I just started a campaign with adwords and was wondering what quality score is and how concerned I should be about it?
The quality score is, in essence, google's way of telling you how much they do or don't like what you're doing. What they like is relevancy - your keywords, landing page and ad text all working togther. It matters, because it will affect what you are charged. However, I've seen some people on here getting terrible worked up about whether they can get from an 8 to a 9, or a 9 to a 10, much in the same way that some people obsess about PageRank. I think that's a bit beside the point - the important numbers are the ones that have a currency symbol in front of them
In my humble opinion, I think that Quality Score is by far one of the most important parts of your AdWords campaign. You make it sound like it has no meaning... I do agree that you shouldn't be too bothered getting from a 9 to a 10, but atleast have a score better than 7 for each and every keyword. Quality Score is the term for just how relevant Google believes your ad to be. For instance, if there were no such thing as Quality Score, then when you search for, say, 'build wooden boat' you don't want the most relevant ad to be one about 'building a house'. As already mentioned, QS consists of your landing page, your ad text and campaign history (CTR). Basically, you need to put your most relevant keywords in the text in the website that you are linking to (preferrably in the headings as well). Then you need to also put these words in your ad text. If your site is relevant, then your campaign history will follow; so make sure you choose keywords that are relevant to what you do.
Hi, This is a little bit out of date in that it doesn't mention factors such as ad relevancy or landing page relevancy, but it's a simple explanation of the basics: http://www.sayu.co.uk/google-quality-score-white-paper.html