Are You Hurting Your Own Quality Score in Google Adwords?

By Clay Sinclair.
Tip for PPCE.net's PPC Management / Pay Per Click Management Clients:

Over the past several months we've noticed a big change in Adwords. Particularly the increase in minimum CPC's to maintain ad positions. Some of this can be contributed to increased competition, but the bulk of it is due to your keyword's "Quality Score".
Google is very serious about providing their users with the best search experience possible, so they're tightening up their standards on what deems a site relevant.

I could go into depth on that topic, but for the sake of this article I want to address the question in the title ... "Are You Hurting Your Own Quality Score in Google Adwords?" The answer to that question is "yes" IF you perform keyword searches on your core keywords and don't click your ad, stay on the site a while and eventually convert.

So, how can you check your keywords / ads through out the day? By using the Google Adwords Ad Preview Tool. This nifty tool allows you to see how your ads display on a National Level or at the State Level and DOES NOT accrue impressions on your ads! Note - if your campaings are Geo Targeted, then you need to search your ads in the areas targeted. If you leave the "State" field set to "all regions within this country" while Geo Targeting your ads, the preview tool won't show your ad because the ad isn't a National Ad.