All language subtitles for 03 - Utilize negative keywords

- [Instructor] Once, I was complaining to someone

about nested tables.

My wife overheard our conversation

and asked why I didn't like nested tables.

Confused, I explained that they're terrible

for search engines and online accessibility.

Then she, being just as confused,

didn't see what that had to do with household furniture.

Do you see what happened here?

The term nested tables has two different meanings

to different people.

I was referring to a website programming technique,

and my wife was referring to furniture.

This is one of the more interesting problems to tackle

in keyword-based advertising.

Many terms or concepts will have alternate meanings.

Additionally, there may be other words

that searchers use that contain our keywords

but aren't relevant.

To mitigate this problem, we need to use negative keywords.

And this is one of the most overlooked tools in search ads.

It's identifying negative keywords

and adding them to your campaign.

I call these stop words.

That means if the searcher is using this word

as part of their query, my ad will not show.

And this is important for primary reasons.

First, it maintains relevance

by focusing my campaign on the keywords, the products,

and how I'm positioning my business.

For example, if I'm selling luxury spa getaways

and that is business targeting, I don't want my ad to show

for people when they search for getaways,

when they use words like cheap, discount, free, or deals,

especially from a business perspective,

when I don't offer those features.

Second, this will improve my click-through rate.

You see, if my ad does not show for irrelevant searches

based on the negative keywords,

then I don't waste impressions.

Click-through rates decrease when an ad appears

but presents a different offering.

In this case, someone searching for discounts

or deals won't click on an expensive luxury ad offering,

which will decrease the click-through rate.

So by using a negative keyword, I can eliminate my ad

from showing based on the searcher's choice of words.

Now, in any search ad system,

I add negative keywords into my ad group

by listing them with a minus sign.

As you can see here, I've targeted my other key phrases

with phrase match by surrounding them with quotes.

I add a negative keyword.

So for my northern california hiking group,

anything that the searcher uses that says southern,

I don't want that to trigger my ad for northern hiking.

So I'll add that keyword

with a negative sign in front of it.

And I've now added that negative keyword to my group.

Look through your keyword research.

Examine, find, and note all of those stop words

that show up in your targeted terms.

Make a list and keep it handy

for when you set up these campaigns

so that you remember to add these words into your ad groups,

which will help you maintain relevance

and control your budget.