If we talk about online advertising based on keywords, We are almost necessarily talking about Google Adwords, . If you have ever used it, you will know that your campaigns must be accompanied by a list of keywords (keywords) that are nothing more than the words that the Google user will write in the search engine, in whose results you want your ad to appear.
and the most useful strategies to do it in each case, but Google also allows the use of negative keywords. We are going to explain what they are and how they can be used in a campaign.
How to use negative keywords
A negative is, , “a type of keyword that prevents the ad from being triggered by a certain word or phrase. Tell Google not to show the ad to the user who searches for this phrase.
That is, unlike a normal keyword, with negative keywords what we want is that our ad does not appear in the search results when a Google user types that word in the search engine.
negative keywords are always a complement to normal keywords. Let’s see it with an example: If I have a charming hotel in Santiago de Compostela, I want my ads to appear when someone types keywords like these into Google:
- Hotel in Santiago de Compostela
- Charming hotel in Santiago de Compostela
- Charming hotel in Galicia
- Accommodation in Santiago de Compostela
…and a long list of variations, depending on my strategy, how I want to position myself and how much I want to spend.
But if my hotel has a certain price level, or just I am not interested “Deal Seeker” customers, then I’ll need to prevent my ad from appearing if someone searches for:
- Hotel cheap in Santiago de Compostela
- Offer hotel in Santiago de Compostela
In this case, “cheap” and “offer” are negative keywords, in which I am not interested in my ads appearing nor pay for clicks that I know in advance that they will not be interested in my establishment. Therefore, when I make my list of negative keywords for our Adwords campaign, I will include terms such as “inexpensive”, “cheap”, “offer” and the like.
That is, in my campaigns I will have a list of “positive” keywords and another of negative keywords. They both work together so that if one of the negative keywords appears in the text that a user writes in his Google search, that search will not be taken into account when presenting my ad, even if that text includes the keywords that interest me, as in the examples we have just seen.
The strategy conditions the use of keywords
The use of negative (and positive) keywords is defined, therefore, by the one you decide to follow. And there is the mother of the lamb: being able to develop a good strategy.
Adwords, or rather, getting the most out of Adwords, is more complex than it seems. It is something similar to what happens with the : Google is not interested in spending the minimum on advertising, but neither does he want you to think that it is not profitable enough if the results of your campaigns are not the desired ones. Therefore, look for a balance in which they win and the advertiser too. Or so it is in theory.
In practice, to know how to use keywords well you have to know very well not only how Adwords works, but also how Google works.something that, as in , requires a lot of experience, being very up to date on new developments and having been born in Alpha Centauri to possess telepathic and/or divinatory skills.
In any other case, there is always a percentage of uncertainty caused both by the workings of Google and by the fickle minds of human beings, who systematically insist on inventing new, creative and unsuspected search terms. no wonder that to understand correctly what you are asked to look for.
Jokes aside, correctly managing keywords involves making decisions and, above all, reviewing the list based on the results.
Negative keywords are usually words like “free”, “cheap”, “no cost”, “economical” and the like, but It can be any word that we are not interested in being associated with our brand. Therefore, negative keywords can be used as an additional option so that our advertising is read by who we really want to read it.
Adwords and SEO, an intimate relationship
There is an intimate relationship between your Adwords strategy and SEO. Not so much at positioning levels in Google (although many people affirm that it intentionally positions better those who invest in advertising, something never officially confirmed and that arouses a lot controversy), such as clicks being really effective. If you do not want to position yourself in the segment associated with the word “free”, logically that word should not appear on your website, at least not prominently, much less be one of your SEO criteria.
But the strategies are as diverse as brands and companies exist, therefore, as always in these cases, first stop to think about what you want to achieve and who you want to reachand then plan your online advertising campaigns based on it.
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