Two Geneva-based companies bid on the same keyword. The first pays CHF 4.20 per click, the second CHF 2.10 — for the same position. The difference comes neither from budget nor from luck: it comes from the Quality Score, the rating Google assigns to each of your keywords. In 2026, this score remains the most profitable lever to lower your advertising costs without touching your budget. Here is how it works and, above all, how to improve it concretely.
What Exactly Is the Quality Score?
The Quality Score is a rating from 1 to 10 that Google assigns to every keyword in your account. It estimates how relevant your ads and landing pages are to what the searcher is actually looking for. This score feeds into the calculation of the Ad Rank, the formula that determines your position in the results: bid multiplied by quality. In other words, an ad judged highly relevant can rank above a competitor who bids more than you.
The opposite is just as true. With a score of 3 or 4, Google applies an implicit penalty: your cost per click (CPC) climbs, your ads are shown less often and your budget runs out faster for fewer results. Industry analyses agree: moving from a score of 5 to a score of 8 or 9 can reduce CPC by 30 to 50%. For a French-speaking Swiss SME investing CHF 1,000 to 3,000 per month, the savings amount to hundreds of francs every month.
You can find this score directly in Google Ads: enable the "Quality Score" column in the Keywords tab, along with the three sub-columns that make it up. That is where everything plays out.
The 3 Components of the Quality Score
Google breaks the score down into three criteria, each rated "above average", "average" or "below average". This free diagnosis tells you exactly where to act.
1. Expected Click-Through Rate
Google predicts the likelihood that a searcher will click on your ad when it appears for that keyword. This prediction is based on the past performance of your ads and of the keyword itself. An expected CTR rated "below average" signals that your headlines are not compelling enough, or that your keyword attracts searches too far removed from your offer.
2. Ad Relevance
This criterion measures how well the keyword matches the text of your ad. If you bid on "fiduciary Lausanne" but your ad talks about "accounting services in Switzerland", Google judges the match to be weak. The keyword must appear — or be clearly reflected — in your headlines and descriptions.
3. Landing Page Experience
Finally, Google evaluates what happens after the click: does the page match the promise of the ad? Does it load quickly, including on mobile? Is the content useful, transparent and easy to browse? A perfect ad that sends visitors to a generic or slow homepage drags down the entire score.
Discover our services · Chat on WhatsApp
Improving Your Ads: The Actions That Pay Off
- Tighten your ad groups. One group should cover a single theme, ideally 5 to 15 closely related keywords. This is the condition for each ad to match each query precisely.
- Insert the main keyword into your headlines. Searchers need to see their own words in your ad: that is what triggers the click and improves the relevance Google measures.
- Fill your responsive search ads to the maximum. Aim for 12 to 15 headlines and 4 genuinely varied descriptions: benefits, quantified proof, calls to action, local mentions. Google combines and learns.
- Add every useful extension. Sitelinks, callouts and structured snippets increase the surface area of your ad and its click-through rate — at no extra cost.
- Cut weak ads. After 2 to 3 weeks, pause the variants with a clearly lower CTR and replace them with new tests.
Improving Your Keywords: The Sorting That Changes Everything
- Eliminate off-topic keywords. A keyword that has been spending without converting for months drags the whole account down. Better 30 precise keywords than 200 approximate ones.
- Add negative keywords every week. The search terms report reveals the actual queries triggering your ads: exclude "free", "jobs", "training" and any search with no purchase intent.
- Favour local, specific queries. "Employment law attorney Geneva" converts better and often costs less than "attorney", because competition is lower and your relevance is stronger.
- Isolate your best keywords. A strategic keyword with a score of 4 sometimes deserves its own ad group, with ads and a page written specifically for it.
Improving Your Landing Pages: Everything Is Won After the Click
- One dedicated page per ad theme. Sending all traffic to the homepage is the most expensive mistake. Each ad group deserves a page that answers the query exactly.
- Repeat the ad's promise in the page headline. Visitors must see within one second that they are in the right place, otherwise they leave — and Google takes note.
- Aim for under 3 seconds of loading time on mobile. Compress images, limit scripts and test your page with PageSpeed Insights. A slow page destroys both the score and conversions.
- Inspire trust. Visible contact details, customer reviews, clear legal information and a short form: Google measures transparency, and so do your visitors.
If your current site is holding your campaigns back, a targeted redesign is often more profitable than months of ad optimisation. Our team builds fast, conversion-focused pages as part of our website creation in Geneva service.
A Real-World Example: Same Budget, 59% More Clicks
Take a Geneva SME with a budget of CHF 1,500 per month. At the start, its average Quality Score is 4 and its average CPC is CHF 3.50: it gets around 428 clicks per month. With a 4% conversion rate, that means 17 quote requests, or CHF 88 per contact.
After six weeks of work — tightened ad groups, ads rewritten around the keywords, negatives added every week, dedicated and accelerated landing pages — the average score rises to 7-8 and the CPC drops to CHF 2.20. The result: around 681 clicks for the same budget, or 59% more clicks, and 27 quote requests at CHF 55 per contact. Not a single extra franc was invested: only the quality of the account changed.
Where to Start This Week
- Enable the "Quality Score" column and its three sub-columns in the Keywords tab.
- Identify the 10 keywords that spend the most with a score of 5 or less.
- For each one, first fix the component rated "below average": that is the fastest win.
- Clean up the search terms report and add your first negative keywords.
- Measure again after 2 to 3 weeks: the score evolves with history, not overnight.
The Quality Score is not a vanity metric: it is literally the price you will pay tomorrow. At Digital Swiss Agency, Quality Score optimisation is an integral part of our Google Ads campaign management in Geneva, with transparent packages detailed in a free quote. An audit of your account is often enough to identify several hundred francs of monthly savings.
