Sometimes, being negative is okay, especially when it comes to your Google Ads campaigns.
I’m talking about negative keywords.
These words or phrases can help you see better results with your ad campaigns and put more
of your investment towards people who actually want to spend money with your business.
So, what are negative keywords?
Negative keywords are words that help you avoid showing up for unwanted searches with
your Google Ads campaigns.
When you create certain ad campaigns through Google Ads, you use different keywords so
that people searching for a certain result or browsing a related website see your ads.
But sometimes your ad may show up in front of people who aren’t quite interested in
what you’re selling.
Here’s a simple negative keywords example.
Let’s say you fix instruments for a living.
I’m talking trombones, cellos, flutes...those types of instruments.
To drum up business, you run a Search ad campaign targeting “musical instrument repair.”
In your research, you discover that a popular search using your keyword is “musical instrument
repair courses.”
You don’t want to reach people looking for a class on instrument repair.
That’s not going to make you any money.
So you’d want to use the negative keywords feature to make sure you don’t show up for
“musical instrument repair courses” and any other terms that aren’t relevant to
you.
This can help you not only save money but also increase your ad performance.
How, you ask?
How Google Ads negative keywords help your business
Google wants you to create a good user experience with your ads.
This is where Quality Score comes into play.
Quality Score is a measure of your ad quality on a 1-10 scale.
Google Ads uses your expected click-through rate, your ad’s relevance to the user, and
your landing page experience to determine your score.
A higher Quality Score can lead to lower campaign costs and better ad placements.
Using negative keywords helps you narrow your ad targeting down to the most relevant searches,
meaning your ad will reach the most relevant people.
If people in the market for what you’re offering click on your ad, it’s likely they’ll
spend time on your website.
This tells Google that your ad is relevant, and your landing page is creating a good enough
experience to keep users interested.
Your Quality Score will get a boost, and since you’re using negative keywords to eliminate
irrelevant terms, you'll spend less money on clicks from people who aren’t going to
become your customers.
Types of negative keywords Before you start making your negative keywords
list, you should know that there are a few types of negative keywords you can select
for your ads: Negative exact match, negative phrase match, and negative broad match.
Negative exact match keywords Negative exact match keywords are the least
restrictive of the three match types.
Your ads won’t appear if someone searches using the exact phrase you specify.
So using the “musical instrument repair” example from earlier, if you make “musical
instrument repair courses” your negative exact match keyword, you won’t show up for
that phrase, but you may show up for other arrangements of the phrase like, “courses
for musical instrument repair.”
Negative phrase match keywords In terms of restrictiveness, negative phrase
match falls somewhere between broad match and exact match.
With this negative match type, you can exclude your unwanted phrases, but the words have
to appear in the same order.
Unlike negative exact match, the word or phrases you use for negative phrase match can have
additional words attached to them.
So let’s say you sell jewelry making supplies to consumers, and you only sell in small quantities.
You do some digging and notice your campaigns are appearing for “jewelry making supplies
in bulk.”
That’s not something you offer, so you add “in bulk” to your negative phrase match
keywords.
Searches that won’t trigger your ads include “purchasing jewelry making supplies in bulk”
and “in bulk jewelry making supplies.”
Your ad may still appear for “bulk jewelry supplies” or any other similar searches
that don’t use the full phrase, “in bulk.”
Negative broad match keywords Negative broad match keywords restrict your
ads the most, so use them wisely.
With this type of negative keyword, your ad will not appear if a search uses all of your
restricted keyword terms in any order.
So with the jewelry making supplies example, say you don’t sell materials for pearl necklaces.
Let’s make “pearl necklaces” your negative broad match keyword.
Your ads won’t appear for searches like “pearl jewelry making supplies for necklaces”
and “jewelry making supplies for pearl chokers and necklaces” because they use “pearl”
and “necklaces.”
If a search uses keyword variations like “pearls for necklaces” or “pearl necklace,”
your ad may show because it doesn’t include both terms.
Something as simple as a singular or plural word can trigger your ad.
Hopefully those negative keywords examples clarified everything for you.
I know it can be a bit confusing when you’re just getting started.
Now that you know your options, I’m going to tell how to get started with a Google Ads
negative keywords list.
How to build your negative keywords list If you already have ads running in Google
Ads, you can look at the keywords your ads are appearing for and see if there are any
irrelevant ones you can eliminate.
Then, using the knowledge you just gained about the negative keyword match types, you
can go to the “Negative Keywords” section of your account and add those undesirable
words and phrases to your campaigns or ad groups.
If you’re looking to build a new list of negative keywords, you can start your research
with a keyword tool.
Tools like LSI Graph, Ahrefs, or Semrush all have keyword suggestion features that will
help you build your negative keywords list.
You might want to give Google Ads’ Keyword Planner a try first.
Type the keyword or subject you want to target into your preferred research tool and make
note of any popular keywords that don’t really make sense for you to target.
So, in another negative keywords example, if you sell plastic bottles, you probably
don’t want to appear for searches looking for glass bottles.
Keep in mind that if you use “glass bottles” as a negative keyword, you might appear for
“glass bottle” because one word is plural and one is singular.
Try to include all forms of your unwanted keywords in your list, maybe even common misspellings.
Once you have your list ready, you can add it to your Google Ads account.
Then get ready to start saving money and earn more qualified leads for your business.
If you’re looking for a team of positive people to use negative keywords and other
Google Ads best practices to drive a positive ROI, our pros would be happy to discuss what
we can do for you.
And that is all I have to say about negative keywords in this video.
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