You may have heard of using keywords in association with pay per click (PPC), but are you aware of negative keywords and PPC? Knowing how negative keywords can impact your PPC is as important as knowing what keywords can help it. Here is more on negative keywords and PPC.
Keywords and PPC
If your company has placed a PPC advertisement before you know the importance of keywords, you know that you are bidding on keywords that are related to your product or service. For instance, a florist would bid on the keywords “Fresh Flowers”, or a dentist would bid on the keywords “great looking teeth”. You get the idea. The problems with these keywords are that they can be too general, and your PPC ad will show up on searches unrelated to your business. That’s where negative keywords come in to play.
What Are Negative Keywords?
Negative keywords are words or phrases you set in your PPC so that your ad does not show for the wrong searches. Negative keywords will save you money because your ad won’t be displayed on irrelevant searches, and it makes sure the people you want to see your ad are the only one who sees it. As you will see, using negative keywords can be very advantageous to your return on investment.
How to Find Negative Keywords
There are several ways to find negative keywords to use in your PPC account. The first thing you want to do is see if there is another company with the same name as yours in a different field or industry. Let’s say your company is named Acme and you supply garden hoses. Google the name Acme and see what comes up. You find that the first name that comes up on the list is Acme Coyote Supply, so in your account, you will add the negative keywords “coyote supply” in your list of excluded words. It is a relatively simple concept. You repeat that procedure for the first few Acmes on the list to ensure your ad won’t display for the wrong Acme.
Google Keyword Planner is another excellent resource for finding negative keywords. It has a tool that lets you exclude geographical locations, brand names, and more than one search item at a time.
Let’s say you own a formal clothing store, and you want to use the keywords “formal clothing” in your PPC ad. Google will show you related searches to your keywords, and you see that first on the list is “wedding gowns”, your store doesn’t sell wedding gowns so you would want to be sure to exclude that phrase as negative keywords. You see next on the list is “formal rental clothing” your store does not rent clothing so you would want to make sure that is excluded as well. Make sure to perform the same procedure for Microsoft Ads that will run on Bing. You need to have the same attention to detail as you did with Google to ensure you aren’t spending money on ads being shown in irrelevant searches.
Need Help With PPC?
If you are struggling to get a return on investment from your PPC ads, Mosier Data can help. We understand the ins and outs of what makes a successful PPC ad. Let us put together your PPC ads for better effectiveness. Call us at 863-687-0000 or fill out our easy online contact form. Someone from our staff will be in touch to discuss your PPC ads. Don’t let the wrong people see your PPC ads, contact us today!