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Negative Keywords You Might Need in Your PPC Account

Negative keywords are a godsend to all who manage PPC accounts – they’re an efficient way to ensure that your ads don’t come up for totally irrelevant search queries.

Negative keywords would've stopped PPC gun loving Yosemite Sam land on a PPC advertising page.For example, did you know that “PPC” as well as being a cost effective advertising technique is also a type of gun? True story. PPC agencies who are running their own online advertising would then add terms like gun, guns and shooting as negative keywords to their campaigns to make sure that no gun-toting, ammo lovers come their way in search of tips on how to hit a bullseye in target practice.

So how do you go about finding negative keywords?

There’s a ton of ways to do this research – from popping your keywords into the ever-popular Google AdWords Keyword Tool to using a thesaurus. Keri Morgret of SEOmoz wrote a great in depth post covering a whole host of ways to build your negative keyword lists that you should read for more ideas.

Or you could cheat.

There’s a whole host of negative keyword lists freely available online and they provide a great starting point for any online advertiser, this one by Komarketing Associates is my favourite. But I haven’t seen one yet that covers one important area: entertainment.

There are all manner of weird, wonderful and sometimes mundane terms that turn up as band names, in songs, as movie titles.

Just think of the poor door suppliers of the world, without a good negative keyword list, not only could their ads show up on searches for the band The Doors, but also songs like “Knockin’ on Heaven’s Door” by Bob Dylan and movies like “Sliding Doors” starring Gwyneth Paltrow.

While ideally you should do thorough research to weed out these searches, not everyone has time for that. So, I’ve created negative keywords lists of music, tv and film related keywords that you can use to help you avoid appearing for irrelevant searches:

[slidingnote hint=”Click me!” title=”Music” type=”closeable” type=”snaccordian closeable” group=”1″]

album

albums

amp

amps

artist

artiste

artistic

artists

audio

band

bands

bass

bass guitar

bass guitars

chord

chords

concert

concerts

cover

covers

D J

date

dates

deejay

DJ

download

downloads

drummer

drummers

drums

electric guitar

electric guitars

gallery

gig

gigs

grammies

grammy

group

groups

grunge

guitar

guitarist

guitarists

guitars

itunes

keyboard

keyboards

last fm

lick

licks

lyric

lyrics

mobo

mobos

mp 3

mp3

mtv

music

piano

player

players

radio

rapper

rappers

record

recording

records

riff

riffs

rock

rock group

rock groups

singer

singers

single

singles

solo

solos

song

songs

songstress

songwriter

spotify

stadium

station

stations

studio

studios

tab

tabs

theatre

theatres

ticket

tickets

tour

tours

track

tracks

turn table

turn tables

turntable

turntables

venue

venues

video

videos

vocal

vocals[/slidingnote]

[slidingnote hint=”Click me!” title=”Musical Styles” type=”closeable” type=”snaccordian closeable” group=”1″]

2 step

2 tone

8 bit

acid house

acid jazz

acid rock

afro beat

alt rock

ambient

art rock

barber shop

barbershop

beat

beats

beebop

bhangra

black metal

blues

break beat

break core

breaks

brit pop

cajun

calypso

celtic

chamber

chill out

chillout

christian

classic

classical

country

country & western

country and western

country n western

cow punk

dance

dark step

death metal

deep soul

delta blues

disco

dream pop

drum

drum & bass

drum and bass

drum n bass

dub

dub step

dubstep

easy listening

electro

electronic rock

emo

exotica

flamenco

folk

freak beat

funk

fusion jazz

gabba

gamelan

gangster rap

garage

glam

glam rock

gogo

gothic

hardcore

hip hop

house

indie

jazz

lounge

metal

new metal

new wave

nintendocore

northern soul

nu jazz

nu metal

nu wave

opera

pop

post-rock

power pop

prog

psychadelic

psychobilly

punk

r n b

r&b

ragga

rap

reggae

rhythm and blues

rock n roll

roots rock

salsa

ska

skiffle

soul

surf

swamp blues

synth

trance

trip hop

turntablism

two step

two tone

uk garage

unblack metal

world music[/slidingnote]

[slidingnote hint=”Click me!” title=”Film & TV” type=”closeable” type=”snaccordian closeable” group=”1″]

acting

actor

actors

actress

actresses

award

awards

bafta

baftas

BBFC

broadcast

channel

channels

cinema

cinemas

critic

criticism

critics

director

directors

emmies

emmy

epic

episode

episodes

festival

festivals

film

film 4

films

golden globe

golden globes

golden raspberry

host

hosts

imdb

listing

listings

lovefilm

motion picture

motion pictures

movie

movies

netflix

oscar

oscars

plot

premiere

premieres

presenter

presenters

producer

producers

program

programme

quote

quotes

rating

razzie

razzies

schedule

script

scripts

series

show

shows

spoiler

spoilers

sundance

subtitle

subtitles

synopsis

television

time

times

title

titles

trailer

trailers

trivia

tv

UK film council

writer

writers[/slidingnote]

[slidingnote hint=”Click me!” title=”Film & TV Genres” type=”closeable” type=”snaccordian closeable” group=”1″]

action

adventure

animated

animation

art film

black comedy

buddy movie

caper

challenge

children’s

comedy

comic book

coming of age

courtroom drama

crime

detective

documentary

drama

family

fantasy

film noir

gangster

ghost

heist

historical

horror

love

musical

myth

paranormal

quiz

reality

rom com

romance

sci fi

science fiction

scripted reality

silent

sitcom

supern action

adventure

animated

animation

art film

black comedy

buddy movie

caper

challenge

children’s

comedy

comic book

coming of age

courtroom drama

crime

detective

documentary

drama

family

fantasy

film noir

gangster

ghost

heist

historical

horror

love

musical

myth

paranormal

quiz

reality

rom com

romance

sci fi

science fiction

scripted reality

silent

sitcom

supernatural

talkies

thriller

tragedy

western[/slidingnote]

Have I missed anything obvious? If so, let me know in the comments below.

How to Use Your Negative Keyword Lists

AdWords makes it easy to add standard negative keywords to all campaigns – simply click on the Campaigns tab then select the Shared Library from the menu on the right. Navigate to the Campaign Negative Keywords and click Add negative keyword list:

How to add a negative keyword list

Name the keyword list something sensible – e.g. “Entertainment” – and copy and paste all the appropriate keywords from the lists above then hit save.

NB: Don’t forget that this is a generic negative keyword list – always ensure that none of the terms are relevant to what you do before you add them as negative keywords, or you could inadvertently stop your ads from showing to the right people.

Now that your list is set up, you’ll need to add it to all the campaigns that you want to exclude the terms from. Select the list you want to add to campaigns, then click Apply to campaigns. Click on all the campaigns you want to add the list to and hit save.

How to apply your negative lists to campaign

Click on the campaigns you want to apply your negative list to then hit save

It’s as easy as that!

Using standard negative keyword lists can help to reduce the number of irrelevant queries that your ads appear for, helping to increase your ROI. If you aren’t already using them, now’s the time to start.

 


Looking for a digital marketing agency that can help you with PPC? Get in touch with us, we’re always happy to have a chat!

Amy Hunt

Amy Hunt

Amy started out as a Digital Marketing Executive here at Boom in late 2016, graduating in 2018 to Digital Marketing Client Manager and then to Head of Outreach & Digital PR at the beginning of 2021. Amy works on various digital marketing projects for different clients, focusing on SEO, content marketing and outreach.View Author posts

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