One of the most overlooked best practices when setting up a paid search campaign is to add negative keywords. While having the right keyword phrases, match type and locations are the most important things to consider, negative keywords are a fundamental ingredient toward making sure you are only paying for clicks that reach your specific target audience.
As an example, let’s say that your business is strictly building restoration services. Let’s also pretend that you only do commercial work and therefore don’t want any clicks for home repairs or residential projects. In this scenario, you would want to make sure your search keywords are strictly commercial related. Examples might be “commercial building restoration” or “building restoration contractors” (quotation marks are added for phrase match). To block your ads from showing in non-commercial search engine result pages, we would suggest adding negative keywords such as home, house, residential, driveway, windows, siding, plumbing and so on. The list can be as long as you need and typically needs some modification.
Adding negative keywords to your campaigns should, in theory, restrict your ads from showing up in irrelevant searches. Using phrase match (with quotation marks) for the keywords you want to show up for is also highly recommended. Google Support has a lengthy article on negative keywords that you can read here.
Shared Library Tools
One of the more useful tools in PPC campaign management is a negative keyword list saved to a shared library. Google and Microsoft’s Bing both offer a shared library option that can be added to all campaigns and ad groups at the account level. By creating a list in a shared library, you don’t have to worry about entering negative keywords to each ad group. The list can also be modified in real time whenever necessary.
In future articles, we’ll discuss keyword match types, location options, landing pages and bid strategies in more detail. Contact us today if you would like to discuss your marketing needs and what’s happening with your business. Check out our Services page to see what other digital marketing and creative design areas we can discuss.
Guy Hanford
President
Vesteras LLC
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