What are Negative Keywords in Google Ads?

Today I’m going to explain to you what are negative keywords in Google ads and how to use negative keywords within your Google Ads campaigns.

To find out more check out my video below or keep reading for the full blog.

Now, essentially, negative keywords are the keywords that you don’t want your ad to appear on Google. If somebody searches for that keyword. These are not the keywords that you do want your ad to hear for.

These are the keywords that you do not want to pay Google for these keywords. If someone types these keywords in now. Let’s say for example if you especially ceramic, or your niche, is, let’s say you’re a marriage therapist. You provide therapy to people who are in difficult marriages, right.

So you might not want to add to be shown if someone types in NHS, for example, Because you might be a private marriage therapist, or if someone’s types in marriage therapy course, or marriage therapy training. This could be that the service that you provide is a face to face service. As opposed to an online type of service.

Negative keywords are the keywords that you do not want your ad to be shown on Google when you don’t pay anyone for those types of keywords. Now you might ask a very natural question is, why should I be worried about negative keywords?

When in my Google Ads campaign, I don’t even have any of these keywords. I might not even have the word online or NHS or training. Why should I be worried about these sorts of keywords when they are not clearly listed in my campaign?

The answer is really simple. Okay, so we need to look at keywords, right? You got keywords, which you supply to Google. You say to Google, hey, I want to be listed on Google for. For example, marriage therapy, or marriage therapist near me. However, what Google then does is Google being Google.

It will create other words in other search terms, which Google thinks are related to the keywords that you’re telling Google about. They call these close variations or synonyms. If someone does type in marriage therapy, Google might assume that, hey, if someone also types in marriage therapy online. Then this keyword might also be relevant to the particular advertiser. And now you’ve got to do you got to look at your search terms report here. See what Google is throwing out your ad for which keywords Google is throwing your ads out for compared to the ads that you provided to Google.

Now, if one of those keywords was the training, for example, you can tell Google. – Hey I know you let my ad for someone who typed in marriage therapy training, I might have even paid for the ad. But now what I’m going to do, I wanted to convert the word training into a negative keyword.

Changing that keyword into a negative keyword. — It means is that Google will no longer consider your keyword or the word training as a close variation. And it will not show you an ad for if someone types in marriage therapy training.

Then the question is, where do I place my negative keywords? And the answer is quite simple. You can place your negative keywords at the ad group level, whereby you might have several ad groups. You can put that keyword in that ad group. Then that negative keyword will only be a negative in that key in that ad group.

You can put it at campaign level. So any ad groups within that campaign will apply to and you can also put it in a shared negative list. You can put all your negative keywords in a list. Then that list you can apply to any campaign or ad group. Essentially, the benefit that you’re getting from carefully looking at your negative keyword is that you’re saving out on costs.

So as time goes on, you’re gonna pay less and less for keywords that you know that you will never, ever have a conversion. Because you simply don’t provide that service. What leads you to what’s the best way of finding these keywords.

I’ve already told you that one way is looking at your search terms report here for your search terms report are. Just to recap, again, it’s all the keywords that your ad has to which Google is considered a close variation or synonym.

However, what you can do is, before we even start implementing your campaign, you can go to Tools. It says Google Keyword Planner and types in the keyword you want to use within your campaign. Then Google will give you a whole load of keywords. These are keyword ideas, which are closely related to marriage therapists.

You can simply scroll down the list and pick out keywords. So what you’re doing is that, instead of having a totally reactive approach, you’re being proactive. Yet before your company even starts, it’s not going to show your ads for various keywords. As a result of that, you’ve got a much better and stronger start to your campaign itself.

Finally, in terms of how often you should check your negative keywords, it’s as often as you possibly can. This is where one of the major areas where a lot of businesses lose money. They’re showing for search terms, which are not relevant.

If you can’t do it every day, that’s great. It will depend on how much you’re spending what size the campaign is. But at least once a week, you should go into your search terms report and take a look at these negative keywords. Now, it could be that you don’t necessarily need to get rid of them. It could be that you may need to put them inside a different campaign.