The Landing Page- A Piece of the Google Quality Score Puzzle

Stonehenge. The Great Pyramids of Giza. Google Quality Score.
Each of them riddles, wrapped up in a mystery inside an enigma.
Google Quality Score has been mystifying the online marketing masses for quite some time. We know that a high score can lead to lower prices in Google AdWords and better ad rankings. What we don’t know is how to quantify said score using any sort of logical mathematical equation. It’s all based on intangibles: ad relevancy, keywords, and your landing page.
This post specifically focuses on the landing page, since it’s one of the easiest things that you can control in your quest for a higher Quality Score.
A landing page is the page a visitor arrives at on your website after clicking on an ad. Let’s explore what makes a good landing page experience in the eyes of Google and your customers.
1. Content is King
Online marketing rookies will often direct all of their traffic to their homepage. BIG MISTAKE. One of the things that Google looks for in terms of your landing page is whether or not you have relevant, useful and original content. When I say relevant, I mean relevant to the keyword that your audience has searched for.
It is extremely important to take people directly to a site with information directly related to their search. Failure to do so will severely upset the Google Gods. It’s very common for a business to have multiple landing pages to suit their different campaigns. In fact, businesses with more landing pages (30 or more) generate 7x more leads than those who have only a handful.
2. It’s a Matter of Trust
Trustworthiness is a huge factor that ads to the legitimacy of your landing page. It’s important for people to feel secure enough to complete a transaction and/or give out information on the web nowadays.
Make sure that your contact information is clearly visible for your visitors. If you request personal information from your customers, make sure you are very clear as to what you’re asking for and what you’ll do with it. Also, make sure to openly share information about your business and clearly state what your business does. Be as transparent as possible!
3. Navigation. Navigation. Navigation.
If you send your customers on a wild goose chase once they reach your site, you’re gonna have a bad time. Don’t make people hunt for the information they came for. Make sure that people can get to the product that was mentioned in your ad. A frustrating user experience can lead to a high bounce rate. While bounce rate does not directly influence your Google Quality Score, it is indicative of a different problem: your campaign is not converting.
Clear calls to actions are a necessity as well. The goal of a great landing page is to convert visitors into customers. In a perfect online world, visitors should be able to convert in one click. so make sure you tell them specifically where to go and what happens once they click.
When all is said and done, your Quality Score is also evaluated based on where your ad appears, meaning you have a different Quality Score on Search and Display Network sites, and there is also a different formula for mobile devices.
Knowing this information, keep in mind that the Google AdWords system visits and evaluates landing pages on a regular basis, so it’s never too late to enhance pages that you might have already created.
You may not see immediate impact results on landing page improvements, but rest easy knowing that the Google Gods will definitely appreciate it.