An ad is only as good as the page it leads to. This article explains what Google measures on a landing page, what a visitor needs to see in the first few seconds, and how to check your page before you pay for the first click.
In short
Google Ads gives every keyword a Quality Score from 1 to 10. It has three parts: expected click-through rate, ad relevance and landing page experience. Google describes the last one as how relevant and useful your page is to people who click your ad.
In Google's own words, the score is a diagnostic tool and not itself an input in the auction. The quality of the ad and the page does, however, affect where your ad appears and what you pay per click. So don't chase the number. Use it as a warning: if a keyword shows "Below average", the page doesn't answer that search well enough.
In its help pages Google gives four pieces of advice for a better landing page experience: offer what people are looking for, keep the message consistent from ad to page, make the page work on mobile, and improve loading speed. It adds two details many people miss. The search term doesn't need to appear on the page word for word. And conversion rate doesn't affect the landing page experience rating. Source: Google Ads Help, using Quality Score.
The rating tells you whether the page answers the search. Whether the page brings enquiries is something you have to measure yourself, with conversion tracking set to a submitted form or a call, not a page view.
A visitor arrives with two things in mind: the words they typed and the promise they read in your ad. If the first thing they see doesn't connect to both, they go back to the search results. That takes a few seconds.
aluminium fence installation near me
aluminium fence installation near me
A practical rule: every ad group gets its own landing page. If you have one ad group for stainless steel railings and one for driveway gates, you need two pages. For Hiša Kovin, a Slovene maker of metal fences and gates, separate pages per product were one of the steps that took enquiries from 7 to 235 a month. More examples are on our client results page.
The same goes for the offer. If the ad promises "quote within 24 hours" or a "from" price per metre, the page has to repeat it near the top, not in the third paragraph.
The part of the page a visitor sees before scrolling is called "above the fold". On a phone it's very little space. It should hold only what answers three questions: am I in the right place, are these serious people, and what do I do now?
On a phone this layout collapses into one column. The form then drops below the fold, so the enquiry or call button has to stay visible at the top. You don't need a big slider with five messages. People don't read sliders, and they slow the page down.
Every field is one more reason not to send the form. At the same time, every field saves you a phone call. The balance depends on what you sell. For a service worth a few hundred euros you want as many enquiries as possible. For a project worth several thousand, it's better if the form filters a little.
| Field | Do you need it? | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Name | Yes | So you can address them on the first call. |
| Phone or email | One required | Making both required loses people who don't want to give a phone number. |
| What you need | Yes, as a choice | Picking from a list is faster than typing and tells you who should reply. |
| Town or postcode | If you don't work everywhere | You see at once whether the enquiry is from your area. |
| Photos or measurements | Optional | For made-to-measure work it shortens the path to a quote. |
| "How did you hear about us?" | No | People answer "Google" whether they clicked an ad or an organic result. Record the source automatically in a hidden field. |
| Address, VAT number | No | You need them for the invoice, not the first reply. |
These recommendations apply to enquiry forms for services. Online stores follow different rules.
Two technical details that affect your ads. First: if you count conversions by views of a "thank you" page, that page must be reachable only after submitting the form, and marked "noindex". Otherwise someone finds it through search or a bookmark and inflates your conversions. Second: after submitting, the visitor should see what happens next and when. "We'll call you today before 4 pm" reduces the number of people who send the same form to three competitors.
A visitor from an ad often doesn't know you. Before enquiring they want to see that you exist and that you've done the work for others. The strongest proof is proof they can check.
Since 28 May 2022, under Directive (EU) 2019/2161, posting or commissioning fake consumer reviews is a banned unfair commercial practice in every EU country. Claiming reviews come from customers when you don't check is just as risky. Invented client logos, "offer ends in 2 hours" timers that restart every day, and stock photos presented as your team damage trust once someone notices. And someone always notices.
Google measures page speed and responsiveness with three metrics. On web.dev it publishes the thresholds for a good experience, measured at the 75th percentile of visits, separately for mobile and desktop. In plain terms, at least three in four visits have to meet the limit.
| Metric | What it measures | Good | Most common cause of problems |
|---|---|---|---|
| LCP | When the largest element on screen appears | up to 2.5 s | An oversized hero image or a background video |
| INP | How quickly the page responds to a click or tap | up to 200 ms | Too many scripts: chat widgets, tracking tags, plugins |
| CLS | How much content shifts while loading | up to 0.1 | A cookie banner that pushes content down, images without set dimensions |
Source: Google, web.dev. Status October 2026.
One thing that confuses many site owners: the PageSpeed Insights score is a lab test on a simulated phone. Data from real visits appears only if the page has enough traffic. A new landing page often has none for the first weeks. Rely on the lab test then, but don't chase a score of 100. What counts is staying under the limits in the table.
On WordPress you gain the most from a smaller hero image in a modern format, removing plugins the page doesn't need, and loading the chat widget only after the first interaction. A caching plugin helps, but it won't fix an oversized image.
Most landing pages are reviewed by their owners on a desktop, while visitors from ads often open them on a phone. How many do, you can see in Google Ads by segmenting results by device. Before you launch, open the page on your own phone over mobile data, not office Wi-Fi, and try to send an enquiry.
We run through this list for every new page before sending paid traffic to it.
How a better page also helps your organic rankings is covered in Google Ads and SEO together. If you'd like us to review your landing page together with the ads that lead to it, get in touch. How we run campaigns is described on our Google Ads page.
Only for searches for your company name. For everything else, the ad should lead to the page about the product or service the person searched for.
A good service page is often the best landing page, because it also serves organic search. Build a separate page when you advertise a promotion, an offer for a specific area, or when the existing page was written for a different audience. Mark such versions "noindex" if they differ only slightly from the main page.
In Google Ads, add the Quality Score and landing page experience columns at keyword level. "Below average" means the page isn't relevant or useful enough for that search.
As many as you need to reply the first time. For most services that's name, contact details and a short choice of what they need.
According to Google's guidance, no. Conversion rate helps you measure how well the page works, but it doesn't feed into the landing page experience rating. So a page can score well and bring few enquiries, and the other way round. Watch both.
No. The PageSpeed Insights score is a lab test. Data from real visits, where Google has it for your page, matters more, as does staying within the limits for LCP, INP and CLS.
We review landing pages, speed and the path to enquiry.