Quality Score in Google Ads is Google’s 1 to 10 diagnostic rating that estimates how relevant and useful your keyword, ad, and landing page are for the person searching.
Think of it as Google’s quick “fit check” at the keyword level. A higher Quality Score can help you win better ad positions at a lower cost per click because relevance and user experience are strong signals in how Google prices and places ads. In competitive Orlando markets like dental, legal, and home services, that difference can show up fast in your daily budget because you are often paying for every click that hits your site.
Quality Score is not something you directly “set.” You earn it by matching what people search for, writing ads that clearly answer that search, and sending clicks to a page that loads quickly and makes it easy to take the next step. If you want hands-on help tightening this up inside your account, our Google Ads management services focus on the parts that move Quality Score and lead quality at the same time.
What Quality Score is made of
In Google Ads, you will usually see Quality Score broken into three diagnostic components. Each component is graded as “Above average,” “Average,” or “Below average” compared to other advertisers competing for the same searches.
| Component | What it really means | Practical ways to improve it |
|---|---|---|
| Expected click-through rate (CTR) | How likely people are to click your ad when it shows for that keyword, compared to similar auctions. | Tighten ad groups so keywords share the same intent, use stronger headlines that mirror the search, add sitelinks and callouts, and remove keywords that attract the wrong clicks. |
| Ad relevance | How closely your ad matches the keyword and the searcher’s intent. | Split mixed-intent keywords into separate ad groups, include the service and location where it reads naturally, and avoid sending multiple services into one generic ad. |
| Landing page experience | Whether your page is helpful, easy to navigate, and loads well on mobile, especially for the promise your ad makes. | Match the page to the exact service, keep the top section clear (service, trust, next step), improve mobile speed, reduce form friction, and make phone and booking actions obvious. |
Where you see it and how to use it
You can find Quality Score at the keyword level by adding the Quality Score columns in Google Ads (along with the three component columns). We use it like a smoke alarm, not a trophy. If a keyword sits at a low score, the fix is rarely “bid more.” The fix is usually relevance: the keyword is too broad, the ad is talking about something else, or the landing page is not the best match.
A simple improvement loop we run for local businesses is: 1) separate high-intent keywords from research keywords, 2) write one clear ad theme per intent, 3) send each theme to a page that answers that intent immediately, and 4) watch search terms weekly to block waste. If you are unsure whether a keyword is truly buyer intent, our FAQ on search intent and the main types is a quick way to spot the difference before you spend money testing it.
If you tell us your industry and service area around Orlando, we can quickly point out the most common Quality Score problems we see in accounts like yours and the first fixes that usually drop wasted spend without cutting lead volume.
