Negative Keywords & How to Find them
What are Negative Keywords?
Are you looking at this blog post title thinking, what in the world are negative keywords? Well listen up because they are very important to your PPC campaign and they are commonly overlooked. Negative keywords are keywords that you do not want to show up for. For example, if you sell shoes but not Nike shoes, you would want to add ‘Nike’ as a negative keyword so your ads do not show up when someone searches for Nike shoes. Let’s say you don’t add ‘Nike’ as a negative keyword and you show up for that search term and your ad happens to be clicked on. What are the chances that person, looking for Nike shoes, is going to purchase something on your site? Slim to none. In that situation, you just wasted the money you spent on that click. Had you added ‘Nike’ to your negative keyword list, you wouldn’t have wasted that money. Times this situation by 100 clicks, and you’ve spent a good chunk of change on a keyword that is, most likely, never going to convert.
How do you find good negative keywords?
I’ll highlight three of my favorite ways to do this:
- Google Instant
- Keyword Tool
- Search Query Report
Google Instant
When you type a keyword into Google’s search bar on google.com, you might have noticed a list of keywords pop up and faint text that appears in the search bar. Google is basically trying to guess what you’re going to finish typing in. I turn to this quite often when I’m looking for negative keywords. If you start typing in ‘swimsuit’ you’ll see that a few options appear below the search bar. i.e. swimsuits, swimsuits modest, swimsuit coverups, and swimsuit clearance. (See image below)
Now, let’s say you don’t sell cover-ups. Voila! You just found a perfect keyword to add to your negative keyword list.
Keyword Tool
Another good tool to use for negative keyword research is the keyword tool. All you need to do is type in a keyword and Google generates hundreds of related keywords for you (see the Keyword ideas column in the screen shot below). In the screen shot below, you’ll see that I typed in the word ‘legos’. If you sell legos, you can use this tool to see what other people are searching in regards to legos and determine which of those keywords aren’t relevant to you. If you don’t sell batman legos or star wars legos, those would be great negative keywords to add.
Search Query Report
This is my absolute favorite tool for negative keyword research. This report is generated directly from your AdWords campaign and tells you exactly what people are searching to pull up your ad. If some of the terms in that report are not relevant to your business, you can exclude those keywords on the same screen you are viewing them. It’s an extremely convenient and helpful tool.
If you’re involved in pay per click advertising, make sure you’re on top of your negative keyword list. You don’t want to waste money this way when it’s so easily avoidable!
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