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01.22.08
Finding & Expanding Negative Keywords
 By
Dave Davis
With the now fully accepted quality score mechanism implemented in all major PPC platforms (and soon to be MSN too), click through rate (CTR) is even more important now than it ever was.
Broad match and advanced matching options allow your products and services to be found for terms you may not even have thought existed but that luxury comes at a price. The phrases you "never knew existed" can also be phrases and search terms you do not want your ads to show for. Having a comprehensive and well built negative keyword list can significantly improve not only your CTR, but your conversion rate too. Here are some of the methods that we use to build our negative keyword lists.
Caveat: Many advertisers think that they do not need to use negative keywords if they are only advertising using exact match keywords. While this may be true to an extent, it is important to still use negative keywords on the content networks. Exact match should also be used in conjunction with phrase and broad match to expand your keywords list.
1. Your Own Data.
 Your own analytics can be an amazing source of negative keywords. Look at not only your PPC data but your organic data too. Print out a monthly keyword report and highlight those negative terms. If you are unsure of any, do a simple search for the keyword and see what results pop up. You might be surprised. Don't forget to run a search query performance report on your PPC account to make sure your ads are not being triggered by terms you don't want them to. The guys over at ApolloSEM have a fantastic article on extracting your search query data that Google doesn't want to give you.
2. Google's Keyword Tool.
 Use the free Google keyword tool. Paste in your keywords and make sure you select the "Use synonyms" checkbox. You may be surprised what keywords show up that Google thinks are related to your product or service. Also, paste your URL into the "Website Content" box to see what the tool thinks what your site/page may be about. Check the "Include other pages on my site…" checkbox to get a more rounded view. Make a list of words you are unsure of.
3. Organic Search Results.
 This may seem blindingly obvious, but try setting your search results to display 100 results. Search for your main keywords and notice the results that have absolutely nothing to do with your product or service. Visit those sites and take down negative keywords. Run those sites through the Google keyword tool too. Leave nothing to chance. Think about words people would be using to complain about your product or service or show it in a poor light.
Continue reading this article.
About the Author:
Dave Davis is the managing director and founder of RedFly Marketing, a full service search marketing agency based in Dublin, Ireland. Dave's thoughts on search engine marketing from a European perspective can be found on the Redfly Search Marketing Blog.
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