The Only Negative Keyword List You Need To Boost Conversions

Are you tired of feeding the Google monster your money? If you want to get the most out of every dollar you spend, keep reading.

If you are like most small businesses with PPC campaigns, you  get calls from Google all the time offering a free consultation. If you ever take them up on that they are going to tell you two things:

1. Add Your Campaign to the Display Network
2. Add Keywords to Get More Exposure

If you own a service company, don’t do either. It will cost you more money and get you less ROI. Google will tell you that you are missing out on potential traffic. They don’t tell you that you need to add negative keywords. Why? Because they want more ad revenue.

Do you think Google wants you to spend less on PPC? Of course not! They wouldn’t be a $60B/year company if they did.

Stop Showing Your Ads To People That Will Never Buy Your Service

An AdWords campaign without a negative keyword list is like buying a billboard in China. You are spending money advertising to people that will never buy your service.

But PPC is pay for performance, right? I only have to pay per click, right?

That is true, but people do click on ads. Take a look at the example below:

That click for “landscaping jobs” could have cost you anywhere between $2 – $7. In other words, you just paid for someone to call you and ask if you are hiring. If this has ever happened to you, it is because your campaign is missing negative keywords.

If  You Don’t Have a Negative Keyword List, You Are Wasting A Lot of Money

Your paid search ads should only show to people that need your service. AdWords is designed to be super easy to set up, but hard to master.  I would love to see Google have an “Add Negative Keywords” required step for an ad campaign. Most business owners have no idea what a negative keyword is and almost none know where to find the setting. I see many businesses throwing money away on searches that will never result in a sale.

Make Sure Your Ad Is Not Shown To Job Seekers

career
careers
employment
franchise
head hunter
hiring
intern
interns
internship
internships
job
jobs
recruiter
recruiting
resume
resumes
salaries
salary

Prevent Your Ads From Showing To People That Want Training

certification
class
classes
college
colleges
course
courses
degree
education
school
schools
seminar
training
universities
university

Save Your Money From People Searching For Generic Information With These Negative Keywords

about
article
articles
blog
blogs
book
books
case studies
case study
definition
diagram
example
examples
guide
guides
history
how to
information
journal
journals
libraries
library
magazine
magazines
metrics
news
photo
photograph
photographs
photos
picture
pictures
research
review
reviews
sample
samples
statistics
stats
success stories
success story
tutorial
tutorials
what are
what is
white paper
white papers
wiki
wikipedia
serial
specification

You Sell Service, Not Software, So Add These Negative Keywords

desktop
developer
developers
disk
download
downloads
dvd
error
file
files
freeware
game
games
gnu
hack
hacks
microsoft
windows xp
android
app
iphone

Negative Keywords That Prevent Paid Clicks From Marketers And Peers

advertising
advisory
association
associations
bulletin
bulletins
club
clubs
community
conference
conferences
council
councils
directory*
foundation
institute
links
logos
marketing
report
reports
research
resource
resources
seo
social media
websites
workshop
workshops
forum
forums

Keep Your Ads From Showing To People Looking For Adult Content

naked
porn
sex

There are ALOT more keywords adult keywords that you could add, but I like to keep it PG on my site. 🙂

You could save hundreds of dollars per month by adding these negative keywords. Spend the money you spend on building your organic search or social media presence.

Add These Negative Keywords Now!

Ready to stop wasting money? Take a guided tour now. If you don’t have an active PPC campaign yet, you can check out the video below.

The negative keyword list that I made for you is just the start. You should add negative keywords every month to your AdWords campaign. See how to find negative keywords for your campaign here.

Conclusion

I strongly recommend PPC for small businesses and service based companies. Add my negative keywords to all of your campaigns and enjoy a better ROI.

PPC is part of the overall online marketing mix. If you are solely dependent on PPC for leads, once you turn off PPC, the leads will disappear. Don’t get dependent on PPC. You need to be able lower your PPC budget during slow months and still get leads from people searching online.