What Are Negative Keywords

Negative keywords are keywords you add to your campaign to tell Adwords you do not want to be shown for results that have those search terms in them.

This guide is part of our Adwords PPC Search training course.  The full course material can be found at http://marketingplaybook.co/adwords-ppc-search-training-course/

We have both a Written guide and video to help you out.

Negative keywords are keywords you add to your campaign to tell Adwords you do not want to be shown for results that have those terms in them.

Example: You are a Denver Dentist and your broad keywords keep triggering phrases like

• free braces
• funny braces video

You can take those keywords and add them to your negative keyword list.

You have3 Options for adding in Negative keywords on Adwords.

Exact: [ ] -[free braces]

With this you would eliminate only people searching exactly for free braces

Phrase: ” ” -“free braces”

You eliminate all variations possible for that search term

• free braces
• I want free braces
• free braces pink

This will not eliminate the search “braces free”. It’s only exact search terms in the order of the phrase entered. However this can change and I expect it to change over time.

Broad: no keyword modifier – free braces

You will no longer trigger searches containing both the word free and braces

• I want braces that are free
• free braces
• how to get my braces for free

Here is a great example chart taken from Adwords – http://adwords.blogspot.com/2007/11/adwords-optimization-tips-more-on.html

How to determine What Negative Match to Use?

We don’t want to shoot ourselves in the foot. Excluding the wrong keywords can lose us sales just as they can save us money.

Let’s look at the above example keyword “free Braces”. If you do a broad negative you will be removing all searches coming to your site on Adwords search that contain both those keywords in the search. This may be a good thing for you. Only you can really decide and make that call.

Another example may be Dental insurance Denver. In this case you as a dental office do not provide dental insurance. However you do still want to show if someone searches for “what Denver dental practice accepts ZYZ insurance?” . In this case doing an exact negative for the keyword phrase may be in order.

• Adwords Search Campaign Creation– Setup Basics – Part 1
• Adwords Search Campaign Creation – Location Options – Part 2
• Adwords Search Campaign Creation – Language and Bidding Strateg – Part 3
• Adwords Search Campaign Creation – Delivery Methods and Advanced Settings – Part 4
• Adwords Keyword Research
• Adwords Keyword Match Types
• What Are Negative Keywords
• Finding Negative Keywords
• Adwords Quality Score Explained
• What is an Ad group
• How to Create Ad Groups in Adwords
• Creating PPC Ads on Adwords