What Are They & How to Use Them

What Are Negative Keywords?

Negative keywords are words or phrases you can add to your pay-per-click (PPC) marketing campaign to prevent your ads from appearing when users search for those terms.

For example, let’s say you run a premium online shoe store.

You might want to add “cheap” as a negative keyword to avoid showing your ads to folks looking for cheap shoes.

In this article, we’ll discuss:

Tip: Create a free Semrush account to follow along with the steps in this guide.

Why Are Negative Keywords Important?

Negative keywords are essential for optimizing PPC campaigns and maximizing ROI.

Using negative keywords can help you save money, boost conversions, and improve your quality score.

Here’s how:

• Save money. Negative keywords help you avoid paying for clicks from people who are not interested in your products or services.

• Boost click-through-rate (CTR) and conversions. Negative keywords help display your ads only for relevant queries, which allows you to reach qualified prospects who are more likely to buy from you.

• Improve quality score. Quality score is, in part, a measure of how well your ads match search intent. A higher quality score can lead to better ad positions. Negative keywords make your ads more relevant to your landing pages and can boost your quality score.

How Do Negative Keywords Work?

Negative keywords work by matching a user’s query with the search terms you don’t want to target.

If the user searches for one of your negative keywords,...