How to Improve Your Google Ads Quality Score in 2026 (Lower CPCs, Better Positions)

What Quality Score actually is and why it matters

Quality Score is Google's 1–10 rating of the quality and relevance of your keywords, ads and landing pages. It directly influences your Ad Rank — the formula Google uses to determine both your ad position and your actual CPC. Higher Quality Score means better positions at lower cost; lower Quality Score means worse positions at higher cost.

The financial impact is substantial and permanent. Google's Ad Rank formula means that a keyword with QS 10 pays approximately 50% less per click than the same keyword with QS 5, for the same position. For a campaign spending £5,000/month, moving average QS from 5 to 8 can save £800–£1,500/month in wasted spend — budget that redirects into additional clicks and conversions.

Quality Score has three components, each rated as Above Average, Average, or Below Average: Expected Click-Through Rate (how likely users are to click your ad), Ad Relevance (how closely your ad matches the intent of the search query), and Landing Page Experience (how relevant, transparent and easy-to-navigate your landing page is for users who click your ad).

Improving Expected Click-Through Rate

Expected CTR is Google's prediction of how often your ad will be clicked when it appears for a given keyword, relative to competitors. It's influenced primarily by your ad copy and the relevance of your headline to the search query. Improving expected CTR is primarily a copywriting and ad testing exercise.

Ad copy tactics that improve CTR: include the keyword in the headline (headline 1 should ideally be a close match to the search query); use numbers and specifics ('Save 30%', 'Same-day quotes', 'From £299/month') rather than vague claims; include a strong CTA in the headline or description ('Get a free quote today', 'Book your consultation'); and use all available ad extensions — sitelinks, callouts, structured snippets and call extensions — as these increase the visual footprint of your ad and improve CTR significantly.

Run a minimum of 3 responsive search ad (RSA) headlines and descriptions per ad group and use the 'optimise' ad rotation setting. Monitor the asset combination performance data in the Ads section of Google Ads — headlines rated 'Low' should be replaced with new variations. The RSA format allows Google to test combinations automatically, but you must provide strong raw assets for it to work from.

Pinning your headline 1 to keyword-specific text (by using the 'pin' feature in the RSA builder) ensures that your most relevant headline always appears in position 1 regardless of the combination Google chooses — this is particularly valuable for high-volume keywords where relevance control is worth the flexibility trade-off.

Improving Ad Relevance

Ad Relevance is rated Below Average when Google determines your ad doesn't closely match the intent of the keyword it's triggering for. This typically happens when ad groups are too broad — containing many different keywords with different intents, all triggering the same generic ad copy.

The fix is tighter ad group structure. Each ad group should contain tightly themed keywords with closely related intent, served by ad copy that directly addresses that specific intent. Instead of one 'accountant services' ad group with 50 keywords and one generic ad, create separate ad groups for 'small business accountant', 'self-assessment tax return', 'VAT returns' and 'payroll services' — each with dedicated ads addressing the specific query.

Single Keyword Ad Groups (SKAGs) — one keyword per ad group — are no longer recommended in 2026's broad match + smart bidding era, but tight thematic grouping (5–15 closely related keywords per ad group) remains the right structure for maintaining Ad Relevance across a diverse keyword set.

Review your search terms report regularly. If your keyword 'accountant London' is triggering searches for 'accountant jobs London' (irrelevant) or 'free accountant London' (wrong intent), your ad relevance suffers because the ad doesn't match those queries. Add negative keywords to exclude irrelevant search terms and restore relevance scores.

Improving Landing Page Experience

Landing Page Experience is Google's assessment of how relevant and useful your landing page is to users who click your ad. It directly correlates with conversion rate — a poor landing page experience means both a low Quality Score and a low conversion rate simultaneously. Fixing it delivers dual returns: lower CPCs and more conversions from the same traffic.

Google evaluates landing page experience on: relevance of the landing page content to the ad and keyword; transparency (clear information about your business — physical address, contact details, privacy policy); mobile-friendliness; and page load speed. All four are measurable and improvable.

Keyword-specific landing pages consistently outperform generic service pages in both Quality Score and conversion rate. If you're running ads for 'emergency plumber London', the landing page should be specifically about emergency plumbing in London — not your general plumbing services homepage. Each distinct ad group or campaign theme warrants its own targeted landing page.

Page load speed has a direct impact on Landing Page Experience scores — a slow page results in a Below Average rating regardless of content quality. Ensure your landing pages score Good on Core Web Vitals (LCP under 2.5s, CLS under 0.1) as a minimum Quality Score hygiene step.

Using Quality Score data to prioritise optimisation effort

Export your keyword Quality Score data from Google Ads (add the QS columns to your keywords view) and calculate the potential savings from improving each keyword's score. The formula: potential saving per click = current CPC × (1 − (target QS / current QS)^0.5). High-volume keywords with low QS scores represent the highest-impact targets.

Focus first on your top 20% of keywords by spend — these have the most to gain from QS improvement in absolute cost terms. A low-QS keyword spending £10/month is worth less attention than a low-QS keyword spending £500/month, even if the percentage improvement is similar.

Below Average Landing Page Experience ratings on specific keywords warrant immediate investigation — they indicate a specific mismatch between your ad content and the landing page content that is causing both Quality Score suppression and likely conversion rate issues simultaneously.

Quality Score in 2026: what's changed

Google has de-emphasised the visible Quality Score metric in recent years — it's updated infrequently and reflects a snapshot rather than real-time auction quality signals. However, the underlying components (expected CTR, ad relevance, landing page experience) remain as important as ever to Ad Rank and actual cost-per-click.

With the rise of Performance Max and broad match keywords, ad relevance is increasingly managed by the algorithm rather than keyword-level targeting. The most impactful Quality Score improvements in 2026 are at the landing page experience layer (which affects all campaign types) and in Search campaigns where keyword-to-ad matching is still a strategic lever.

Treat Quality Score as a diagnostic tool, not a target. A keyword with QS 7 and a strong conversion rate is performing well — chasing QS 10 by over-optimising headlines may hurt CTR or conversion rate in pursuit of the score. The ultimate goal is profitable conversions at acceptable CPA, and QS is one useful signal toward that goal, not the goal itself.