Negative Keywords

What are negative keywords?

Negative keywords are a core component of a successful keyword list. Adding a negative keyword to your ad group or campaign means that your ads won't show for search queries containing that term. By filtering out unwanted impressions, negative keywords can help you reach the most appropriate prospects, reduce your cost-per-click (CPC), and increase your ROI. Here's how the different versions of the negative keyword “fast blue” would affect this ad.

1) -fast blue (Negative)
POSSIBLE SEARCHES: blue mercedes car - WOULD SHOW blue fast mercedes car - WOULD NOT SHOW mercedes fast car - WOULD SHOW car blue mercedes fast - WOULD NOT SHOW fast blue - WOULD NOT SHOW blue fast - WOULD NOT SHOW fast blue mercedes car - WOULD NOT SHOW

2) -“fast blue” (Negative Phrase)
POSSIBLE SEARCHES: blue mercedes car - WOULD SHOW blue fast mercedes car - WOULD SHOW mercedes fast car - WOULD SHOW car blue mercedes fast - WOULD SHOW fast blue - WOULD NOT SHOW blue fast - WOULD SHOW fast blue mercedes car - WOULD NOT SHOW

3) -[fast blue] (Negative Exact)
POSSIBLE SEARCHES: blue mercedes car - WOULD SHOW blue fast mercedes car - WOULD SHOW mercedes fast car - WOULD SHOW car blue mercedes fast - WOULD SHOW fast blue - WOULD NOT SHOW blue fast - WOULD SHOW

Finding & Implementing Negative Keywords

There are several ways to find negative keywords. It would be better to use a mix of all of these.

1. Google suggestion tool.
https://adwords.google.com/select/keywords andbox Run your keywords in the tool. Look not only through the 'more specific keywords (which is also a place to find keywords to ad), but take a close look at expanded broad match as your keywords may be showing for these terms. Lastly, 'additional words', if you see more keywords here that aren't related to your product, add a few more. Keep adding negative keywords with your words in the suggestion tool until everything you see is related to what you're selling.

2. Site Logs.
Analyze your site logs (or more likely an interface program) to see what keywords people are searching for that are unrelated to your page. Every time you see a query which brought up your site which you don't want to pay for, add that to your negative keyword list.

3. The SERPs.
In 'Google Preferences', set number of results to 100. Do a Google search for your keywords, and if you see a site in the top 100 that you don't want to be shown for, see if there is a product they sell which is not related to yours, and add whatever keyword that product is using.

4. Ad Exercises
While you have the SERPs open, look through the other Ads. Do you see ads which are unrelated to these keywords? Often these ads are similar to yours as you are doing keyword research for your own products. If you see ads listed which don't seem appropriate, think about why they're showing, and what you'd add to make these ads not show for this keyword and what keywords are more likely to bring them a good CTR/ROI. This type of ongoing exercise can help to think of more keywords very quickly.

A Note of Caution

When first performing negative keyword research. Start with the very obvious negatives. You should have some sort of conversion tracking system in place. Make sure you don't trim your exposure too much. There are many profitable keywords, which seem like they should be negatived out, but if they provide some ROI, then maybe they should be their own 'comparison keywords' instead. If you start adding lots of negatives and you not only see your CTR go up, but your total conversions starting to decline - you probably went to far and need to backtrack a little bit.