Paid Advertising
Negative Keywords
Search terms you tell Google to ignore so your ads never show for them, used to block irrelevant clicks and protect your budget.
Definition
Negative keywords are words and phrases you add to a campaign to prevent your ads from appearing on searches that include them. They're the cleanup tool of paid search, filtering out irrelevant traffic so your budget goes toward searches that can actually become customers.
In depth
When you bid on a keyword, especially on broad or phrase match, Google can show your ad for a wide range of related searches, not all of them useful. Negative keywords let you carve away the bad ones: terms like "free," "jobs," "DIY," or a competitor's brand name that draw clicks but never buyers. They're how you stop paying for searches that were never going to convert.
For a budget, negatives are some of the highest-leverage work in an account. Every dollar not wasted on an irrelevant click is a dollar available for one that converts, so a well-maintained negative list lowers your cost per lead without touching bids. The search terms report is the source: it shows the real queries triggering your ads so you can add the junk as negatives.
The mistake is setting a list once and forgetting it. Search behavior shifts, new irrelevant terms creep in, and an over-aggressive negative can accidentally block good traffic. At WellBuilt we review search terms on a regular cadence and prune carefully, because the goal is a tighter funnel, not a smaller one.
Worked example
A custom-home builder bidding on "home builder" adds negatives like "jobs," "salary," "cheap," "DIY," and "how to," cutting tire-kicker clicks and lowering cost per lead on the budget that remains.
Paid Advertising
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