A common mistake that most first-time Pay-Per-Click (PPC) campaign managers make is that they focus on the keywords that will drive traffic to their advertisements, but they neglect to use words to filter out clicks as well. Negative keywords, which will tell Google or other search engines to ignore certain keywords, will help business owners target the right kind of customer, which will reduce the number of irrelevant clicks. Irrelevant clicks can cost a lot of unnecessary money for business owners, and learning how to incorporate negative keywords into your Google Adwords management will greatly improve your campaigns.
A business’ return on investment is always top of mind. It is hard to glaze over how much money is being spent on advertising, and it can be frustrating for business owners to feel like they are throwing their money away when they aren’t getting the results they want. Negative Keywords will help to remove your advertisements from certain searches so that you get more relevant clicks. For example, if your business sells handmade wedding invitations, you may want to use negative keywords such as “sympathy cards,” “birthday cards,” and “thinking of you cards.” What you are effectively doing is telling Google, or another search engine, to not show your advertisement for wedding invitations when people search those terms.
While it might seem lucrative to target people who are interested in buying handmade birthday cards because they might someday want to buy handmade wedding invitations, you are wasting your valuable Adwords dollars on people who aren’t really in your targeted audience. There are enough brides and grooms looking for handmade wedding invitations that if you target them with specific keywords and leave out the irrelevant ones, you’ll see a great impact and your Adwords management will improve greatly.
Small business owners spend so much time focusing on the keywords to target potential customers that negative keywords can often go overlooked, especially if small business owners don’t understand how to use them. When budget is a concern, small business owners become their own Adword campaign managers and can underestimate how powerful reducing traffic actually is. What’s more, when small business owners don’t understand how Adwords campaigns work, their PPC budget can max out before they know it! By wasting valuable dollars on irrelevant clicks, business owners will become frustrated and think the system is not working.
If your budget allows for it, working with an Adwords manager who can help you navigate the negative keywords is a great approach to narrowing down your target market. If you are going it alone, think about the kinds of customers you don’t want finding their way to your website and write those words down so you can incorporate them into your negative keyword search. If you are up for a little trial and error approach, it won’t take you long to figure out what words need to be weeded out of your campaign by paying attention to the analytics of your campaign.
