A poor Quality Score in Google Ads is one of the most expensive problems a business owner can ignore. It quietly inflates your cost per click, pushes your ads below competitors, and drains your budget without delivering results. Google assigns a Quality Score from 1 to 10 to each keyword in your account based on three core factors: expected click-through rate, ad relevance, and landing page experience. When that score drops below a 5 or 6, you’re essentially paying a penalty on every single click, sometimes double or triple what a competitor with a higher score pays for the same keyword.
Think of it this way: two businesses bidding on the same keyword, same budget, but one has a Quality Score of 8 and the other has a 4. The higher-scoring advertiser wins better ad positions at a lower cost. The lower-scoring advertiser bleeds money just to stay visible. That’s not a bidding problem. That’s a Quality Score problem.
The good news? Quality Score isn’t a mystery. It’s a diagnostic tool, and once you understand what’s dragging it down, you can systematically fix each component. This guide walks you through a clear, repeatable process to diagnose the root cause of your poor Quality Score, fix the underlying issues, and monitor improvements over time. Whether you’re managing Google Ads yourself or evaluating whether your current agency is doing its job, these steps will give you a concrete action plan to stop overpaying and start competing.
Step 1: Audit Your Account to Identify the Lowest-Scoring Keywords
Before you can fix anything, you need to see exactly where the damage is. The first step is pulling a Quality Score report directly inside Google Ads, and it takes about five minutes to set up.
Navigate to your Keywords view inside Google Ads. Click the columns icon at the top right of the table, then select “Modify columns.” Under the Quality Score section, add all four available columns: Quality Score, Expected CTR, Ad Relevance, and Landing Page Experience. Save that view. Now you can see not just the overall score, but the specific sub-component ratings that tell you exactly what’s broken.
Once those columns are visible, sort by Quality Score from lowest to highest. You’re looking for keywords scoring 1 through 5. These are your biggest cost drains and your highest-priority fixes. Export this list to a spreadsheet so you can work with it outside the platform. For a deeper dive into why scores drop and the financial impact, our guide on low Quality Score in Google Ads breaks down the mechanics in detail.
Here’s the step most people skip: categorize each underperforming keyword by which sub-component is rated “Below Average.” This is where your fix strategy gets defined. If Expected CTR is below average, the problem is likely irrelevant search queries or weak ad copy. If Ad Relevance is below average, your ad copy doesn’t match the keyword closely enough. If Landing Page Experience is below average, the page visitors land on isn’t doing its job. Each sub-component points to a different fix, so don’t lump them all together.
Not every low-scoring keyword deserves to be saved. If a keyword has both a low Quality Score and very low search volume, the ROI of fixing it is questionable. Ask yourself: is this keyword driving meaningful traffic? Is it commercially relevant to my business? If the answer to either question is no, consider pausing it and redirecting that energy toward keywords that actually matter.
Pro tip: If you’re running a local business, watch for keywords that are too broad or too generic. “Plumber” as a broad match term will attract wildly different search intents and almost always produces poor Quality Scores because your ad can’t possibly be relevant to every variation of that query.
By the end of this step, you should have a prioritized spreadsheet of underperforming keywords with their sub-component ratings clearly identified. That document becomes your roadmap for everything that follows.
Step 2: Restructure Ad Groups for Tighter Keyword-to-Ad Alignment
Here’s a structural problem that shows up in almost every underperforming Google Ads account: bloated ad groups. One ad group with 40 loosely related keywords, a couple of generic ads, and no clear theme. It feels efficient to set up, but it’s quietly destroying your ad relevance score on every keyword in that group.
Why? Because Google evaluates whether your ad copy matches the intent behind each keyword. When one ad group contains “emergency plumber,” “plumbing services,” “drain cleaning,” “water heater repair,” and “pipe replacement,” no single ad can be genuinely relevant to all of them. The ad ends up being generic, and generic ads get poor relevance ratings and lower click-through rates.
The fix is restructuring into tightly themed ad groups. Aim for 5 to 15 closely related keywords per group, where every keyword shares the same core intent. A group focused purely on emergency plumbing gets ads written specifically about emergency plumbing. A group focused on water heater repair gets ads written specifically about water heater repair. The more specific the group, the more relevant the ad, the higher the Quality Score. If you’re setting up campaigns from scratch, following a proven Google Ads campaign setup process can help you avoid these structural mistakes from the start.
You’ll encounter two common approaches here. The Single Keyword Ad Group (SKAG) method builds one ad group per keyword, giving you maximum control over ad relevance. This approach works well for high-volume, high-value keywords where even small relevance improvements translate to significant cost savings. The themed ad group approach groups closely related keywords together, which is more manageable for local businesses running lean operations. For most small to mid-sized local businesses, well-structured themed ad groups deliver strong results without the overhead of managing hundreds of individual SKAGs.
A critical point: don’t just delete mismatched keywords when you’re restructuring. Move them into new, dedicated ad groups where you can write copy that actually fits. A keyword that performs poorly in the wrong ad group can perform well in the right one.
Common pitfall to avoid: Rebuilding your ad groups once and then letting them grow bloated again over time. Every time you add new keywords to your account, ask yourself whether they belong in an existing themed group or whether they need their own dedicated home.
The success indicator here is straightforward: every keyword in every ad group should logically connect to the ad copy in that group. If you read a keyword and then read the ad headline, the connection should be immediate and obvious. If you have to squint to see the relevance, you have a structural problem that will keep dragging your scores down.
Step 3: Rewrite Ad Copy That Mirrors Search Intent
Ad relevance is the sub-component that most directly reflects your copywriting. Google evaluates how closely your ad text matches what the searcher actually typed. That means your headlines and descriptions need to reflect the keywords in that ad group, not just your general business offering.
Start with your headlines. Your first or second headline should include the core keyword or a very close natural variant. If someone searches “roof repair contractor,” your headline should say something like “Expert Roof Repair Contractors” or “Fast Roof Repair, Free Estimates.” The match needs to feel natural, not forced. Stuffing a keyword awkwardly into a headline can actually hurt your CTR because it reads as robotic, and lower CTR feeds back into a lower Expected CTR sub-score.
Your descriptions have a different job. They don’t need to repeat the keyword. They need to address the searcher’s specific problem and motivate action. What does someone searching that keyword actually want? What’s their pain point? What outcome are they looking for? Answer that directly, then close with a clear call to action: “Call now for same-day service,” “Get a free quote in 24 hours,” “Book your consultation today.”
Don’t overlook ad extensions. Sitelinks, callouts, structured snippets, call extensions, and location extensions all increase the physical space your ad occupies on the search results page. More real estate means more opportunities to catch attention, which means more clicks, which directly improves your Expected CTR sub-score over time. Our article on Google Ads optimization best practices covers extension strategies and other techniques that drive measurable revenue improvements.
For each ad group, build at least 2 to 3 responsive search ad variations. Google’s responsive search ads let you input multiple headlines and descriptions, then automatically test combinations to find what performs best. This isn’t optional for Quality Score improvement. The more data Google has on which combinations drive clicks, the better it can optimize your Expected CTR.
The most common mistake in ad copy: Writing ads that could belong to any business in your industry. “Quality Service at Affordable Prices” tells a searcher nothing specific. “Same-Day Drain Cleaning in [City] Starting at $89” tells them exactly what they need to know. Specificity wins on both relevance and click-through rate.
Watch your Ad Relevance sub-score over the two to four weeks following your rewrites. You should see movement from “Below Average” toward “Average” or “Above Average” as Google accumulates new performance data on your updated ads.
Step 4: Optimize Your Landing Pages for Relevance and Experience
Landing page experience is often the hardest sub-component to fix, largely because it requires work outside the Google Ads platform itself. But it’s also the most impactful when you get it right, because a strong landing page improves both your Quality Score and your conversion rate at the same time.
The foundational rule is this: the page someone lands on must match what they searched for. If someone searches “emergency plumber near me” and clicks your ad, they should land on a page specifically about your emergency plumbing services, with clear contact information, a prominent phone number, and content that speaks directly to their urgent need. Not your homepage. Not a general services page. A page built for that exact intent. This is a principle that applies across every industry, from Google Ads for plumbers to roofers to dentists.
Google evaluates several specific factors when scoring landing page experience. Page load speed is one of the biggest. A slow page frustrates users, increases bounce rates, and signals to Google that the experience is poor. Use Google PageSpeed Insights (free at pagespeed.web.dev) to run your landing pages through a speed test. The tool gives you specific, actionable recommendations: compress images, eliminate render-blocking resources, enable browser caching. Address the issues it flags, starting with the highest-impact items.
Mobile responsiveness is non-negotiable. The majority of local search traffic happens on mobile devices, and if your landing page is difficult to navigate on a phone, you’re losing both Quality Score points and potential customers simultaneously.
Beyond speed and mobile, Google looks for original and useful content, easy navigation, and transparency signals like visible contact information and a privacy policy. These aren’t just Quality Score factors. They’re also basic trust signals that affect whether a visitor picks up the phone or bounces back to the search results.
Your above-the-fold content deserves special attention. When someone lands on your page, the first thing they see should immediately reinforce what your ad promised. A clear headline that echoes the ad’s message, a relevant image or visual, and a prominent call to action button. Don’t make visitors scroll to find out they’re in the right place.
The single most common mistake local businesses make: Sending all Google Ads traffic to the homepage. Your homepage serves many audiences with many needs. A landing page serves one audience with one specific need. That specificity is exactly what Google rewards with a better Landing Page Experience score.
Step 5: Clean Up Your Keyword List with Negative Keywords
Here’s a mechanism that surprises many business owners: irrelevant search queries hurt your Quality Score even when no one clicks your ad. When your ad appears for a search that doesn’t match your business and the user doesn’t click, that non-click counts against your Expected CTR. Enough of those, and your CTR drops, which drags down your Quality Score on that keyword.
The solution is aggressive negative keyword management. Start by running a Search Terms Report. In Google Ads, navigate to Keywords, then Search Terms. This report shows the actual queries that triggered your ads and generated impressions or clicks. Read through it carefully. You’ll almost certainly find searches that have nothing to do with your business.
For local service businesses, common categories of wasteful search terms include queries with “free,” “DIY,” “how to,” “jobs,” “salary,” “training,” or “certification.” If you’re a roofing contractor running Google Ads for roofers, you don’t want your ads showing up when someone searches “how to repair a roof yourself” or “roofing jobs near me.” Those people aren’t buying. They’re browsing, learning, or job hunting.
Add irrelevant terms as negative keywords at the appropriate level. Some negatives make sense at the campaign level (blocking “free” across all ad groups in a campaign), while others are more specific and belong at the ad group level. Build your lists thoughtfully rather than just adding negatives at random.
Also consider creating a shared negative keyword list at the account level for terms that should never trigger any of your ads. This saves time as your account grows and ensures consistent filtering across campaigns.
Review cadence matters: For the first month after launching or restructuring a campaign, check your Search Terms Report weekly. You’ll catch the most damaging irrelevant queries quickly and stop the bleeding. Once your negative keyword lists are mature and your account is running cleanly, bi-weekly or monthly reviews are usually sufficient.
The payoff is direct: as irrelevant impressions decrease, your click-through rate rises because you’re only showing up for searches where your ad is actually relevant. That rising CTR feeds directly into an improved Expected CTR sub-score over time.
Step 6: Monitor, Measure, and Iterate on Your Quality Score Improvements
One of the most frustrating aspects of fixing poor Quality Scores is that the improvements don’t show up overnight. Google recalculates Quality Score based on accumulated performance data, which means changes you make today may take days or even weeks to reflect in your scores. Don’t make the mistake of implementing changes on Monday and giving up by Wednesday because nothing moved.
Set up a simple tracking system from day one. A spreadsheet works fine. Log your priority keywords, their current Quality Score and sub-component ratings, and the date you made changes. Check back weekly and record the updated scores. This creates a clear picture of progress and helps you identify which changes had the most impact.
If you want to automate this process, Google Ads scripts can pull Quality Score data and log it automatically. There are free scripts available through the Google Ads Developer community that handle this without requiring deep technical knowledge. For most local business owners managing their own accounts, a manual weekly check of the top 20 to 30 priority keywords is perfectly sufficient.
As scores improve, watch what happens to your cost-per-click. This is where the ROI of Quality Score work becomes tangible. A keyword that was costing you significantly more per click due to a low score should start becoming more cost-efficient as the score rises. Track this relationship in your spreadsheet alongside the Quality Score data.
If a keyword’s score doesn’t improve after four to six weeks of optimization across all three sub-components, step back and ask a harder question: is this the right keyword to target at all? Some keywords are structurally difficult to win because of how broad or ambiguous the intent is. Others may be so competitive that your account history can’t overcome the deficit quickly. In those cases, it may be more productive to pause the keyword and redirect budget toward terms where you can compete effectively. You might also consider setting up Google Ads remarketing campaigns to recapture visitors who clicked but didn’t convert, maximizing the value of every dollar spent.
Quality Score is not a set-it-and-forget-it metric. The best-performing Google Ads accounts treat it as an ongoing maintenance task. Review and refine your ad copy monthly. Audit landing pages quarterly. Run your Search Terms Report regularly. Small, consistent improvements compound over time into meaningful cost reductions and better ad positions.
When to bring in outside help: If you’ve worked through all six steps and your scores remain stubbornly low, the problem may be structural in ways that are hard to diagnose from inside the account. Competitive dynamics, historical account quality issues, or technical problems with your website can all create persistent Quality Score challenges that benefit from a professional audit.
Your Action Plan, Summarized
Fixing poor Quality Score in Google Ads isn’t about one magic trick. It’s about systematically addressing each of the three components Google cares about: expected click-through rate, ad relevance, and landing page experience. Work through this checklist in order:
1. Audit and prioritize your lowest-scoring keywords. Pull the Quality Score columns, sort by score, and categorize each underperforming keyword by which sub-component is dragging it down.
2. Restructure ad groups for tight keyword-to-ad alignment. Break up bloated ad groups into tightly themed groups of 5 to 15 closely related keywords so your ads can be genuinely relevant.
3. Rewrite ad copy to mirror search intent. Include core keywords naturally in headlines, address the searcher’s specific problem in descriptions, and use all available ad extensions.
4. Optimize landing pages for relevance and speed. Match page content to keyword intent, fix speed issues with PageSpeed Insights, and ensure mobile responsiveness and clear above-the-fold CTAs.
5. Add negative keywords to eliminate wasted impressions. Run your Search Terms Report, identify irrelevant queries, and build negative keyword lists at the campaign and account level.
6. Monitor weekly and iterate. Track Quality Score changes in a spreadsheet, watch the relationship between score improvements and CPC reductions, and treat this as ongoing maintenance.
Every point you gain in Quality Score translates directly to lower costs and better ad positions, which means more leads for less money. That’s not a small improvement. For a local business spending a meaningful amount on Google Ads each month, it’s the difference between a campaign that breaks even and one that generates real, profitable growth.
If you’ve worked through these steps and still see poor Quality Scores dragging down your results, it may be time for a professional account audit. At Clicks Geek, we specialize in turning underperforming Google Ads accounts into lead-generating machines for local businesses. If you want to see what this would look like for your business, we’ll walk you through exactly how it works and break down what’s realistic in your market.
