Improving Nonprofit Websites for Google Ads Results

November 15, 2022
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Nonprofits who have a Google Ad Grants account or a paid Google Ad account often appreciate the web traffic they receive from their Google Ads. There are simple steps that organizations can take to obtain even better results. While nonprofits are aware that setting up their account the right way can improve results, they often don’t realize that improving their website can also help lead to better results from Google Ads.”

What Determines the Performance of Your Google Ads Results?

Google has a metric called Quality Score. This metric is used in conjunction with your bids to determine which ads to run and what each ad should cost. By improving your Quality Score, your nonprofit will end up ranking higher on the page above other ads – resulting in more traffic.

A higher Quality Score also means that you will be paying less per click than you normally would to get in the same position on the page. The higher your Quality Score, the more likely your ad is to be displayed to users.

An ad’s Quality Score is calculated by three things:

  • Expected Clickthrough Rate – The likelihood that the ad will be clicked when viewed
  • Ad Relevance – How closely the ad matches what the searcher is looking for.
  • Landing Page Experience – A score that attempts to summarize how useful your landing page is

You can see each ad’s quality score in Google Ads by adding the Quality Score column. Similarly, you are able to add columns to your Google Ads reports that show the expected clickthrough rate, the ad relevance, and landing page experience. All of these numbers combined help make up your Quality Score.

There are also columns you can add in Google Ads that show the historical values of the Quality Score. The columns help you track the trends of metrics like Expected Clickthrough Rate, Ad Relevance, and Landing Page Experiences.

How Do Website Improvements Lead to Better Google Ads Results?

As was mentioned above, Quality Score is important if you want to have better results for your ads. Some factors that go into quality score, such as expected clickthrough rate and the ad relevance, are mostly improved by actions you take to your account such as setting it up properly.

Alternatively, Landing Page Experience is improved primarily making improvements to your website. If you see that your Quality Score or your Landing Page Experience scores are low, you should look into improving your webpage and website.

What Steps Should Nonprofits Take to Improve Their Landing Page Experience Score?

Below are a list of steps that you can take to improve your Landing Page Experience. We go into each one in more detail below:

  • Improve your website’s page speed
  • Make sure your pages are mobile ready
  • Make sure the topic of the landing page matches the ads that send searchers there
  • Make your webpage and website easy to navigate

Improving Page Speed

It is important to ensure that a website’s page speed is fast. To increase your Landing Page Experience score, the pages that your ads redirect to should load quickly. To test the speed of your current webpage, you can use Google’s Page Speed Insights tool. There are also more tools available on the internet to test speed and gain information on how to speed up your webpage.

Minimizing the size of image files and web page caching are just two things that can be done to increase page speed. If running a WordPress website, these changes can be done easily by utilizing plug-ins like WP Rocket and ShortPixel. These changes can be performed similarly on other types of websites.

Improving your site speed will not only raise your Landing Page Experience score but will also reflect a lower bounce rate. Data shows that users are more likely to close a page or leave a site when it takes additional time to load.

Google estimates that pages that take 3 seconds to load have a 32% higher bounce rate than pages that take 1 second to load. You can the track your site’s bounce rate for pages in your Google Analytics account.

Make Sure Your Pages Are Mobile Ready

Your website should be easy to navigate and well formatted across multiple devices including desktop browsers, mobile phones, tablets, and other devices. Mobile ready buttons should be somewhat minimalist and the pages should avoid too much content. Easy-to-read text blocks are a good solution for this.

Many users conduct web searches on their mobile devices. Making sure your site is clear and easy to navigate on a mobile device will help ensure users stay on your web page.

Make Sure the Topic of the Page Matches the Ad

Another important aspect to consider is making certain your web page that is linked matches up with the ads you run. The ads and landing pages should have similar topics that match up with the searcher’s intent. The more your content matches the search, the better your Quality Score.

It is good practice to have many landing pages on various topics related to your organization. These should have tightly grouped ad words that match with keywords and landing pages. Not only will this help your Quality Score, but it will also encourage users to stay on your page and continue reading since it’ll match their initial keyword search.

Make Your Page and Website Easy to Navigate

It’s important to have simple navigation on your website so that it is user-friendly and the information is accessible. Each web page should be easy to follow and have a clear laid-out message so that the page layout is quickly intelligible. You should use good design practices such as incorporating plenty of white space and limiting the number of items on your menu.

So How Do I Make These Changes?

If you have a skilled web designer on your organization’s staff, you can begin to work with them on a plan to implement these changes to your site. However, it is often the case that nonprofits find themselves without the needed level of expertise on staff to make these changes.

If your organization is lacking the necessary expertise but wants to make changes that position your Google Ads account for maximum success, you should consider bringing in a company that specializes in Web Design and SEO. They can work hand-in-hand with a Digital Marketing company that specializes in managing your Google Ads and Google Ad Grants accounts.

Will Making These Changes Help with My Organic Traffic as Well?

In short, the answer is yes! Google uses different algorithms to determine what results to show for paid ads and for regular web search results. Additionally, the changes you make to improve the effectiveness of your paid search will also lead to improvement in organic traffic.

The additional web traffic from a highly optimized Google Ads and Google Ad Grant will result in more clicks to your website over time. This helps increase referrals from other websites and also can improve SEO.

Conclusion

Making changes to your website can greatly increase a nonprofit’s Google Ads Quality Score. This will improve the results that nonprofits get with their paid Google Ads and Google Ad Grant Accounts.

This article was contributed by Steve Urich of Grant Republic.

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