What Are Negative Keywords?

Negative keywords are a pay-per-click advertising match type option offered by most of the major search engines. (A match type, or keyword matching option, is a way of designating what kinds of searches can trigger your ads to appear. Certain match types are more restrictive while others allow a broader range of matches, and hence more impressions.)

There are a couple of things to keep in mind with regards to negative keywords:

They Serve as an Ad Filter – Creating a negative keyword will ensure that your ad doesn’t show for that particular term.

They Apply to Expansive Match Types – Negative keywords are useful when applying phrase or broad match (or a similar expanded matching option, such as Yahoo’s advanced match), as opposed to exact match (which only matches your ad to an exact keyword phrase you specify). When using broader match types, your keywords are matched to multiple variations of a phrase, not all of which will be logical extensions of the phrase you’re targeting, and not all of which will be pertinent to your business.

Why Use the Broad Match & Negative Keyword Combination?
So why not just use exact match and show only for the specific keywords you want to target?

There are two core reasons you don’t want to show only for these narrowly defined phrases:

It Limits Your Reach – While broad and phrase match will sometimes display your ad in response to unwelcome keyword variations, they also help your ad display against highly valuable permutations of your keyword—variations that you wouldn’t be able to anticipate. (About 20% of search queries have never been searched on before!) In fact, limiting yourself to exact match causes you to leave most of the traffic on the table, as it ignores the long tail.

The Costs Are Higher – “Head” or broader terms have greater advertiser competition and typically cost you more per click than more specific variations.

The ideal solution is to utilize broad or phrase match while mining your account for negative keyword candidates. This way you can cast the widest possible net, but filter out potential matches that you know won’t convert.

Negative Keywords – How Being Negative Can Have a Positive PPC Effect

Implementing a negative keyword strategy helps you:

• Improve Click-Through Rate (CTR) – Ensuring that your ads aren’t running against irrelevant queries means exposing your account to fewer uninterested impressions. This means that the percentage of people who click on your ad will be greater. (CTR refers to the percentage of searchers who view your ad that go on to click on it.)
• Create More Relevant Ad Groups – By weeding out keywords that aren’t related to your business, you tighten the relevance of your ad groups. Small, closely related ad groups allow you to craft a single message that speaks to the entire group of keywords.
• Save Money – By avoiding paying for useless clicks, you save a lot of money. Additionally, by creating more relevant keyword groups with higher CTR, you raise your Quality Scores, which will also lower your costs.

So what exactly are negative keywords, and how can they save you money and improve your ad campaign performance?