An often overlooked and undervalued aspect of the SEM campaign is the negative keyword.  I don’t think I even used negative keywords in the first few SEM campaigns I worked on many years ago.  However, neglecting these is a rookie mistake that can result in poor click through rates and wasted clicks. Negative keywords exclude certain words and phrases from queries, enabling you to target your market more successfully and optimize your campaign fully.

One important example I have run across a great deal is in automotive search engine marketing.  Because the makes and models of most automobiles are words and names of other common terms in the lexicon, it is important to exclude unrelated terms.  “Ford” might be an important keyword for someone with a Ford dealership or with Ford listings of cars or trucks.  However, the generality of the term in it’s broad match state could generate ads on queries for Henry Ford, Betty Ford, Harrison Ford, fording a river, or Ford Motor Credit. Someone searching for the Betty Ford Clinic is not interested in ads for a Ford Focus, but because of the common term of Ford, this kind of search could trigger your automotive ad, wasting impressions.

Start generating a list of negative keywords by first looking at every word in your keyword list.  Begin brainstorming terms that use other meanings of the word or words in your list and expand from there (searches for Lincoln cars could exclude words like Abraham, Nebraska, logs, etc.).  Scour the search tools you used to generate your keyword list and find anything in the lists that don’t belong and add those terms to your negative keyword list.  One source I’ve found to be extremely helpful is having multiple pairs of eyes look at the keyword list.  Computers can miss the somewhat odd human connections that we make, so have friends and coworkers take a look at the list and see if there are any negative keywords you might have missed.  Using negative keywords, and using them well, can and will lift click through rates significantly.