Negative Keywords
Negative = Positive
If your keyword list contains broad or phrase match keywords then negative keywords are most often a must. Negative keywords prevent your ads from appearing and potentially receiving clicks from search queries that are not relevant to your product or service. Suppressing impressions (and clicks) from irrelevant search queries will improve your CTR and quality score and allow your keyword list to work harder to bring qualified prospects to your website.
AdWords Offers the Following Negative Match types:
Negative Broad Matched – To create a standard negative keyword, insert a minus sign before a keyword and add it to your ad group or campaign.
Example: -free download
Adding this negative keyword to your account would prevent your ads from showing on any search queries containing the terms free and download Your ads still have the potential to appear for variations of these terms. Your ads will also still show on search queries that only contain one of the terms.
For example, the search queries software download and free software could trigger your ads, while free software download will not.
Negative “Phrase” Matched - To create a negative phrase matched keyword surround the term with quotation marks.
Example: -”free download“
Adding this keyword the system wouldn’t let any search query containing the phrase free download trigger your ads. The search query free download accounting software would not trigger your ads. However, your ads could possibly show on the search query download accounting software or free accounting software.
Negative [Exact] Matched – To create a negative exact matched keyword surround the term with brackets
Example: -[free download]
This negative keyword would only prevent your ads from showing on the search query free download. Search queries such as free accounting software download and free software could still trigger your ads.
It is suggested to add relevant variations of your negative keywords, including both the singular and plural forms. Learn to add effective negative keywords to your ad group or campaign.
Now that we have some familiarity with negative keyword match types the next question is how do we identify negatives to add to the account? AdWords offers two tools to identify negative keywords.
The search query report is a very helpful report to identifying negative keywords. This report will show advertisers what the actual query was that resulted in their ads being served. You can use this report to identify negative keyword to add to your account.
2. Keyword Tool.
The keyword tool can be used to identify negative keywords.
Watch this Video
Adding Negative keywords is easy. They can be added at the campaign level to cover all adgroups or at the ad group level if the negative keywords are specific to one category.
Research your Search Query Reports regularly to identify negative keywords. Negative keywords will improve your CTR and preserve your budget by showing your ads to only the best prospects for business.
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Posted by: Kim Clinkunbroomer, GAP
Owner of Clinks Web Service & AdWordsPI in Chicago, Illinois
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