I have heard advice about including a privacy policy and contact info. I created a very simple landing page just for the AdWords campaign. It has a background pic, a small amount of text, one link to my home page, and no affiliate links. I used the standard SEO guidelines as far as meta tags, titles, alt text, and content. Almost all of my keywords are repeated at least twice within either the content or the code tags. Since this landing page leads to my home page, which contains my privacy policy and contact us, do I still need them on my landing page? (Now remember, there is no such thing as a stupid question.)
Yes. Make sure to include links from all your pages to your Contact Us and Privacy pages. You should also include a Ts and Cs page. You say that you have "a small amount of text". This is a guaranteed way to secure a poor quality score. You must add more content. It would also be a good idea to get some in-bound links from sites which rank high for the keywords you are going to bid on in the organic results.
Google just wants to make sure your site is not a quick job that will not be relevant or abused. Sounds like what you have should work just fine. Adding Terms and Conditions as explained above might be a good idea, just for the hell of it... since I do not know the site and couldn't give a blind reply about the quality of it
Ok, I can easily add some links. Don't my META tags, ALT tags, and HREF-TITLE tags count as content? I've got two or three large paragraphs if you add all those up. And every bit of it is keyword conscious. They whole reason I made the landing page was because my home page is far too busy for the bots to discern. It's an auction site with thousands of different possibilities for topics and keywords. Since the content topics are endless, AdWords failed to see any relevancy to my ads and spanked me with $10 minimum bids. I was advised to make the landing page short and sweet with relevance to the ad and keywords only. So that's what I did in an attempt to get some QS above zero.
You see, I thought it was little more than a click-through page to get to the real site. I am not sure I understand why I need all those extra links on there. Here is the landing page if you want to see it. [proaux.com/landing/proauxlp.html] The ad discusses selling your used pro audio gear on this niche auction site.
I don't really understand what you're doing here - if it's your own site the landing page is linking to - what is the landing page for? It's not very inviting or informative - why aren't you using your home page?
Well, I guess I am just experimenting. I've taken everyone's advice. I've tried everything under the sun to get my QS up and none of it has worked. After a month with a lifeless AdWords campaign, you are willing to start trying anything. I take it Google just doesn't like auction sites.
This is a bridge page. It's got very little content and has one link pointing to one domain. This would never get a good quality score.
OK, I have removed it. (I really wasn't happy with it either. I just made it based on someone else's advice.) My ad now links back to my homepage (in my sig) which is what I have had all month. I have been reading, analyzing, and pulling my hair out over what is causing my low QS. The site, ad text, and keywords all seem to be aligned perfectly with one another. I am baffled.