How to Improve Google Ads Keyword Quality: A Step-by-Step Guide

If your Google Ads campaigns are burning through budget without delivering results, keyword quality is often the culprit. Quality Score is Google's 1–10 diagnostic rating for each keyword, and it's built from three components: Expected CTR, Ad Relevance, and Landing Page Experience. Each component reflects a real signal that feeds into Ad Rank, which is what actually determines your ad position and the CPC you pay.

One important clarification before we dive in: Quality Score itself doesn't directly enter the ad auction. Ad Rank uses the underlying signals directly. But the 1–10 score is a useful diagnostic that tells you exactly where your keyword performance is breaking down. A keyword stuck at 3 out of 10 is a signal that something specific needs fixing, and this guide will show you how to find it.

The practical payoff is straightforward. When your quality signals improve, Ad Rank improves. That means you can achieve better ad positions while paying less per click than a competitor with weaker relevance. It's one of the few levers in Google Ads where doing the work on quality directly reduces cost.

This guide walks you through the process in sequence: audit your current scores, tighten keyword-to-ad relevance, clean up your search terms, align your landing pages, apply match types strategically, and then maintain the gains over time. Each step builds on the last. Whether you're managing one account or a roster of clients, this is a practical workflow you can start today.

Step 1: Audit Your Current Quality Scores

Before you can fix anything, you need a clear picture of where you stand. Quality Score and its three sub-components are available directly in the Google Ads interface, but they're not visible by default.

To access them, go to your campaign, open the Keywords tab, then click Columns and select Modify columns. Under the Quality Score section, add the following columns: Quality Score, Expected CTR, Ad Relevance, and Landing Page Experience. You can also add the historical versions of these if you want to track changes over time.

Once the columns are visible, here's what each one is telling you:

Expected CTR reflects how likely Google thinks your ad is to get clicked when it's shown for that keyword, based on historical performance. A 'Below average' rating usually means the keyword isn't generating clicks at a competitive rate, often because the ad copy isn't compelling or the keyword intent doesn't match what searchers want.

Ad Relevance measures how closely the keyword aligns with your ad copy. If your ad group is too broad or your headlines don't reflect the keyword's meaning, this rating drops.

Landing Page Experience assesses how relevant, useful, and navigable your landing page is for someone who searched that term. Google evaluates content relevance, transparency, and ease of use.

Now prioritize. Sort your keyword list by spend, then look for keywords with a Quality Score of 1–5. These are the ones costing you the most relative to their performance. A high-spend keyword with a low Quality Score is the first place to focus your effort.

It's worth exporting this list to a spreadsheet so you can segment keywords by which component is dragging the score down. A keyword with 'Below average' Ad Relevance needs a different fix than one with 'Below average' Landing Page Experience. Knowing the specific weakness saves you from applying the wrong solution.

The goal of this step is a prioritized list of keywords scored 1–5, each tagged with the component that needs attention. That list drives everything that follows.

Step 2: Tighten the Match Between Keywords and Ad Copy

Ad Relevance is the most directly controllable of the three Quality Score components. It reflects how well your keyword appears in and aligns with your ad headlines and descriptions. The good news is that you don't need to wait for historical data to improve it. You can make changes today and start moving the needle.

The most common cause of low Ad Relevance is an ad group that's too broad. When one ad group contains keywords with different intents, the ad copy can't be relevant to all of them at once. A keyword like "running shoes for flat feet" and a keyword like "cheap running shoes" belong in separate ad groups because the searcher's intent is meaningfully different. One ad can't serve both well.

The fix is to group keywords by tight theme. Each ad group should contain keywords that share the same core intent, not just the same general topic. If you find an ad group with a wide mix of keywords, split it. Create new ad groups for distinct intent clusters and write dedicated ad copy for each.

Once your ad groups are tighter, look at your headlines. Using the keyword, or a close variant, in at least one headline is a direct relevance signal to both Google and to the person scanning results. When someone searches for a term and sees it reflected in your headline, they're more likely to click. That click behavior feeds back into Expected CTR over time.

Be careful not to force the keyword in unnaturally. The goal is relevance, not repetition. Stuffing a keyword into every headline and description doesn't improve Ad Relevance and makes your ad harder to read. If you want to understand the line between useful keyword inclusion and counterproductive overuse, it's worth reviewing what keyword stuffing in PPC actually looks like and why it backfires.

For each keyword flagged with 'Below average' Ad Relevance, ask one question: does the ad copy in this ad group actually speak to what someone searching this keyword wants? If the answer is no, either rewrite the copy or move the keyword to a more appropriate ad group with copy that does.

The success indicator here is straightforward. After making these changes, check the Ad Relevance column over the following days. You're looking for ratings to move from 'Below average' to 'Average' or 'Above average'. That movement confirms the keyword-to-ad alignment has improved.

Step 3: Clean Up Your Search Terms Report

This step addresses one of the most underused levers for improving Expected CTR, and it's one that many practitioners overlook when thinking about keyword quality.

First, a distinction worth being precise about: a keyword is what you bid on. A search term is what a person actually typed into Google before your ad was triggered. These are not the same thing, and the gap between them is where a lot of wasted spend hides.

When your keyword triggers ads for irrelevant search terms, two things happen. Your ad gets shown to people who aren't looking for what you offer, so they don't click. And when they do click, they bounce. Both outcomes drag down your Expected CTR over time, which hurts your Quality Score.

To access the Search Terms Report, navigate to your campaign, then go to Keywords and select Search terms. You'll see every search term that triggered your ads, along with performance data for each.

Work through the list and look for search terms that are clearly off-intent. These fall into a few common patterns: wrong industry (a B2B software keyword triggering searches for DIY tutorials), wrong product (a specific product keyword pulling in generic category searches), or wrong funnel stage (a purchase-intent keyword showing up for informational queries like "what is X").

For search terms that don't belong, add them as negative keywords. Negative keywords tell Google not to show your ads when those terms are searched. You can apply them at the campaign level, the ad group level, or via a shared negative keyword list. If you're new to how negative keywords work, it's worth understanding what negative keywords in Google Ads are and how they function before building out your list.

The other side of this process is just as valuable. Some search terms in your report will be performing well. These are high-intent queries that are already converting or generating strong engagement. Promote those to actual keywords so you can control bids on them directly and write ad copy tailored to that specific query. Right now, they're being caught by a broader keyword match, which means you have less control over how they're handled.

If you're doing this process across multiple campaigns or ad groups, the manual workflow of exporting, filtering, and re-uploading can slow you down considerably. Keywordme's Chrome extension lets you work directly inside the Search Terms Report in Google Ads. You can add negatives or promote search terms to keywords with a single click, without leaving the interface or touching a spreadsheet. For anyone running this process regularly, that kind of friction reduction matters.

The measure of success here is a gradual shift in your search terms report toward higher-intent, on-topic queries. As you add negatives and tighten your keyword coverage, the proportion of relevant traffic should increase, and Expected CTR should follow.

Step 4: Align Your Landing Pages With Keyword Intent

Landing Page Experience is the third Quality Score component, and it's the one that requires work outside the Google Ads interface. Google evaluates your landing page for relevance to the search query, transparency about what your business does, and how easy the page is to use. A page that scores 'Below average' here is hurting both your Quality Score and your conversion rate.

The core principle is alignment. The keyword, the ad, and the landing page should all point to the same specific intent. If someone searches "buy running shoes size 10," they should land on a page about running shoes in that size range, not your homepage, not a general footwear category page. The more precisely the landing page matches what the searcher was looking for, the better the experience signal.

Two misalignment patterns come up repeatedly in practice. The first is sending all paid traffic to a homepage. Homepages are designed for general audiences and rarely speak directly to the intent of a specific keyword. The second is using a single landing page for a broad ad group that covers multiple intents. If your ad group contains keywords for both "enterprise project management software" and "free project management tool," one landing page cannot serve both audiences well.

The practical fix is to create dedicated landing pages for your most important keyword themes. This doesn't mean you need a unique page for every keyword, but high-value clusters deserve their own page. When you build or update these pages, make sure the main headline echoes the ad headline. That continuity reassures the visitor they've landed in the right place and signals relevance to Google.

Also make the primary call to action obvious. A landing page that buries the conversion action or presents too many options creates friction that shows up in bounce rate and time-on-page metrics, both of which inform Landing Page Experience.

On the technical side, page speed and mobile usability factor into this component. A page that loads slowly or breaks on mobile will underperform regardless of how relevant the content is. Run your landing pages through Google's PageSpeed Insights (available at pagespeed.web.dev) to identify specific technical issues. It's free, and it gives you a prioritized list of fixes.

The success indicator is a Landing Page Experience rating that moves from 'Below average' to 'Average' or better, along with a decrease in bounce rate for your paid traffic over time.

Step 5: Apply the Right Match Types to the Right Keywords

Match type controls which search terms can trigger your keyword. Getting this wrong is one of the most common ways advertisers dilute their Quality Score signals without realizing it.

A quick orientation on the three current match types. Broad match gives Google the most flexibility to match your keyword to related queries. It relies on Smart Bidding and Google's understanding of intent to find relevant searches. Phrase match requires the search term to contain the meaning of your keyword, giving you more control over what queries trigger your ads. Exact match limits triggering to searches that match your keyword's meaning very closely, giving you the tightest control over query relevance.

Broad match can be effective, but it requires strong conversion data for Smart Bidding to work well. In the early stages of a campaign, or in accounts without significant conversion history, broad match often surfaces irrelevant traffic. That irrelevant traffic generates impressions without clicks, which pushes Expected CTR down.

The practical guidance is to start new campaigns with phrase or exact match on your most important keywords. This protects your Expected CTR while you build conversion history. Once you have meaningful data and Smart Bidding has enough signal to work with, you can test expanding to broad match on select keywords.

For your existing low-Quality-Score keywords, check which match type they're using. If a broad match keyword has a 'Below average' Expected CTR, consider adding a phrase match or exact match version of the same keyword. This lets you test whether tighter match control improves the CTR signal without removing the broad match version entirely.

Match type strategy is a deeper topic, and the right choice depends on your campaign goals, budget, and conversion volume. If you want to go further on this, it's worth reading about when to use broad match versus exact match keywords and what match type optimization looks like in practice.

The success indicator for this step is an improvement in Expected CTR as tighter match types reduce the proportion of low-relevance queries triggering your ads.

Step 6: Monitor, Iterate, and Maintain Keyword Health

Quality Score is not a one-time fix. It reflects rolling performance history, which means improvements to the underlying signals take time to show up in the reported score. After making changes in Steps 1 through 5, expect to wait days to weeks before the 1–10 score visibly moves. The component ratings (Expected CTR, Ad Relevance, Landing Page Experience) often update faster than the composite score.

Build a recurring review cadence into your workflow. For active campaigns with meaningful spend, a weekly check of Quality Score components is reasonable. For lower-spend campaigns, a monthly review is usually sufficient. The goal is to catch degradation early rather than discovering a problem after it's driven up CPCs for weeks.

The metrics to track alongside Quality Score are CTR trends by keyword, impression share, and conversion rate by keyword. These are the inputs that feed the Quality Score components. If CTR is declining on a keyword, that will eventually show up as a drop in Expected CTR. Catching the CTR drop early gives you time to investigate before the Quality Score reflects it.

For keywords that remain at Quality Score 1–3 after you've worked through the optimization steps, consider pausing or removing them. Persistently low-quality keywords consume budget and send weak performance signals. Removing them is often the right call, especially if they're not converting.

When you add new keywords or launch new campaigns, apply this same process from Step 1 upfront. Reactive optimization is more expensive than proactive setup. Starting with tight ad groups, relevant copy, and appropriate match types puts new keywords in a better position from day one.

For agencies or advertisers managing multiple accounts, running this kind of keyword health review across campaigns can be time-consuming if you're navigating between tabs and tools. Keywordme's bulk editing and multi-account support make it practical to work through search term cleanup and keyword management across accounts without leaving the Google Ads interface. That kind of workflow efficiency adds up when you're doing this process on a regular schedule.

The long-term success indicator is an upward trend in average Quality Score across your active keywords over 30 to 60 days, alongside a gradual decrease in CPC for equivalent ad positions.

Putting It All Together

Improving Google Ads keyword quality is a sequence, not a single action. Each step in this guide addresses a specific lever: the audit identifies where to focus, ad copy changes fix relevance, search term cleanup protects Expected CTR, landing page work closes the intent gap, match type adjustments tighten query control, and ongoing monitoring locks in the gains.

Use this checklist to track your progress:

1. Add Quality Score component columns and audit all active keywords

2. Identify low-scoring keywords and tag each by which component is dragging the score down

3. Tighten ad group themes and rewrite ad copy for low Ad Relevance keywords

4. Add negative keywords from the search terms report to cut irrelevant traffic

5. Promote high-intent search terms to actual keywords for better bid and copy control

6. Align landing pages to keyword intent, and fix technical issues with PageSpeed Insights

7. Review and adjust match types for low Expected CTR keywords

8. Set a recurring review schedule and track CTR, impression share, and conversion rate by keyword

If you're running this process manually across multiple campaigns, the most time-consuming parts are search term cleanup, negative keyword management, and keyword promotion. These are exactly the tasks Keywordme was built to streamline. It works as a Chrome extension directly inside the Google Ads Search Terms Report, so you can act on what you see without exporting anything or switching tools.

Start your free 7-day trial and see how much faster this workflow gets. After the trial, it's $12 per user per month. For the time it saves on search term review alone, most practitioners find it pays for itself quickly.