More people are on the internet now than ever before, making it essential for companies to take advantage of online marketing to grow their up-and-coming businesses. With Google being the world’s largest and most frequented search engine, maintaining exceptional Google ad relevance is a must. However, doing so is much easier said than done, especially for less tech-savvy business owners.
That’s why Bear North Digital put together six tips and tricks to help your company improve Google ad relevance and thrive in today’s digital marketplace.
Bear North Digital is a leading full-service digital marketing agency that helps companies reach their full potential. If you need a trusted and experienced e-commerce PPC agency to improve your business’s online presence and overall success, contact Bear North Digital.
What Is Ad Relevance?
Ad relevance refers to how close an online ad matches a user’s Google search by analyzing the relationship between the keywords, landing page, and advertisement. Maintaining ad relevance requires you to develop engaging Google ads that appear when someone types in specific keywords. You want to incorporate the keywords into the advertisement without sounding forced or irrelevant.
For example, if you want your Google ad to target Wisconsin residents looking for real estate agents, you may consider incorporating the keywords “real estate agents in Wisconsin” into the ad. Since this is an exceedingly common search phrase, incorporating it into your ad will help it pop up whenever someone types it into Google, putting your business in front of more potential clients.
Again, when creating Google ads, always remember the following:
- Ads should always match keyword searches
- Ads must correspond with the landing page
- Ads must line up with the user’s search
If your Google ads contain everything above, you can put more eyes on your brand and products, driving more traffic to your website.
How Google Measures Ad Relevance
Google ranks advertisements by classifying them under one of the following categories:
- Above average
- Average
- Below average
You always want your ad relevance to fall into the average to above-average rank by maintaining a strong connection between your ad copy and the keywords you choose to populate it with.
Most Google ads receive a below-average ranking when they incorporate too many topics into their advertisement or are overly broad with their description. This often causes your ad to pop up on unrelated search topics, significantly decreasing the user’s experience.
Companies that copy ads from another ad group without editing or improving the keywords to match the new ad group tend to receive below-average ratings.
How Quality Scores Affect Ad Relevance
Every business utilizing Google Ads receives a Quality Score to determine their ads’ ranking. It also determines how much money the business will pay per click. Maintaining a high Quality Score is vital to ensure your ads reach as many users as possible while diminishing their overall cost.
Google determines your Quality Score by evaluating the following:
- Ad relevance
- Landing page relevance and experience
- Expected click-through rate
Your company will receive a score between one and ten, with one being the worst and ten being the best.
A high Quality Score and ad relevance will make your ad much higher in the rankings, potentially earning more clicks. This will also lower your cost per click (CPC), furthering its benefits.
How To Utilize Quality Score Reporting
Google Ads displays Quality Scores at the keyword level. Many companies benefit from modifying the column view to assess the Quality Score metrics. This makes it easier to view and track your advertisements’ performance.
You can also view your advertisements’ Quality Score history by altering the time periods to a month-over-month or day-by-day assessment to spot score changes. Viewing and comparing your ads’ Quality Score will help identify areas of improvement and make adjustments to increase their score and relevance.
For example, if Google ranks your landing page experience and ad relevance as above average but your expected click-through rate as below average, you can take measures to improve your click-through rates without altering other aspects of your ads.
Six Tips To Improve Your Google Ad Relevance
Now that you understand what ad relevance is and its impact on your Quality Score, you can learn how to improve it so your company can grow and thrive. Below are some efficient tips and tricks to help improve your Google ad relevance.
1. Develop Specific Advertising Groups
Since creating broad ads will adversely affect your ad relevance, you want to make them as specific as possible to target your primary demographic. If your company offers several services, divide them into distinct categories to reach more people interested in that specific service.
For example, if you run a digital marketing company, you want to develop ads for each service you offer instead of cramming everything into one ad. Create an ad for content marketing, one for email marketing, and so on.
Clients are more likely to click on specialized ads for the service or product they’re searching for rather than broad advertisements covering a wide range of categories.
2. Choose Keywords Carefully
Since you want to make your advertisements as specific as possible, choose keywords that directly correlate to your ad group’s theme and landing page. You also want to incorporate close keyword variants to further its reach. It’s best to include between five and 20 keywords for each ad group, if possible.
That said, most businesses have more success incorporating long-tail keywords into their advertisements than single-word variations. This strategy often makes ads more specific, helping them reach users looking for certain services or products and leading to more possible conversions.
It’s important to note that ads with distinct, long-tail keywords typically receive less traffic and impressions than short, single-word keywords. However, the quality is much higher since it’s more relevant to the user, making them more effective in the long run.
3. Incorporate Keywords Into the Ad Text
Although you want to include keywords in an advertisement’s title, you should also incorporate them into the ad text. Adding keywords to the ad text will make it more relevant to the user since it includes their search terms, making them more compelled to click on the ad. You can also include the same top keywords in the headline, display URL, and description to boost your ad ranking.
Just remember that you want your ads to sound natural and relevant. Don’t try to overstuff keywords to the point of sounding inorganic. This can make a negative impression on users, decreasing their chances of clicking on the ad.
4. Make the Ads Simple and Compelling
Again, you don’t want to bombard users with a wall of copy or complex sentence structures. You want to create compelling yet simplistic advertisements highlighting the unique characteristics of your products or services. This will help your ads stand out while making them easy to understand.
Developing personalized copy with a strong call to action (CTA) will encourage the user to click on the ad while making the product/service more relatable. You want the CTA to explain what the user will be doing to make it more persuasive and engaging.
5. Always Send Users to a Relevant Landing Page
Again, landing page relevance is a key component to your Google ad’s success. You always want to direct users to a relevant landing page that matches your advertisement to a T. Sending the user to an unrelated landing page will significantly hinder your ad’s relevance, making it difficult to grow your online business.
For example, if you create an ad for bicycle repair, but the landing page focuses on selling BMX bikes, it will frustrate the user and diminish the ad ranking. You always want the landing page to provide what’s promised in the ad to improve user experience and your ad rank. Also, adding keywords to the landing page with relevant information will further improve the ad’s success and reach, so keep that in mind when developing landing pages.
You want to keep up with your company’s mobile landing page performance as well. Since many people browse the web on smartphones and other mobile devices, you want the landing page to be mobile friendly.
Studies show that over half of mobile users leave web pages when they don’t load within three seconds. Slow loading speeds often occur because of:
- Multiple or slow redirects
- Overly large page sizes
- Slow servers
Always optimize your landing pages to fit mobile devices to reach more clients and enhance their overall experience. Google has a few tools to help you evaluate your mobile landing page’s technical aspects, allowing you to assess and turn them over to your web developer for improvement.
6. Develop and Test Numerous Ads
Creating engaging, high-quality Google ads doesn’t happen overnight. It often takes time and improves with experience. It’s best to create numerous ads with fluctuating copy, keywords, and offers to see what works best for your company’s marketing goals.
Since Google rotates ads within specific ad groups automatically, you can evaluate the success rate of each and base future ads on the most successful one. Performing routine A/B tests and assessing your advertisements’ performance will help enhance your ads’ quality and make them more relevant to users.
What Happens If Enhancing Your Company’s Ad Ranking Doesn’t Work?
If your business has a high Quality Score and ad rank but doesn’t experience quality conversions or increased sales, you might be a victim of ad fraud. Many cybercriminals steal ad spend from businesses utilizing online advertisements. It’s become very popular over the last few years and can have disastrous effects on your company.
Unfortunately, stopping online fraudsters isn’t easy. You must do everything you can to block fake clicks and gather evidence to prove your claims if you decide to take legal action. Always alert the advertising platform or network if you believe you’re a victim of ad fraud.
Contact Bear North Digital for First-Class Online Advertising Services
If you want to increase your company’s ad relevance to put your brand in front of more people and increase revenue, contact Bear North Digital. Our team will help develop outstanding online ad campaigns to take your budding enterprise to the next level. We will tell you how long it takes for Google Ads to work while creating top-quality ads that further your products/services’ appeal.
Give Bear North Digital a call at (218) 216-8692 for outstanding online advertising services to improve your keyword relevance today!