By Alan Coleman on 8 Aug 2012
What is Quality Score? Quality Score is how Google rewards relevant advertising by increasing the ads position and reducing the advertising cost per click. This gives the advertiser the double benefit of increasing traffic while lowering cost per clicks.
Why does Google want to reward relevant advertising? In a word, Happiness! Relevant advertising lubricates the win-win-win between the Google searcher, the Google advertiser & Google itself. When the Google searcher sees highly relevant ads they are happy as they are getting specific answers to their questions. When the happy Google user sees highly relevant ads he/she is more likely to click on them and to make a purchase. This makes Google advertisers happy as they are getting more traffic & making more sales. They in turn invest more of their marketing spend in Google advertising. This makes Google happy. Happiness allround! 
Can I see my Quality Score? You can get a guide. In your AdWords account go to the keyword view and hover over the speech bubble beside the keyword. this will give you an insight into that words quality score. It is not the exact Quality Score figure, but it is a useful guide. 
Sounds great! What can I do to improve my Google AdWords Quality Score? The 3 most important factors in Quality Score are as follows:
- Click Through Rate - Click Through Rate is King! High CTR indicates highly relevant advertising. This is your most important QS tool.
- Keyword presence - in Adtext & on Landing Page - showing a searcher an ad that is specifically relevant to their search & taking them to a landing page which is specifically relevant to their search are great ways to boost QS. Provide the user with a seamless search to ad to webpage experience folks!
- Account History - The longer you have been advertising well on AdWords the more Google trusts you. New accounts need to be set up correctly & abide by the rules and in time they will see their Quality Score improve.
Super stuff, is there anything else I need to know about Quality Score? Yes. Here's 3 more important points:
- Having a far superior Quality Score than your competition can mean you outrank them and pay less per click. That's a serious competitive advantage.
- Do you ever do a Google search and notice there are AdWords listings down the right but none on top of the organic results? This is because Google will not show ads on top of the organic results unless they have a sufficient Quality Score! Those top of page listings get double digit CTRs so you really want your ads up there.
- For those of you with Machiavellian leanings, it is worth noting that when you increase your Quality Score you increase the cost per clicks for the advertiser in the position above you (sneaky!).
In a nutshell, AdWords Quality Score is all about happiness. And a good Quality Score is critical to successful Google AdWords advertising. We've knocked 40% off people's cost per clicks while improving their average position simply by re-engineering their adwords accounts to improve ad relevance and hence quality score. Be happy, Alan
