Digital is a channel that can and should be tracked end to end – data capture starts from an impression and goes all the way to the final sale. As a company specializing in Search and Social Media, we regularly educate our clients on the importance of granular tracking and help them improve their existing tracking methods across platforms. With integrated in-house PPC, SEO and Analytics teams, we constantly seek to maximize our client’s campaign ROI through regular research, granular data capture and analytics.

This article’s focus is to showcase the importance of capturing paid search (PPC) keyword data through analytics. Google Analytics (GA) has been considered for this discussion. While you might have a different analytics tool, we believe that the information here still applies to your PPC campaigns and you should try and get similar data from your current analytics system.

Capturing Keyword Data through Google Analytics

When it comes to PPC, it is important to capture all the metrics accurately within the main user interface (Google Adwords) and the analytics system (GA). The metrics captured can be categorized as ‘front-end’ and ‘post-click’.

Front-end metrics cover data on keywords, ads and the landing or destination pages, and include clicks, Click through Rates (CTR), Conversions/Leads, sale value, Cost per Lead (CPL) etc. Post-click metrics include bounce rates, average time spent on site, % of new visitors and much more.

Adwords provides keyword information up to the point where the user clicks onto the website or the landing page. Post-click performance on GA shows user behavior on the destination page or the website. This information helps understand if users landing on the page stayed on it, if so, for how long, how many pages they visited etc.

Keyword level data can be obtained from GA in multiple ways. Keywords can be analyzed individually or at an aggregate level by defining segments. Data for one of Position²’s client in the B2B space is shown below as an example. An advanced segment named ‘Brand’ keyword aggregates data for a pre-defined set of corporate and brand name keywords. Similarly, the ‘Non-brand’ keyword segment excludes traffic from these keywords.

Table 1.0: Aggregate Branded VS. Non-Branded Keywords


Table 1.1: Keyword Level Performance

Regardless of the business type (B2B, E-Commerce etc), capturing keywords through analytics is crucial. Some of the key advantages of having keyword information through GA are provided below. The benefits should typically apply to any analytics platform you may be using.

• Keywords within GA help determine the performance at an aggregate level. In Table 1.0, aggregated performance of brand Keywords shows that they are producing 100% bounce rate and no conversions; an unusual occurrence for brand terms. This information indicates that the users landing on the destination page(s) are not finding what they are looking for. By extracting this data from our client’s GA account, we understood that those conducting branded searches could be doing so to sign-in to their online accounts. If the campaign objective is lead generation or form fills, the campaign may be better off without these specific terms.
• GA can be used to determine if non-performing keywords should be weeded out of the campaign or if new messaging should be tested. In Table 1.1 Keyword 5 and Keyword 6 are poor performers. These terms have 100% bounce rate despite driving new users and a reasonable time spent. For these keywords, it would be important to evaluate the ad messaging and the landing page copy.
• Keyword data from paid search can be compared with numbers Organic traffic. For example, if there is a drop in traffic and leads for a keyword in paid search, Organic traffic for the same keyword can be compared to check if it’s a seasonal trend.
• Destination URL performance can be evaluated down to a keyword level. This helps identify the best combination of Keyword-Destination Page and crucial information for campaign optimization.
• Performance for each keyword and post-click activity can be obtained in every match type (Exact, Broad and Phrase). Precise user queries that triggered the ads and their post-click performance can also be gathered. Again, important data for campaign optimization.
• The best position for keywords can be determined. As seen below, the position and post click performance for keywords can be captured. Crucial data to make decisions on keyword positions.

  

Passing the Keyword Data within GA

You can pass paid search keyword data to GA by:

1. Adding UTM parameters to destination URLs or
2. Linking the GA and AdWords accounts and enabling Auto-tagging in Adwords

Let’s now examine how you can pass keyword data to other analytics platforms.

AdWords ValueTrack allows passing detailed data to any tracking system to optimize campaigns. By adding parameters to the destination URL, it is possible to pass information on keyword, ads etc.

Here’s an example -

Destination URL tagged with parameters for keyword and match type:

http://www.example.com/?keyword={keyword}&matchtype={matchtype}

Actual URL post visitor click

http://www.example.com/?keyword=used%20cars&matchtype=p

Your tracking system will need to parse these parameters and allow for slicing and dicing of data based on these.

We recommend doing exhaustive testing to ensure all required information is captured accurately on your platform.

Conclusion

Keyword data helps optimize paid search campaigns down to the most granular level possible. This will in turn help generate efficient (low Cost per Lead) and quality leads. It will also provide multiple testing opportunities with messaging, positions and landing pages.

Not having keyword tracking within analytics will still allow for campaign management, but at an aggregate (ad group) level only. While not the optimal way to manage paid search campaigns, this will still help in optimizing campaigns possibly to increase leads.

At Position² we encourage all our clients and work closely with them to take advantage of granular information through their analytics platform. We use end-to-end performance metrics to optimize campaigns and work with our clients to improve not only the PPC performance, but also Analytics set-up, SEO performance and their sales process.

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We all know the SEO value of keywords. But have you ever wondered which of the thousands of relevant keywords brings meaningful traffic to your site and earns you your real money? If not then it’s about time you do.

For a while now, the online marketing community has known that long tail keywords convert cheaper and faster. Long tail keywords are those millions of keywords and phrases that a site is searched for, but go unnoticed.

Long tail is the exact opposite of focused or targeted keywords. In SEO, everyone focuses on the “top keyword”. This is what everybody follows and tries to gain rankings for. But if you just dig deeper into referrals and study the traffic they generate you will realize that you are actually missing a major portion of search keywords and hence the market!

Marketing managers are often pleased to see their top 10 or 20 keywords ranking consistently. The focus is usually only on the popular terms and the number of visitors they bring. It is believed that 80% of the business is driven by these popular terms, but when you evaluate multiple sites, it is quite the opposite.

The top 10 terms do provide a lot of traffic, but when you calculate the percentage of traffic driven by terms after the top 10 or 20 most popular, they will add up to more total visitors than the top terms. More often than not, the visitors who come to your site using long tail keywords spend more time on the site and convert better. Most sites have a majority of their sales and leads generated from these terms. This is the heart of the long tail keyword strategy. So it makes perfect sense to SEO your site for these long tail keywords to the fullest.

Long tail keywords have added benefits when applied to SEO. The skill is to pick the right mid tier keywords and phrases and optimize your site for these. The profit gained from these terms can then be reinvested.

Google AdWords is among the most popular tools that you can use to find these long tail keywords and grow your search traffic. All you have to do is just enter your core keywords in the Google AdWords Keyword Suggestion tool and allow it to suggest other terms. Use “Exact Match” if you are selecting keywords for their SEO value and you will know how many times these keywords are searched for in a month. Then download the entire list in a text or excel format and there you have your own natural long tail keyword list.

If you are an established website then finding out what your competitor does to get traffic to his website is also a good idea. There are chances that your competitor might have already targeted a whole lot of long tail keywords. Your next step then should be optimizing your site and creating new pages which target those keywords as well. There are two ways of doing your investigation. One is to visit your competitor’s website and analyze all the webpages, checking out their title, metatags and backlinks. The other is to use tools like SEODigger. Just enter the site’s URL and you can find out which keywords your competitor is targeting.

So do a little thinking and get your long tail keywords on top and they will undoubtedly increase the amount of traffic you receive from search engines.

Contributed by Shruti Kekre, SEO Team

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Keywords are an integral part of any online advertising campaign; however what is sometimes overlooked is the equal importance of negative keywords which are word filters that disqualify ads being triggered by users search query. For instance if “iPhone” is one of your keyword, each time somebody runs a search for that keyword your ad will be displayed. If someone were to run a search for the term “iPhone problems” your ad will also be displayed, since the main keyword “iPhone” is present in the search query. To avoid bloating total impressions, with irrelevant searches it’s important to add “Problem” as your negative keyword, so that “ iPhone Problem” query wont trigger your ad.

Every search engine advertiser should be using negative keywords in their Pay Per Click (PPC) account. Having a comprehensive and well built negative keyword list will ensure targeted visits which can significantly improve not only your CTR, but your conversion rate too. However, not using negative keywords can mean that your ads show to users who aren’t interested in your business or service. This untargeted traffic can lower your keywords’ ‘Quality Scores’ and hurt your return on investment. With quality score mechanism being executed on all major PPC platforms, click through rate (CTR) is even more important now than it ever was.

It’s important to remember that over-using negative keywords can result in a very limited advertising audience. Consider all your potential keywords carefully, including negative keywords, before you add them to your account.

How to find negative keywords idea:

1.Google Keyword Tool : Place your keywords in the keyword tool box and make sure to click “synonyms” checkbox. Google shows keywords it thinks are related to your product or service. Check the Keyword column for any search queries that are irrelevant to your product or business and that you wouldn’t want triggering your ads. Click the downward-pointing arrow in the Match Type column for each keyword that you want to add as a negative match. Also, paste your URL into the “Website Content” box to see what the Google thinks what your site/pages may be about. Check the “Include other pages on my site…” checkbox to get a rounded view.

2. Search Query Report : Pull a search query report at regular intervals on your PPC account to make sure your ads are not being triggered by terms you don’t want them to appear. The new Google interface has a new feature which is somewhat hidden. It  helps you run a search query report at the ad group level without actually running a full-blown report to find additional keywords or negative keywords. Under the keywords tab, click the ‘see search terms’ drop down and click ‘all’ or ’selected’ You will see the actual search queries that displayed your ads, just like running a search query report for a particular ad group. Search queries that are not relevant to your product/services can be added as a negative keywords right from this window.  Just click the box next to that particular keyword and click ‘Add as negative keyword’.

3. Analytics : It can be an amazing source of negative keywords. Look at your organic data and not just your PPC data. If you are unsure of any terms, do a simple search for the keyword and see what results pop up. You might be surprised.

4. Use A Thesaurus: Run your main keywords through a thesaurus. There is no way you could possibly know every single synonym of your main keywords. Thesaurus not only helps in expanding your negative keyword list but also your main keyword list.

5. Industry Related: Use product and industry knowledge. Words that are similar or spelled similar to your product or service name? Terms you are certain people will be searching which are not related to your product or service or that are related and you do not offer. Remember that there are products released every day, so set up Google Alert for your keywords.

Once you’re done with adding negatives at your campaign or adgroup level, check for account performance, whether it has made any difference in terms of CTR , quality score and conversions. This is definitely not an exhaustive list on how to create a negative keyword list but it sure is a good start.

Contributed by Shweta Gaonkar

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Mobile ads are a format of Adwords ads that appear on mobile websites and Google search pages when a user searches from a mobile device. Mobile ads are available as either text or image ads.

Mobile ads work on a pay per click as well as a pay per call basis. Every ad contains a headline and a description with a maximum of 18 characters each. The third line contains the site URL or a telephone number or both. Advertisers can therefore choose to connect to customers via whichever medium – phone or website – that they prefer, or they can let customers choose.

Mobile ads can be targeted only to following countries:  Australia, Austria, Belgium, Canada, China, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, India, Ireland, Italy, Japan, Korea, the Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Russia, Singapore, South Africa, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Taiwan, the United Kingdom, and the United States.

Always create a separate campaign for mobile ads. This campaign won’t require a separate landing page, because clicks on the ad will be directed to a Google-supplied mobile-friendly page describing your business.

Mobile ads pricing works same as PC based text or image ad. Advertiser only pays when user clicks on the ad and advertiser can even bid to connect users to their business via telephone (click to call).

It’s recommended to start off with just a small list of strong keywords and a few different targeted ads. Based on performance, the list can be expanded later on.

Opt for contextual targeting so that your ad reaches readers of specific mobile web pages written about specific concepts.

Target campaigns to iPhones, T-Mobile G1s and other high-end mobile devices with full Internet browsers through demographic settings of the campaigns.

Mobile ad performance can be measured pulling campaign level and placement performance report.

Contributed by Manisha Singh

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1. The SEO value of directories

Directories have always been a tested method to acquire inbound links to websites. Google’s index now filters inbound links that ignore links from directories. Though, this is limited to the listing of the inbound link in search results, it has not undermined the SEO value of directories.

Search engines consider every inbound link as a vote cast in favour of the website. The number of inbound links is how the popularity of a website is measured. Of even greater importance is the quality and relevance of the inbound link. If an inbound link is from a website that has a high Google Page Rank, its value will be much greater than a link from a website that has a low Google Page Rank.

It is desirable to secure inbound links from associations and government bodies in your industry. It is also desirable to be linked to related websites in your industry. This puts your website in the right neighbourhood and your website gets associated with the industry.

Directories – both general and niche – are a neutral source of inbound links. It is important to select directories with a high page rank and submit your website to the relevant category. The image below shows the sub-categories under the Internet Marketing section of the Yahoo! Directory.

2. Importance of Titles

The image below shows a typical directory listing in the Yahoo! Directory

The title of a listing is the link pointing to the website. The text present in the title (also called the linking text or anchor text) is the text with which search engines will associate your website. Having your most important keyword present in the Title improves the relevance of your website for that keyword. If your company is an established brand in your industry, you may want your brand name to appear in the Title.

3. Importance of Descriptions

The description is a short sentence about your website that is present below the Title. The proximity of keywords to the linking text plays a major role in SEO. It is important to have the most important keywords present in the description text.

4. Facts and Guidelines about directory submissions

a. Very few people actually refer to directories while searching for something. Their relevance is limited to their SEO value. As such, very few people are likely to see your listing in a directory and you are unlikely to get direct traffic from directories.

b. Neither the Title nor the Description is visible on YOUR website. The Titles and Descriptions are listed in the directory and the Title links back to your website.

c. Different directories have different limits for the length of the Title and Description. It is important to have a few options where the character limits vary before commencing your directory submissions.

d. When you have a presence in many directories with your most important keyword in your Title, there is a good chance that your website will begin to rank high in search results for the keyword.

e. Unlike the content in your website, variations of keywords do not work in the linking text or Title. It is important to have the exact keyword that you wish to rank for, in the Title of the directory listing.

f. Relevant keywords with the highest search volume should be selected for inclusion in the Title and Description.

5. One scenario explained

Contributed by Tushar Prabhu

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Author and technologist Nicholas Carr says, “Twitter is the telegraph system of Web 2.0.” The New York Times has mentioned that Twitter is one of the fastest-growing phenomena on the Internet. Only a few brands skimmed off profits from Twitter and others just tweeted about some direct marketing stuff. However, there are numerous ways you can leverage Twitter for your business and improve your bottom line. Here is the one-stop Twitter guide for business.

Get started

1. Create a Twitter account

2. Make sure, that you have selected a unique vanity URL for your Twitter account

3.  Upload an image and customize your profile image using this tool: http://walterhiggins.net/projects/twixenate.html

4. Include a link to your corporate website

5. Promote your Twitter presence on your corporate website, client emails, etc.

SEO juice – Recently, Google started indexing tweets; these tips could help you optimize your Twitter account.

6. Include your brand name as the title of your profile

7. Use the Google keywords tool and shortlist important keywords relevant to your products

8. Include those keywords in your bio

9. Use keywords in the first 30 characters of your tweets in order to be optimized by Google

10. Get re-tweeted and increase backlinks for your content

A “following” strategy – This will help you to connect with your target audience.

11. Identify your target audience based on their interests

12. Use hashtags “#” (Hashtags are a community-driven convention to add additional context and metadata to your tweets) to search for your target audience using this tool: http://wefollow.com/

13. Use more directories for search such as: http://www.twellow.com/, http://justtweetit.com/ etc.

14. Follow the influencers in your industry using this tool: http://www.twitalyzer.com/

Identify local Twitter users, or tweeple – If you are a company that serves only a particular location, networking with local tweeple will add more value to your business.

15. Follow influencers in your location using this tool: http://twitterholic.com/. This tool lists all the influencers on Twitter, based on the number of followers and location.

16. Enter keywords relevant to your product and use the “near this place” option in Twitter’s advanced search to identify tweeple who are interested in your product

17. Search for tweeple near your location using this tool: http://www.tweepz.com/

18. Network with local tweeple by searching for them with hashtags, using this tool: http://localtweeps.com/

How to make your tweets effective

19. If you prefer Web tweeting, use this tool: http://twitzap.com/ for advanced features

20. Download Tweetdeck for more power tweeting from your desktop

21. You can add additional Twitter accounts in Tweetdeck and control them using a single application

22. Schedule important tweets in advance using this tool: http://www.tweetlater.com/

23. Use: http://cotweet.com/ for collaborative tweeting

What to tweet on – Starting and joining the right conversation(s) will give you more exposure.

24. Post tweets based on the interests of your followers

25. Search for topics relevant to your product(s) and talk to influencers

26. Use hashtags to power the conversation

27. Post tweets about useful links and articles

28. Use: http://happn.in/ to talk about the trends in your locality.

Twit research – Twitter is a good source for market data as prospective customers are present there.

29. Finalize the sample size of the search.

30. List hashtags relevant to your research objective

31. Get secondary data for your research based on hashtags by using this tool: http://twubs.com/

32. Analyze hashtags  relevant to your research using this tool: http://www.trendrr.com/

Get feedback –As Twitter is a real-time medium, organizations use Twitter to get direct feedback from customers.

33. Get feedback from customers and other tweeple by replying and directly messaging them

34. Use hashtags to organize the feedback

35. Get feedback from local tweeple using this tool: http://nearbytweets.com/

36. Use: http://twtpoll.com/ to conduct a simple survey in Twitter to get real-time feedback

37. Post new product screenshots in http://twitpic.com/ and get instant feedback from your followers

Twit hiring – If you are looking to hire people for your organization, Twitter is another source to find the right talent.

38. Search for job seekers near your location using advanced search features in Twitter public search

39. Use hashtags in your tweets to reach active job seekers

40. Post tweets to announce benefits such as perks, allowances, etc. for the job(s) you offer

41. Use: http://twitpic.com/ to share corporate events to show job seekers your organization’s work culture

42. You can also use Twitter to conduct background checks on employees by using the Twitter advanced public search.

Tweetup – “Is an organized or impromptu gathering of people that use Twitter.” Tweetup is an excellent platform to promote products among local Tweeple.

43. Search for a Tweetup near your location using: http://nearbytweets.com/

44. Organize a Tweetup in your locality using  this tool: http://www.twtvite.com/

45. Pitch for influencers in your location by attending Tweetups.

46. Give away promo codes to attendees in the Tweetup to spread your product virally.

Follow your competition – This can give you insights on what your competitors are working on.

47. Follow your competitors on Twitter.

48. Use Twitter public search to get more insights on competitors’ activities

49. Analyze their Twitter account and follower patterns using: http://tweetstats.com/

50.  Compare your network statistics with competitors using: http://twitter-friends.com/

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• The Importance of Capturing PPC Keywords Through Analytics (1)

Generally, Pay per click (PPC) account managers find it difficult to monitor performance of their content campaigns. In order to optimize their campaigns, it is important for them to understand whether the chosen keywords are the right ones, especially to measure the performance of the keywords they bid for.

The content network displays ads to users as they search for topics of interest and browse sites that relate to their keywords. The ad group’s entire keyword list helps determine where ads show on the content network. Here the rule is, the more closely related the keyword, the more likely the ads will find the right audience.

It is important to know which keywords actually worked on which site. However, Google does not provide this information in any Google AdWords report or directly through Google Analytics (GA).

When you use “Auto Tagging” to track AdWords’ data in GA, all applicable information such as campaign name, ad group name, keywords, ad content, etc. are tracked by the query parameter gclid – Google click id, which is a unique combination of characters and numbers.

Here is a sample GA analysis for content campaigns in a typical keyword report:

Getting data for high-performing keywords for content campaigns

By manually tagging and extracting data or logs to your server, you can accumulate data for high performing keywords of content campaigns. Here is how we do this:

First, tag the landing page (for example: http://www.mysite.com/users/home.aspx) with the proper utm, Network and SiteTarget parameters as follows:

http://www.mysite.com/users/home.aspx?utm_source=google&utm_campaign=contasap&utm_medium=cpc&utm_term=

quick&Network={ifContent:C}{ifSearch:S}&SiteTarget={placement}

Note:

• For more on utm parameters go to:

http://www.google.com/support/googleanalytics/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=55578

• Network – is used to differentiate search and content ads

• SiteTarget – is used to obtain the site name where your ad is displayed

When a visitor clicks on your content ad, which is displayed on www.nytimes.com, the URL captures the information as follows:

Example:

http://www.mysite.com/users/home.aspx?utm_source=google&utm_campaign=sitedefeb&utm_medium=cpc&utm_term=

iphone&Network=C&SiteTarget= www.nytimes.com

Next, gather the query parameter values on your back-end data.  The parameter value of the utm_term will provide you the keyword that helped you display your ad on the website.

Conclusion:

By using this method, one can understand which keyword was converted from which campaign and from which site. This will give you the insight into which keywords to retain and which ones to remove from your list of keywords for PPC, thereby maximizing ROI through content campaigns.

Contributed by Bhagawat Jadhav

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In today’s internet-dominated world, search engine marketing has become an essential part of every business. Organizations aspire to attract as much visibility online as possible. Search is by far the most used function on the internet and it is natural that search engine optimization should be indispensible to marketers, to increase visibility online.

Creating a website alone is no longer enough; it needs monitoring and nurturing. It is also important to sustain growth through continuous search engine optimization and result tracking. One of the things that play a role in a site’s performance is its domain name.

The domain name is an important part of the website. It plays a vital role in the discovery and recall of a website. Using the name of a business as the domain name is a common practice. Always, customers identify a website by the business name. Using your company name is the best way to create easy recall of the site. However, you should consider other parameters. In a nutshell, the domain name should be short, catchy, interesting, easy to remember and spell, and as dissimilar to a competitor’s domain name as possible.

Here are some tips on choosing a domain name:

1. Get the top keywords

The first thing to do while deciding the domain name for your website is to pick top keywords that directly relate to your website, its content or your business offering. Once this list is ready, try using the top keywords in the domain name. Using the keywords in the domain name will improve your the chances of the website ranking high in search results for these keywords.

2. Choose the right Top-Level Domain (TLD)

Do not choose a “.com” Top-Level Domain (TLD) just because it is common practice. Choose one that is most relevant to your business. If you are a commercial business, “.com” is the most widely accepted and credible TLD. If your website is a public service or information website, you may want to consider a “.org” domain. If yours is a government operation, consider  “.gov”, and if you are a university, or a deemed university, “.edu” would be the right TLD for you. Your market can also determine your TLD. If your business offering is essentially local, you may consider a country-specific TLD, such as “.us, .uk, .in, etc.”

3. A unique domain name

It is a mistake to use a domain name similar to a popular site. If your target audience confuses your website for some other website, it is will not help your brand. Never choose domains that are simply the plural, hyphenated or misspelled versions of an existing, established domain name.

4. Easy to type and remember

An easy to spell, short and easy to remember name will deliver the best marketing value through easy recall. Simple domain names are easy to recognize and help in building a website’s brand.

5. Keep it short

Short names are easy to type and remember. They also allow for more characters in the URL, so, more of your URL will display in search results. They also fit better on business cards and other offline media.

6. Have a unique identity

Be sure you are not infringing on anyone’s copyright with your site’s name. Visit copyright.gov and search before you buy a domain.

7. Avoid hyphens and numbers

Both hyphens and numbers make it hard to remember or type the domain name. Try not to use spelled-out or roman numerals in domains, as both can be confusing and mistaken for the other.

8. Relate to your brand

Using a unique domain name is a great way to build additional value with your domain name. A “Brand” is much more than just a combination of keywords. A person should easily relate your domain name to the category in which you operate. The brand name should be unique and memorable on the one hand, and should describe the function and core offering of the site on the other.

9. Use an Ajax domain selection tool

Using Ajax domain selection tools such as Domjax makes it easy to check availability of domain names. You can choose an available domain and then register the domain through a registrar.

Contributed by Sandhya Katiyar

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Google gives each keyword in your AdWord account a Quality Score or QS. QS is a numerical value that ranges between 1 and 10. To allot a keyword to an advertiser, Google conducts an auction. Keywords with high QS are eligible to enter the auction more easily and at a lower cost compared to keywords with a lower QS. Google’s goal is to encourage relevant ads for their users and their pricing system is designed in a way that favors relevant ads and keywords, i.e. ads that get a high click-through and therefore make Google more money.

The following factors determine a keyword QS:
•    Keyword’s click-through rate (CTR)
•    The relevance of the keyword and ad text to its ad group and the keyword’s landing page.
•    Landing page load time.
•    Keyword performance history.

Facts:
•    A Quality Score is calculated by the number of times a keyword matches a search query or, every time your keyword has the potential to trigger an ad.
•    A First Page Bid is an amount advertisers in an auction pay, on average, for first page placement. So, if the first page estimate matches the ROI goal, then bid for the first page to obtain clicks and develop your CTR.
•    The only keywords that affect the overall QS of an account are the ones with really low CTR, which means that they have accrued impressions but have few or no clicks. Keywords with no impressions will not affect your score. It’s also important to note that the number of impressions weights the effect a keyword has on your Quality Score. So, a keyword with 0.0% CTR and 10 impressions will have a smaller overall affect than a keyword with 1,000 impressions and 0.0% CTR. So, in most cases long tail keywords have low volume and so the effect is minor (even if the word is performing poorly). The only time advertisers can run into trouble is when they have a large number of low traffic volume keywords. The total sum of all these impressions add up and can pull down an account’s performance.

Tips to improve quality score:
•    Write relevant ad copies - An ad copy should be relevant to your keyword and landing page’s content. Incorporating both into your ad will get the best possible Quality Score.
•    Remove/pause ineffective keywords that continuously achieve a low quality score, because they affect the overall QS of an account.
The moment you load a keyword into AdWords, it receives a Quality Score. This initial Quality Score is determined by each keyword’s performance history, including other advertisers. Google AdWords has monitors s a keyword’s historical performance for multiple advertisers who target this keyword. Google determines an aggregate score and this is becomes a “base score.” This score is a keyword’s starting point with regard to Quality Score.
•    Make your landing page more relevant – Your landing page and ad copy should provide a smooth presentation. The landing page should deliver on whatever is promised, offered or advertised in the ad.
•    Make your website more credible – To acquire a significant QS, you need a good website as well. Not just the landing page, but it appears that the entire site has to meet certain criteria such as: a contact page, a privacy policy, and at least three pages of relevant content. Google cares about the quality of the site and that is why the QS is called Quality Score. So, as long as you have a good, high quality website, and the page you send the searcher to matches with their search, your keyword can earn a very high QS.
•    Establish a pattern of high quality campaigns- Google uses data to establish patterns and trends. When you create several campaigns that earn a high QS, Google will reward your future campaigns with a higher quality rating.
•    Choose a more focused keyword matching option - Consider using a phrase or an exact match for your keywords to narrow down the search phrases that can trigger your pay-per-click (PPC) ads. Although you will get fewer impressions, the ones you do get will be much more applicable to your PPC ad.

Contributed by Manisha Singh

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