Accidentally type an extra “0” in the wrong place while using Google Ads, and you send your PPC costs out of control! Thankfully, there’s an easy fix.

Did you know you’re possibly wasting hundreds—or maybe even thousands—each month on PPC? Instead of making one gigantic mistake, you’re slowly draining the financial health out of your company.

Google defines its “Quality Score” as a “diagnostic tool meant to give you a sense of how well your ad quality compares to other advertisers.” While this may sound simple in theory, it becomes amazingly complex in practice. In reality, the rank of your PPC ad equals your bid times your Quality Score (so the more you increase your Quality Score, the lower the bid you need to pay to maintain your rank).

Here’s a quick hint: you don’t want the No. 1 PPC ad rank at all times. Perhaps contrary to popular belief, research says this won’t always give you the best ROI. In general, however, you want to stay near the top.

Know What to Focus On

In the past, Quality Score was worth obsessing over. Nowadays, the best minds in the business (including Google itself) advise to think of this more like a “check engine light” rather than a defining metric.

With this in mind, you should focus on ad relevance, expected CTR, and landing page experience. Beyond that, there’s no need to get hyper focused on every little detail.

So, just how can you maintain a high Quality Score? Here are a few basics:

1. Avoid negative keywords. Your PPC ads will appear for keywords that do you no good at all. Add these to your negative keywords list so this doesn’t happen and achieve a better CTR and Quality Score as a result.
2. Try new calls-to-action. You may find that one wins you a much better CTR and Quality Score. Try out several, and test out new ones on an ongoing basis.
3. Send people to relevant pages. A common rookie mistake is to drive PPC visitors to your homepage. Feel free to do this if you’ve set it up as a landing page, but regardless, always remember to add the keyword searched to the page title so your visitors know they’re in the right place.
4. Make sure your landing page loads quickly. This is a must-do on your website anyway. Aim for 2 seconds or less for every important page.
5. Continually test keywords. Keyword research is an ongoing process, so you should always test and refine your keywords. As Google considers a CTR below 1.5% low, discard any keywords that fall below that threshold.
6. Test your copy. Always make sure your landing page is loaded with benefits for your readers. Many businesses write facts and features. While these are helpful, benefits such as “fast,” “time-saving,” and “money-saving” sell.

The Moral of the Story: Don’t Obsess Over Quality Score

While this is a general indicator of how well your ad will perform, if you’re making a tidy profit on leads originating from various searches, you’re doing great!

With this in mind, don’t worry too much about perfectly optimizing each and every landing page.