• Get Elastic, Friday, July 25, 2008 1:15 PM

Excluding irrelevant or low-performing keywords (i.e., negative keywords) from your campaigns can greatly increase relevance (and efficacy), particularly when using broad and phrase matching. Linda Bustos offers some tips for negative keyword research using a trio of Google tools--the Keyword Tool, Google Suggest and Google Product Search.

With Product Search, for example, you can find shopping-related terms, particularly brand names of products that you don't carry, that should be excluded from your campaigns. "When a search query involves a brand name, it's a strong signal that someone is looking to research or purchase a specific item, not check out other brands," Bustos says. "So your general ad will have lower click through, which lowers the click through rate of your entire AdGroup, hurting all your keywords' ad positions and possibly raising your cost-per-click."

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