Negative keywords are words or phrases you add to a PPC campaign to stop your ads from showing when someone searches those terms, and they matter because they cut wasted clicks and focus your budget on people who are actually looking for what you sell.
Think of regular keywords as “show our ad for this,” and negative keywords as “do not show our ad for this.” If you run Google Ads for an Orlando dental practice, you might want to show for “emergency dentist Orlando,” but you probably do not want to pay for clicks from “dental school,” “free dental clinic,” “dentist jobs,” or “how to become a dentist.” Those searches can be valid, they are just not buying searches for your practice.
The impact is usually immediate: fewer irrelevant impressions, fewer junk clicks, cleaner lead quality, and more room in the budget for the searches that book appointments or request quotes. This is one of the fastest ways to improve PPC performance without raising bids, because you are removing traffic that was never going to convert.
Where negative keywords help most for local businesses in Central Florida:
- Filtering research intent: “DIY,” “how to,” “definition,” “examples,” “template,” “YouTube.”
- Filtering deal hunters: “free,” “cheap,” “coupon,” “wholesale” (unless you truly want that market).
- Filtering career traffic: “jobs,” “salary,” “internship,” “career.”
- Filtering the wrong service: a pest control company adding “bed bugs” if you do not treat them, or a law firm adding “public defender” if you only do private representation.
- Filtering mismatched audiences: “for kids,” “for students,” “training,” “certification,” when those are not your offers.
In Google Ads, you can add negative keywords at the campaign level (blocks for everything in that campaign) or at the ad group level (more precise). Most accounts also benefit from shared negative keyword lists, so you can apply the same exclusions to multiple campaigns consistently. If you want hands-on help building and maintaining those lists, our PPC management work always includes ongoing negative keyword cleanup because search behavior changes month to month.
Practical way to build a solid negative keyword list:
- Start with obvious exclusions: jobs, free, DIY, training, meaning, definition, and any services you do not offer.
- Review the Search terms report weekly: this is where you see the exact queries that triggered ads. Add negatives for anything that is irrelevant, misleading, or low value.
- Watch for “almost right” searches: these are the sneaky money leaks, like “commercial” when you only do residential, or “used” when you only sell new.
- Keep intent aligned: negative keywords work best when your keywords, ad copy, and landing page all match what the searcher wants. If you are sorting intent, our explanation of search intent types can help you decide what to block versus what to keep.
One caution: negative keywords can block good traffic if you get too aggressive. For example, adding “cheap” might block “affordable dentist in Orlando,” which could still be a great patient. We usually start with clear mismatches, then tighten based on actual search term data and conversion tracking. Done well, negative keywords act like a guardrail for your spend, keeping your ads in front of the right people and off the searches that were never going to turn into revenue.
