Google Advertising isn’t as simple as paying money to appear at the top of the search results. Your Google Ad Rank determines how high your ad will appear on Google. To learn how to improve your ad ranking, let’s first have a look at what ad rank is.
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What is Google Ad Ranking:
Google Ad Ranking is the value that decides where your ad will be placed, compared to other ads, and if the ad will show at all. The rank is determined by four main factors: how much you bid, the quality of your ad (relevance of the ad, keywords, landing page effectiveness, etc. to the user’s search), the context of a users search (time, place, device, etc.), and the estimated effect of ad extensions (phone numbers, website links, or other details attached to the side of an ad). Google Ad Ranking is useful because it can boost your ad positioning without costing you more. The quality of your ads, or Quality Score, and relevant ad extensions can improve your listing. For example, someone with a higher quality score, but a lower budget, can outperform someone with a higher budget. However, the bid amount does still affect ad positioning. For example, if your bid doesn’t reach a certain threshold, your ad is unlikely to show up at all. Thankfully, there are ways to improve your Ad Rank.
Improving your Google Ad Ranking:
There are multiple ways to improve your Google Ad Ranking: increasing your bid amount, using relevant extensions, and improving an ad’s quality score.
Increasing Bid Spend:
Increasing your bid spend will improve your ad’s ranking, but, without ad quality and relevant extensions, this may not be enough. For example, someone with a higher bid can appear below someone with a lower bid, if the other person has greater ad quality. It’s worth mastering your ad quality before you start spending more. However, Spending is still important. As previously explained, certain keywords have a bidding threshold. If your bid is too far below, your ad won’t appear.
Using relevant ad formats:
One of the easier things you can change to improve your ad ranking is your ad formats. Ad formats are extra pieces of information or formatting attached to your ad. Such as attaching your phone number, address or specialised URLs to your ad. These formats can be a great way to link to the ad’s call to action (CTA), but they only work if they’re relevant. For example, if you’re an e-commerce business, you may not need your phone number on the ad. Most people will just go to the website. On the other hand, if you’re driving people to book on the phone, you should attach your phone number for ease of access. Formats can be a great way to boost your Ad Ranking, but it has to be relevant to your business.
Improving Ad Quality Score:
Making the ad more relevant:
Improving ad score requires some trial and error, but the reward is a higher Google Ad Ranking. Improving your Ad Ranking involves being more relevant, which can be as simple as using more specific keywords. In Google Ads you have different levels to an ad campaign: campaigns, then ad groups, then ads. Try experimenting with more specific ad group keywords. Take some keywords that you know work well, or Google’s key search term report recommends, and make a different ad group around every single keyword or a focused set of keywords. Then you can create more tailored ads for each ad group’s keyword(s). For example, if you leave your keywords too broad, the ad message must be more generic. A generic ad, like “high-quality shoes,” doesn’t have much impact. An ad like, “Hand-crafted leather shoes,” has a much higher impact on customers. Some people opt for single keyword ad groups, or SKAGS, which require more effort but can make an ad highly relevant. Alternatively, experiment with your keyword match types to make an ad more relevant. Making sure your ads are relevant to your audience takes a little more effort and experimentation, but its a great way to boost your quality score.
Making your landing page more relevant:
The relevance of your landing page affects your Google Ad Ranking and your conversions. When you’re a customer, you generally want to be taken directly to the product you clicked on. If the landing page is generic, you may frustrate your customers. For example, if the ad says, “Hand-made leather shoes,” a customer will be disappointed to land on a page that also includes non-leather shoes. The challenge is it takes time to create different landing pages for each ad group. To save time, create a standardised page to use as a template. Then, edit the necessary pieces to make each page unique. This will increase your landing pages’ relevance to the ad and increase your ad quality score. Moreover, consistent messaging should greatly increase conversion rates. Keeping your landing pages relevant will be a great asset to improving your ad’s performance.
Conclusion:
In summary, there’s more to your Google Ad placement than how much you bid. Google Ad Rank is the value that decides where your ad will be placed in a search result. Ad rank can be improved by using more relevant ad formats, refining ad groups and creating unique landing pages. To improve your Google Ads campaigns, contact the experts at SBIM on +61 7 3325 0505 or email webmaster@sbim.com.au
