SEO TIPS: Understanding Negative Keywords

Do you know anything about negative keywords? If not and you're a webmaster, it is a topic you should know about. Negative, or excluded keywords, are one way for website owners to to make sure their site does not show up on keyword searches. Remember, many websites still pay CPM instead of pay per click, meaning they are charged for advertising based on how many times their ad appears in response to searches by consumers. Negative keywords can male it all for naught.

Let's suppose that you run a website that sells exclusively women's shoes. The odds are that  you probably want your ad to pop up in responses to searches that include combinations of the keywords shoes, boots, women, female, and a multitude of variations. That is your target audience – to a certain extent. What if some-one runs a search for 'men's shoes' and your ad shows up? The reality is you are paying for the ad, the searcher is not getting wha

t they are looking for and your chances of a conversion are almost zero. it is wasted resources.

Take heart – there is good news about all of this. You can exclude certain keywords, which will help you narrow your audience to those who are interested in your product. This eliminates issues like we detailed above. By making men, men's, male, masculine and other variations of the word 'negative' for appearances of your ads on search, you can reduce the number of wasted views considerably. This better targets your audience, saves you money, and helps raise your conversion rate – and it keeps your bounce rate from looking so ugly too.

You will still get views based on the generic term of shoes, women's shoes, and woman's boots so you are not hurting yourself. But any search with the word men or a variation thereof will not show your ad. This should increase your conversion rate and ROI substantially. It's not always clear initially what words should be excluded, but through trial and error you will figure out the proper balance of keywords to include or exclude so you get the most out of your advertising budget. Negative keywords are your friend – learn to use them!