You know that tailoring your AdWords ad and landing page to your keyword is the way to achieve a good Quality Score.  This is the major consideration when starting a new campaign.  You also know that the CTR of your keyword is important to maintain a good Quality Score. 

But, what else can you do to boost your Quality Score.  Assuming you've done the above, what else can you do to get a leg up on the competition.  Here you'll find several tactics designed to boost your Quality Score even further.

(1) Have a link to your sitemap on your landing page

Google has said "Develop an easily navigable site."  This means you need your landing pages to link to a sitemap of your website.

Normally, you don't want to give a consumer an alternative to taking your desired action (sign-up for your mailing list, buy a product, etc.) by having some unrealted link on your landing page.  But Google wants you to provide a way for the consumer to link to the rest of your website.  In other words, Google wants you to have more than just a single landing page visible to the consumer.

You still don't want much navigation on your website.  But you can put a single link to a sitemap on your landing page.  This link should be below the fold (down to where you'd need to scroll down to see it), preferably past your sales copy as the last thing on the page.  Don't be afraid to make the font smaller as most footer links tend to be of a small font.

(2) Have a link to a "Privacy Policy" page and "Contact Us" page.

Google states "Most internet users are concerned with understanding and controlling how websites use their personal information."  Google wants you to be transparent, and inform your customers what you tend to do with their personal information. 

Create a page named "privacy-policy.htm" on your website, this will help Google identify it.  Copy an existing policy from some other website and modify it for your website.  Link to this page from your landing page.  Again, put the link below the fold and and the end of your sales copy.  You can use a smaller font for the link.

Google also wants you to have contact page to make it easy for a customer to reach you.  Name the page "contact-us.htm" to help Google recognize it.  Include a mailing address, phone number and email address.  Link to the page from your landing page.

If you want to take this tactic to the extreme, you might also try "Terms of Use", "Terms and Conditions", "About Us", "Shipping Policy" or "Return Policy" pages if applicable.

(3) Page Load time

Google now considers page load time as a factor in the Quality Score.  Remove unneeded elements to keep your page lean, and therefore fast.  Don't have too many images.

(4) Geographic targeting

Google now reevaluates the Quality Score on every search.  Part of the Quality Score is the geographic location, and Google will boost local merchants.  Google knows the consumers IP Address and is able to tell the location from it.

Appending city or state names to your keywords, and then tailoring ads and landing pages for your new keywords may increase you Quality Score.

Plus, you could limit your campaign to your local area.  This would diminish traffic, but it could boost your Quality Score.

Are you over paying for your AdWords campaigns? Have you experienced any of the following problems using Google AdWords?

• High cost to maintain your AdWords campaign
• Poor quality score affecting your bids
• Low Click Through Rate for your ads
• Minimum bid for your keywords is too high
• Landing pages that don't convert