Cannot Get Past The Low Quality Score Hurdle

No matter what landing page or keyword I try the QS ends up being 1.

My first campaign (3 weeks ago) was rushed and ended up with a CTR of around 0.5%. I did not delete this first campaign but paused it instead.

Since my first campaign, I have went on to create 4 more campaigns, but for some reason, each newly introduced campaign/adgroup fails to get past the low quality score of 1. Am I being penalised for my first campaigns performance?

Are there any experts kindly willing to have a look at my latest effort and lead me in the right direction...I am getting more frustrated by the day! Google's feedback states that my landing page quality is poor! Its fairly original, has very few links to other services and has my keyword throughout the main content!

My Ad:
Boost Your Slow Computer
Local PC Repairs and Support
Free Callouts, No Fix No Fee
www.thetechwizards.co.uk

My Landing Page (amended from my website)
http://www.thetechwizards.co.uk/speed-up-computer.html

My Keywords:
slow computer
"slow computer"
[slow computer]
speed up xp
fix my slow computer
"fix my slow computer"
[fix my slow computer]

Result:
Adgroup = Eligible
Every keyword = Rarely shown die to low quality score
Quality Score: 1/10 (Keyword Rel = No Prob, Landing Page Load = Np Prob, Landing Page Quality = Poor)
Displaying·ads right now?
No: Your keyword isn't triggering ads to appear because your bid is probably below the first page bid estimate. The first page bid estimate approximates the cost-per-click (CPC) bid needed for your ad to reach the first page of Google search results, based on your keyword's Quality Score and recent advertiser competition.



My Max CPC is auto at £5.00. Surely this is enough to get me started!

Any help would be appreciated.

Thanks
William

 

Hello William, your problem there seems to be this

I have had a look at your site and all i can suggest is tackle away until it corrects itself, the very first thing i could not see was a privacy policy , and i also did not spot a site map, or a resources page

in addition to those pages a FAQ page could also be a good addition, Starting with a few changes as above then firing you campaign up after a day or so to allow g to get a new look at the site should fire your land page score up. If not you will need to return to the site and repeat until that part is fixed.

With your current campaign do not leave that running, delete it or cancel it. one step at a time and you should be dancing shortly.

 

Thanks Downunder...I'll give your suggestions a try and see where it takes me.

I'll keep you posted.

 

Hi William,

I faced the same problem with one of my sites.

But at the same time I have a successful advertising running for another site with just 2 pages in total. Just homepage and contact us page, and advertising in Google Adwords is successfully running! Homepage has just 203 words. Contact us page - about 20. But all content is unique. So all this means that the problem why my first site and your site (why they are not accepted by Google Adwords) is:
- not privacy policy page
- not terms page
- not site map
- not the number of pages
- not the number of words on the page

What theories do you have why site can be not accepted? What Are Your Theories & Thoughts Why Is Your Site Not Accepted?

William, do you have any other sites advertising in adwords? Has Google stopped ads for any of your other sites? Do you have problems with advertising any of your other sites?

 

I would use Google webmaster tools and see if there is any problems with your site being indexed or other problems.

 

Thanks for your comments, guys.

William, do you have any other sites advertising in adwords? No
Has Google stopped ads for any of your other sites? No
Do you have problems with advertising any of your other sites? No

Why do I think my site is not being accepted? Well...I think my past performance has a bearing. When I click on 'All online campaigns', a list containing 6 campaigns appears. 5 of these are deleted and one is eligible - the adverts in the eligible one is not being shown because of low QS.

The totals in my account include all previous campaign stats including the 5 that are deleted. And these stats are terrible! e.g total CTR = 0.24. I think this is the problem. And if it is, what do I do to get out of the hole? If I made my potential customers jump through this many hoops I'd be uber-poor

I intend to make start on building in the sitemap, resources, etc etc to see if this help.

I'll also have a play with the webmaster tools to see if it throws anything interesting up.

If anyone else can throw up some suggestions, I'd be happy to hear them.

 

William, then I recommend you to create a different Adwords account.
But personally I don't think that will help. I don't think those deleted campaigns affect this new campaign.
2 FoxyCoxy: thanks, but I don't really think Google tools will help.
I think the problem is something different.
Well, if I solve the problem, I'll let you know. So far I changed the content on my site once again and sent 1 more email to Google support, trying to get a more detailed & specific answer.

Hope you'll share what you did and what results you got too.

Thanks.

 

William,
Sage advice all, and from what I see in your posts, it is a landing page problem as described. However, getting a straight answer out of Google is next to impossible. They typically can't tell you what they don't like, but they know it when they see it. Was the QS determination an automated review or human review?

I just finished up a 2 week test campaign where my QS on 20 phrases (broad, phrase, exact on each) was at and average 5/10 or higher. They all started out at 7/10, but a few dropped because too many looky loos affected the bounce rate thereby dropping my QS. The lowest I had was 4/10 on the last two days.

Make sure all on page SEO is in place (url, title h1, h2, etc) for your target phrases.Make sure you are not "Stuffing" the keywords on page.
You ads... while good, they are not specific enough toward your KWs and you do not have any of your KW's in your URL.

I would suggest grouping your ads into ad groups targeted for each phrase, with each ad written specifically for that phrase, coupled with the ON Page SEO. If you have to, build specific landing pages for each word so you can get past the "poor landing page" penalty.

Hope this helps,
Bealed

 

I have no idea if it as automated or manual - I would imagine it would be automated as google will have complex algorithms setup to deal with all adword accounts.

I've taken most of the great feedback on board and have now:

- Deleted every previous campaign
- Deleted every previous adgroup with each campaign
- Deleted every previous keyword with 'POOR' attached to the landing page
- Created a new campaign

The new campaign has a landing page here:
www. thetechwizards.co.uk / computer-problems. html

> it has unique content seen nowhere else
> only 3 links to my services
> links to a terms and conditions page
> SEO: my 'slow computer' keyword in the metatags
> URL - has 'computer-problems' (my keyword phrase)
> My keyword phrase 'slow computer' is in the advert heading
> Link to 'Contact Us' page


Keywords:
computer problems
[computer problems]
"computer problems"


The advert is
# Computer Problems?
# Expert Local PC Repair and Support
# Free Callouts, No Fix No Fee
# www. thetechwizards. co. uk


RESULT: LOW QUALITY SCORE 1/10 AGAIN!!!!


I posted the new ad immediately after uploading the changes to the landing page. Should this make a difference?
Should I have to wait a few days until the google crawler finds

a) the new amendments to the landing page?
b) the newly uploaded pages?

Feel free to have a look and see if you think anything else could be improved.

I am clean out of ideas :-(

Anyone have the google support address?

Thanks again everyone

 

there is evidence that once you get hit with a low quality score, that google will continually hit the account with the low quality score. Actually google may first penalize the domain, and then the keyword within the account. So if you create a new campaign, google automatically flags the keyword and the domain. Your best bet is to create a new account wiith a new domain.

May I also suggest an ad change. People don't want faster computers, they are tired of slow ones. Focus on that angle.

 

I still see no privacy page , the resource faq are probably not as important but without privacy ? i doubt it and also let your site rest asG will need to revisit your site, dont make the change then fire it straight up, so yes wait a few days.

also the links did not seem consitant across the pages ? i may be wrong on this.

also low qs was this because your land page was poor ? or just a bad keyword ?

re do the privacy page, i would creat a new page for tems not the bottom of the prices page, leave it sit for a day or so then refire it.

 

It cannot be because of the privacy page because I successfully launched a site with just 2 pages: homepage and contact us page.

I contacted Google and they said it cannot be because of the domain. They don't ban domains.
As to adwords account - who knows.. try to create another account.
To contact them, email them straight at one of these addresses: <adwords-us@google.com>, <adwords@google.com>, (shhh... don't tell anyone I told you this! )

 

Ensure that the ads are relavant and the landing pages are correct. It is my view that the policy page is not going to be giving you an issue.

I would suggest maybe pausing the current campaign and starting a new campaign. You will have learnt from doing the current campaign so maybe you will do it better this time and it will work.

 

Agreed - absence of policy page is not an issue. Absence of ANY page is not an issue.

The likely problem is your keyword lists being too broad/generic and not relevant to your landing pages. For example, 'computer problems' is not mentioned on your landing page. Estimated CPC of 'computer problems' in a well otimised, relevant campaign is £2.32.

Break your campaigns down to smaller ad groups each with their own relevant keyword list. Write 2 or 3 ads relevant to keyword lists and run them on even delivery (not rotation). Target your ads to relevant landing pages. Run the campaign for a few weeks and then go through the search query reports and make additions and negatives as is obvious. Note which ad's have greater CTR and rewrite poor ads based on the best performers.

PM me if this doesnt turn things around, and I'll be happy to offer a free appraisal of your account.

 

Thanks for your comments all.

TopClickMedia...

You have me thinking! But firstly, you are probably commenting on my old landing page. The new one is:
www. thetechwizards.co.uk /computer-problems.html (delete the spaces

The advert is
# Computer Problems?
# Expert Local PC Repair and Support
# Free Callouts, No Fix No Fee
# www. thetechwizards. co. uk

"The likely problem is your keyword lists being too broad/generic and not relevant to your landing pages. For example, 'computer problems' is not mentioned on your landing page. Estimated CPC of 'computer problems' in a well otimised, relevant campaign is £2.32."

Google's feedback is happy with the keywords, its the landing page it doesn't like. I find your comments about 'computer problems' being too generic quite interesting. Do you suggest I create one keyword rich landing page consisting of more specific keyword phrases, then target these phrases with about 3 different ad groups? I tried that before and got a low QS = 1. Presumably because some of the keywords were not well targetted!

I am no expert (clearly) but wouldn't I be better to keep it simple with one landing page, one advert and one 'long tail' keyword phrase which has a low average CPC? Adding more variables will just dilute my already poor quality score IMHO.

Btw. I've also taken everyone's helpful comments on board and added terms and conditions, privacy policy and sitemap pages.

As for Google, they can kiss my arse

 

Ditto on using Google Webmaster. It can be very revealing.

 

Google webmaster shows no problems! :-(

 

PM sent to inbox

 

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