H2, H3.

Underline, bold and italicize your keyword a few times. Wait a bit and you should see your rank rise.

Also if your page is named example.com/your-keyword/ and that is where your links landing page is sent your rank will be higher.

The rest of it depends on if people actually click on your ad. Your meta tag/short description should be catchy and welcoming enough for people to click on.

Hope this info helps.

[alexei_aus]

I use searchstatus firefox plugin to check density of the keyword on a page. Works well for quality score

[tryinhere]

Originally Posted by joemagaro

If you want to check it out, the page is a2xanxiety -dot- com/alternative_anxiety_treatment

the page does not work ? but i doubt that it will be a problem for long, as i see google slamming the door on that puppy's tail before to long and suspending the campaign or your account.

pills potions that work miracles for everyone is really not going to cut it, but given that, the real doozy is the fiver testimonial on video. they see that and it's good night momma.

as mentioned add the articles as mentioned above and allow some time to take effect, given that you boat is still floating.

[Carl-Reed]

Quality score is all about CTR. If your ads aren't getting clicked enough, Google aint getting paid, and they'll penalize you with a low quality score, showing your ads less regularly.

To boost your CTR, try splitting your ad groups up til theres no more than 10 keywords in each group. Write ads which contain the keywords of each group and adjust your bids until your ads are showing up in positions 2-3.

Also, use negative keywords to prevent your ads showing up for irrelevant searches.

To find negative keywords to use, click on your campaign, then click the keywords tab, then click 'See Search Terms' > ALL.

Adjust your date range to the last month.

Now you'll see all the actual search terms your ads have been displaying for. You WILL notice a LOT of irrelevant searches. Every time your ad shows for an irrelevant search and doesn't get clicked it affects your overall CTR, so take all those irrelevant keywords and stick them in your campaigns nagative keyword list.

TTFN

[joemagaro]

Originally Posted by tryinhere

the page does not work ? but i doubt that it will be a problem for long, as i see google slamming the door on that puppy's tail before to long and suspending the campaign or your account.

pills potions that work miracles for everyone is really not going to cut it, but given that, the real doozy is the fiver testimonial on video. they see that and it's good night momma.

as mentioned add the articles as mentioned above and allow some time to take effect, given that you boat is still floating.

Except that there are other herbal remedies that are quite similar to ours that have been advertising for years.

[tryinhere]

Originally Posted by joemagaro

Except that there are other herbal remedies that are quite similar to ours that have been advertising for years.

not arguing with you or doubting you, I just spend my days getting clients accounts reinstated with google after suspension, some of them also run fake fiverr testimonials. just putting it out there for you, and wish you well moving forward.

[Tad 100]

Ok I will help you diagnose quality score problems and you will answer:

Does your slapped keywords match your ad perfectly?
Does it show up in the headline of the ad?
Is your landing page is clearly about that keyword, and is your keyword used repeatedly on the landing page?
Does your landing page link to other pages on your site and other quality web sites that are about that keyword as well?
How many people will leave your site after they hit your landing page?
How many hit the back button to search on Google?
How much time people spend on your site?
Is large number of affiliates bidding on keywords and sending Google clicks to your site?
Google like one site per advertiser and don’t like affiliates. Is your site heavily template or pre-fab content?
Is your site a review site that compares multiple products, and you are an affiliate for any or all of them?
Are there over-bold claims on your site?

Anything overstated, exaggerated will get a human editor in Google to calm you down.

Home it helps.