Hacks and myths busters are great to have around as friends. They tend to collect various types of information one can only imagine. Every topic has myths to bust and here are 6 myths about landing page and quality scores that will change how you view business models in general.
Today, landing page quality scores and pay per click ads (PPC) drive sales in online business. PPC ads is a marketing tool that digital marketers use every day.
Quality scores are essential for a landing page to effectively carry out its purpose- which is simply to get more traffic to your webpage.
Want to transform your business for the better?
Sign up for this free Inbound Readiness checklist
Although, there is still debates around the actual length of control that marketers have, most would agree that the quality of the landing page impacts its quality scores.
Let’s start with how landing page quality affects quality scores? According to Google – ‘Quality Score is an estimate of the quality of your ads, keywords, and landing pages. Higher quality ads can lead to lower prices and better ad positions.’ Quality of a landing page is definitive to e-commerce businesses.
Its purpose will not hold value with poor quality images and keywords which do not carry the value proposition of the service or product that any e-commerce business wants to display.
So, why is it so important to be aware of these myths regarding landing pages and quality score. Well, that the answer to that is quite straightforward. Because quality yields traffic and conversion rates are high. Since you paid for the ads, your efforts are beginning to reap the benefits of your ideas.
Here is why this myth needs a little busting. If your landing page is ‘spiderable’, and readable, you have pretty much followed every step according to the textbook. The ad copy is relevant, and quality score is high.
So is the navigation and the safety of the landing page. Why? PPC ads and keywords relevance will bring your quality score up as it is used to determine the maximum bid of your ad ranking. So begin by separating the facts from fiction.
Even if it means that the Google Ads will be significantly impacted, improving your landing page would mean using what is available in the system.
As digital marketers keep an open mind the risk-benefit analysis in most cases to achieve high quality scores would result in lower cost per click. It will lead to lower costs per conversion rate too. Which means you can earn more money or save more money.
Image: Local ranking factors
6 Myths Regarding Landing Page And Quality Scores
Let’s take a look at the top 6 myths about landing pages and quality scores. A few may need some myth-busting too.
1. Including the exact keywords in content is a must:
False, you do not need to use the exact words. Lexicons can do the job perfectly. Keywords play an essential role and there is no doubt about that. In fact, without the exact keywords, your landing page in Google Ads may experience a drop in quality score and therefore becomes non-spiderable.
Most marketers would check the quality score to look for improvement and see to it that the 1/10 grows. Here’s another way of looking at it. SEO (search engine optimisation) primarily works on semantic indexing. For example, you search for ‘cellular phones’ and your search engine directs you to pages for ‘mobile phones’.
Using lexicons are helpful in this search context. Hence, your search is not irrelevant and your quality score should not suffer either.
Image: Anatomy of landing page
What’s recommended is to use words closest to the theme of your landing page. Because if it is directed towards bringing you higher quality scores, you may as well use it. Google Ads does not understand context on images. Relevant ad text and keywords will be increase quality scores. Remember to add an offer that excites customers.
Therefore, as business needs to earn, you can always use keywords closest to your landing page and still get relevant consumers. It isn’t necessary to utilise the exact words to reach out, unless you want to increase your quality scores.
2. Images are bad for quality score:
Images and bad quality scores actually have no relation! Why? Because Google quality scores are based on the load time of the landing page. So, this is indeed a myth that your image quality is bringing down your quality score.
What’s important is to check is the Google Ads account load time, and if there are any underlying issues there.
Google says they will be adding and incorporating all the elements in the future. Why? Because Google Ads quality scores are based on Keywords.
Images, navigation and scripts are not a part of the algorithm. Keep your business transparency level up by including frequently used keywords and ad text on dominant and authority sites.
Google search engine trusts transparent high ranking landing pages on priority. But for now, your landing page needs to be optimised covering all checks which also constitutes images, files (everything else added to the landing page), scripts and Ads as well.
Therefore, in a competitive e-commerce landscape where business scenarios change by the minute it is advisable to plan a well thought out strategy to reach out to your customers.
Try not to depend on quality scores for every landing page you publish. Sometimes you can change the Google Ads and make your landing interesting enough for users to hit the CTA.
Image: Images are bad for quality score
Now that you know that images don’t count towards your bad quality score, you may want to revisit your plans are rethinking the idea of quality scores and Ads. It was never about the images you used.
However, try to use good quality images which are relevant to the CTA. The closer your images are to your CTA, acquiring users will get easier and conversions too will increase.
3. Affiliates will hurt the quality score:
There is one action which does hurt the quality score undeniably ‘ad blockers’. Adblockers is a valid indicator that users are not interested in viewing the landing page you are pushing. Often, one can run optimisation tests to reach out to their audiences with a better quality landing page to gain good quality scores.
Hence, the myth surrounding this is that Google is only grasping and noting that your users are blocking you and the quality scores tend to drop.
Image: Affiliate links will hurt the quality score
There are ways to bring about a higher quality score to increase traffic and get the right customers to visit your landing page by avoiding ad blockers such as rearranging and rewording the Google Ads.
Once you have restructured your content, you can go back to designing the landing page to become more relevant and reconnect with the target groups for the products you are about to launch.
Here’s another myth which most marketers need to know – Google does not hate affiliates. Google watches the user experience time consumed. If it takes a long time, Google will drop the quality score.
For instance, if you were marketing a product which does not need affiliates, do not use a user search experience because your CTA is just the merchant product page.
If you do want to use the search experience, let your customer go through the main web pages and make a well-informed decision. In such cases, going back to the same merchant page can be frustrating for a customer.
4. Good page-rank equals good quality score:
If you were using the exact words from your Google Ads in the landing page, ideally you should have a high quality score. Does this mean that good page rank equals to a good quality score? A good page defines the entire landing page which is carrying images, scripts, Ads, keywords from your Ads, and navigators.
All of these elements put together should bring a high quality score. Not true! Google is scoring you on the top Ads. The rest of the elements are yet to be added. It is only relevant so that your page is spiderable.
Image: Good page rank equals quality score
Now you know the benefits of how Google quality score works. You are also aware of the fact that quality scores often define your landing page quality. However, it does look at a specific criteria.
The best businesses are aligned with Google’s standards on quality scores. They link their keywords to the Ads as closely as possible.
Big brands which are dominant sites also have strong linkages to quality scores. It is simple textbook rules. But amongst smaller and medium businesses, where competition is high, there are multiple similarities.
Hence, it is a good idea to look at the real effects of the quality of the landing page, quality scores and transparency points.
Image: Landing page relevance
5. Adding a privacy policy will boost the quality score:
First of all a privacy policy is implemented if you are collecting personalised information from your users and customers. However, Google follows a set of guidelines in such cases, nation-wise. Hence, it is dependent on who and which nation you are addressing or instead who are target consumers.
Being specific is the right term here, that when coupled with transparency will earn ‘good quality scores’. This is because Google’s policy ranks transparency, highly.
The more your landing page is transparent, the higher your quality scores are on a scale of 1/10. It also gives your users confidence that you will refrain from selling information to the highest bidder.
Therefore, if you want to increase the landing page quality scores it is imperative you link your legal agreements as a landing page needs a visible privacy policy. It is essential for any business to maintain transparency and by doing so, you are gaining customer trust and loyalty.
There is also the significance of long term goals which are set with critical factors. Critical factors are directly linked to your revenue stream. Anybody in any business would tell you that concentrating on quality over quantity is a wise move in a competitive world. To meet these requirements, your customer must be aware of your company and about your business.
6. Adding an about us page is a must:
Not a myth and yes you must add the ‘about us’ page in the landing page. Because from what you have read so far, and it will help in building a better business module. Transparency is of utmost significance to Google and if you are looking to get out there and gain good quality scores taking your customers to through the ‘about us’ page is a good move.
Image: Adding about us page
For example, when a landing page does not carry any information or contains limited information about your business, you may lose out on potential buyers. On the other hand, if your landing page is transparent, it is in-line with Google’s aims and standards.
Another point to note here is that all ‘about us’ pages merely mention what your business is all about. Ideally, you should have detailed descriptors with meta descriptors and keywords all linked to your landing page because your business is complex.
Don’t try to hide on the internet. Customers sometimes are known to dig out information from various links and webpages. Why keep it a secret, anyways? Besides, there is a plus to making your business highly visible.
That will drive your traffic and conversion rates through your landing pages. Additionally, it will add benefits of serving a wider geography of users and customers.
In Conclusion
There is a possibility that digital marketers will continue doing a lot of things which require high quality score as their PPC ads are essential, and CTR is significant as well.
In the long run, you want your business to thrive. Myth busters have tranformed many bad businesses to good businesses through simple analytics and having a logical understanding of the sequence of events.
How you check landing pages on Google Ads that gives your business the boost that it needs says it all. Google quality scores rates the quality and relevance of the PPC ads and the keywords.
It will determine the CPC (click per cost) which is then multiplied by the maximum bid to establish your ad ranking in the auction process.
By optimising the quality score of your landing page quality, you are automatically setting higher ROI goals. This correlates to a lower click per cost and leads to a higher conversion rate. Now you have paved the way for your business to boom.
But, how does a good landing page quality helps in conversion? If your landing page does not meet the required Google parameters, you might begin from the bottom of the pile.
It must have originality in your relevance, the presence of keywords related to your Ads-bespiderable, have trustworthiness, easy navigation, and should entice a visitor to remain on your website for an extended period of time in order to explore.
Adding value will genuinely help in achieving the revenue that you envisioned. Success comes to those in search of the right combination of tools and by setting realistic goals.
For Curious Minds
Google's Quality Score is a diagnostic tool that estimates the quality of your ads, keywords, and landing pages. This score is pivotal because it directly influences your ad's position and how much you pay per click, making landing page quality a cornerstone of successful e-commerce campaigns. A high-quality landing page experience signals to Google that your ad is relevant and useful to the searcher, which the platform rewards.
For an e-commerce business, this means your landing page must perfectly align with the user's intent. This is achieved through:
Ad and Keyword Relevance: The language on your landing page must closely match the ad text and the keywords you are bidding on.
Content Value: High-quality images and clear value propositions for your products or services are non-negotiable.
User Experience: The page must be easy to navigate and secure.
Ultimately, investing in a superior landing page experience is not just about following rules; it is a direct driver of profitability. Better scores lead to lower ad costs and higher conversion rates, ensuring the money you spend on PPC ads generates a strong return. Discover the specific myths that may be holding your scores back in the full article.
A high-quality landing page is evaluated on much more than just keyword density; its core purpose is to provide a valuable and relevant user experience. Google's algorithm assesses factors like content originality, page navigation, and transparency, which collectively determine your Quality Score and, consequently, your advertising costs. A page that delivers on the promise of the ad is rewarded with better placement at a lower price.
The evaluation process focuses on several key areas to ensure user satisfaction:
Relevance and Originality: The content must be unique and directly related to the ad text and keywords. The page's theme should be cohesive and provide clear information.
Transparency and Trustworthiness: The page should clearly state the nature of the business, how it will use visitor information, and be easy to navigate.
Page Usability: The page must be "spiderable" by Google's bots, load quickly, and offer a clear path to conversion.
A strong performance across these components signals to Google Ads that your page is a high-quality destination. This positive signal directly impacts your ad rank calculation, allowing you to secure a better ad position without needing the highest bid. Explore how even small adjustments to these components can yield significant results.
Relying solely on a landing page being 'spiderable' or technically accessible to Google's crawlers is a significant oversight that leads to poor performance. This narrow focus ignores the most critical element: the user experience, which directly impacts your Quality Score, ad costs, and conversion rates. The main pitfall is creating a page that is technically sound but fails to be relevant or engaging for the human visitor.
To avoid this common mistake and elevate your landing page strategy, you must shift your focus from technical minimums to user-centric quality. Stronger companies achieve this by:
Ensuring Thematic Alignment: The ad copy, keywords, and landing page content must all tell the same cohesive story and deliver on the user's search intent.
Optimizing for Engagement: Beyond just being readable, the page should feature a compelling offer, clear calls-to-action, and high-quality visuals that hold the user's attention.
Prioritizing Relevance over Mechanics: Remember that Google Ads rewards relevance. A spiderable page with irrelevant content will still receive a low score, like a 1/10, leading to higher costs.
The corrective action is to treat the landing page as the fulfillment of the ad's promise, not just a technical checkpoint. Understanding this distinction is the first step toward transforming your PPC results, as detailed further in the main text.
The most pervasive myth is that landing page content must contain the exact keywords bid on in a campaign to achieve a high Quality Score. This outdated belief leads to keyword stuffing and unnatural copy, which can actually harm your score because it degrades the user experience. Understanding how semantic search works is the solution to avoiding this trap and improving ad performance.
Google's algorithms are sophisticated enough to understand context and synonyms, a process known as semantic indexing. Instead of rigidly matching exact words, you should focus on thematic relevance.
Focus on the theme of your landing page, not just individual keywords.
Use lexicons (synonyms and related terms) to create natural, readable, and helpful content. For example, a page about 'cellular phones' is perfectly relevant for a search on 'mobile phones'.
Ensure your ad text and page content align with the user's intent behind the search query.
By embracing semantic principles, you create a better experience for the user and send stronger relevance signals to Google Ads. This prevents your Quality Score from suffering due to rigid, unnatural keyword use. Learn more about how to apply this concept to your campaigns by reading on.
The example of a search for 'cellular phones' yielding relevant results for 'mobile phones' perfectly illustrates the power of Google's semantic indexing. It shows that the search engine's algorithm doesn't just match strings of text; it understands the meaning and intent behind the words. This proves that a rigid, exact-match keyword strategy is not only unnecessary but can be counterproductive for your Quality Score.
This real-world search behavior provides clear evidence for a more flexible content strategy.
Focus on Concepts, Not Just Keywords: Google connects related concepts. This means your landing page content should be built around a central theme, using a natural variety of related terms.
Lexicons Enhance Relevance: Using synonyms and related phrases (lexicons) makes your content more natural for human readers and sends strong contextual signals to search engines.
User Intent is Paramount: Semantic search prioritizes what the user is trying to accomplish. A page that successfully addresses that intent will be rewarded, regardless of exact keyword use.
The key takeaway is that your landing page content should be helpful and natural first. The Google Ads system is smart enough to recognize topical relevance, so stuffing your page with exact-match keywords is an obsolete tactic. Dive deeper into how this understanding can lower your ad costs.
The direct correlation between improving a low Quality Score and lowering your cost per click (CPC) is the clearest proof of the financial return on investing in your landing page. When Google assigns a poor score, such as a 1/10, it's essentially applying a tax on your ads for providing a low-quality experience. This forces you to bid much higher to achieve the same ad position as a competitor with a better score.
This financial mechanism demonstrates a clear return on investment (ROI) in several ways:
Lower Cost Per Click (CPC): A higher Quality Score directly reduces your CPC. Google rewards high-quality, relevant ads with a discount because they provide a better experience for its users.
Lower Cost Per Conversion: Since your clicks are cheaper, the cost to acquire each customer also decreases, making your entire campaign more profitable.
Improved Ad Positions: A high score can grant you a better ad position even if your maximum bid is lower than a competitor's. This increases visibility without increasing your budget.
Ultimately, every improvement made to landing page relevance and user experience is a direct investment in your campaign's financial efficiency. By moving your score up from the bottom, you are not just checking a box; you are actively saving money on every click. The full article explores other myths that could be costing you money.
To set up a new e-commerce PPC campaign for success, a digital marketer must prioritize landing page optimization from the very beginning to achieve a high initial Quality Score. This involves creating a seamless and relevant journey from the ad to the page, which signals quality to both users and Google. A strong start prevents the need to recover from a poor initial score.
Here are the first three practical steps to implement for a new campaign:
1. Establish Thematic Cohesion: Ensure your ad group's keywords, ad copy, and landing page headline are all tightly themed around a single, specific concept or product category. This creates a highly relevant experience.
2. Write Relevant Ad Text: Your ad text must accurately reflect what the user will find on the landing page. Make a clear promise in the ad and deliver on it immediately on the page to build trust and signal relevance.
3. Include a Compelling Offer: Your landing page should prominently feature an exciting offer or a clear value proposition that aligns with the ad. This not only improves Quality Score but also drives conversion rates.
By focusing on this initial alignment between the ad and the landing page, you lay the groundwork for a high Google Ads Quality Score. This proactive approach leads to lower costs and better ad performance right away. Uncover more advanced tactics for maintaining this quality over time.
Systematically improving a low Quality Score requires a focused, multi-pronged approach that addresses the core components Google evaluates: relevance and user experience. Instead of making random changes, a marketer should treat it as a diagnostic process, focusing first on the connection between the ad and the landing page. This ensures that every click delivers on its promise.
A step-by-step plan for improvement involves a risk-benefit analysis of your efforts:
1. Align Ad Text with Page Content: Review your ad copy and your landing page headline. Do they match? If your ad promises "50% Off Running Shoes," that exact phrase or a very close variant should be immediately visible on the page.
2. Refine Keyword Theming: Instead of just checking for keywords, ensure the entire page's content, including images and body text, supports the theme of the ad group. Use lexicons and related terms to build contextual relevance.
3. Make the Offer Irresistible: A common reason for low engagement is a weak or hidden offer. Make sure your call-to-action is clear and the value proposition is exciting and prominently displayed.
By methodically strengthening the relevance chain from keyword to ad to landing page, you provide clear signals to Google Ads that your page is a high-quality result. This will lead to a better score, lower CPC, and improved conversion rates. Read on to learn which common myths might be sabotaging your improvement efforts.
A marketer should view the use of exact keywords and broader thematic lexicons not as opposing strategies but as complementary tools. The optimal balance depends on the user's search intent and the specificity of the ad group. While exact matching provides a clear signal of relevance, relying on it too heavily can create a poor user experience, which Google penalizes.
To determine the best approach, weigh the following factors:
Ad Group Specificity: For highly targeted, long-tail keyword ad groups, including the exact phrase in the headline can be very effective. For broader ad groups, focusing on the overall theme with lexicons is more practical and user-friendly.
User Intent: For informational queries, natural, helpful language using a variety of related terms performs better. For transactional queries with high commercial intent, repeating the specific product name or offer from the ad is critical.
Readability and User Experience: The primary goal is always a positive user experience. If forcing an exact-match keyword makes the copy awkward or unreadable, it will harm your Quality Score more than it helps.
Ultimately, the best strategy is to prioritize thematic relevance and user experience while using exact keywords strategically where they fit naturally. Google Ads is sophisticated enough to understand context, making a flexible, user-first approach the most effective way to achieve a high Quality Score. The article further clarifies how this balance impacts your campaign costs.
As Google's algorithms grow more sophisticated in understanding context and user intent, businesses must evolve their landing page strategies from a mechanical, keyword-centric approach to a more holistic, user-centric one. Simply matching keywords is a diminishing strategy; future success in Google Ads will depend on creating genuinely valuable and topically relevant content experiences.
To adapt and future-proof your strategy, you should:
Build Thematic Authority: Create landing pages that are comprehensive resources on a specific topic, not just thin pages targeting one keyword. This signals expertise and relevance to Google.
Prioritize User Journey: Map the entire journey from ad click to conversion. Ensure the content, navigation, and offers on the landing page seamlessly guide the user toward their goal.
Invest in Quality Content: Move beyond basic copy. Use high-quality images, video, and interactive elements to create an engaging experience that satisfies user intent.
The long-term implication is that the line between good SEO and good PPC landing page optimization will continue to blur. Businesses that invest in creating high-quality, authoritative content for their users will be rewarded with consistently high Quality Scores and lower advertising costs. Explore the foundational myths you need to discard to begin this transition.
The relationship between pay-per-click (PPC) ads and landing page quality is direct and symbiotic; one cannot succeed without the other. Your landing page is the destination where the promise made in your PPC ad is fulfilled, making it the most critical point in the conversion process. This connection is a fundamental driver of sales because it directly impacts both the cost of acquiring a customer and their likelihood to convert.
This essential link works through the Google Ads Quality Score system:
Relevance Determines Cost: A high-quality landing page that is highly relevant to your ad and keywords earns a better Quality Score. This score is used to calculate your ad rank and can significantly lower your cost per click (CPC).
Experience Drives Conversions: A well-designed page with a clear value proposition, quality images, and easy navigation persuades the visitor to take action, leading to higher conversion rates.
Efficiency Creates Profitability: By lowering acquisition costs and increasing conversion rates, a quality landing page makes the entire PPC campaign more profitable.
Ultimately, a great PPC ad only gets the click, while a great landing page gets the sale. Recognizing this connection is the first step for any modern business aiming to maximize the return on its marketing spend. The full piece breaks down exactly what "quality" means in this context.
The mechanism that allows higher quality ads to achieve lower prices and better positions is Google's Ad Rank formula, which multiplies your maximum bid by your Quality Score. This system is designed to reward advertisers who create a positive user experience, ensuring that the most relevant and helpful ad is shown, not just the one with the highest bid. A superior landing page is a primary component of that experience.
Here is how the reward mechanism works in practice:
Ad Rank Calculation: Your Ad Rank determines your ad's position. An advertiser with a Quality Score of 8 and a $2 bid (8 x 2 = 16) can outrank a competitor with a score of 2 and a $6 bid (2 x 6 = 12).
Actual Cost Per Click: You only pay the minimum amount required to hold your position. Because a high Quality Score boosts your Ad Rank, you can often win a better position while paying less than the bidder below you.
The User-Centric Incentive: This system incentivizes you to invest in your landing page. Google wants users to find what they're looking for, so it financially rewards advertisers who facilitate that goal.
This demonstrates that providing a great landing page experience is a direct lever for reducing your advertising costs on Google Ads. It is a clear example of how aligning your business goals with the user's goals creates a win-win scenario. To see what other myths prevent this outcome, continue reading the full article.
Amol has helped catalyse business growth with his strategic & data-driven methodologies. With a decade of experience in the field of marketing, he has donned multiple hats, from channel optimization, data analytics and creative brand positioning to growth engineering and sales.
Growth Strategy and Planning
