Paid Search Advice & List of Negative Keywords

Earlier this morning, Roxana Patrichi of Avangate published a list of 150+ negative keywords for software selling AdWords campaigns. This reminded me of one of the questions that I was asked in a recent interview to Affilorama. I was asked what advice I would give to newbie affiliates that are getting involved in paid search. I believe that there are at least 5 things PPC affiliates must know at the outset:

  1. Educate yourself thoroughly (a good place to start would be a book by Marshall and Todd called “Ultimate Guide to Google AdWords”)
  2. Remember to constantly test (watch your CTR and work on improving it on an ongoing basis)
  3. Don’t rush (you can burn a lot of money overnight, take small steps until you really know what you’re doing)
  4. Develop inventories of long-tail keywords (looking at things through the end user’s eyes and using the Google AdWords Keyword Tool)
  5. Use negative keywords (or keywords for which you do not want your ad to show in paid search results, as they are unlikely to convert into the desirable action)

Below I am including a list of 90 negative keywords to help all kinds paid search affiliates. Let me stress that this is a basic list to start with. Affiliates want to develop such lists for each PPC campaign they run. Thorough negative keyword lists include hundreds of keywords.

about

amazon

bargain

bargains

blog

blogs

book

books

cheap

clearance

close out

close outs

closeout

closeouts

community

comparison

comparisons

complaint

complaints

complimentary

contest

costless

deal

deals

define

definition

discount

discounted

diy

example

examples

forum

free

freebie

giveaway

gratis

gratuit

help

how to

how-to

illegal

info

information

journal

journals

liquidation

magazine

magazines

manual

model

news

no charge

no cost

oofers

photo

photos

picture

pictures

price

prices

pricing

problem

problems

project

reclamation

reclamations

research

retail

retailer

retailers

returns

review

reviews

sample

samples

scam

stats

suck

sucks

support

tip

tips

training

tutorial

tutorials

user manual

video

warranty

what are

what is

While not all merchants may be willing to share their keyword inventories with affiliates, I believe that sharing the list of the negative keywords is a must. After all, if they burn themselves (and loose cash, with low or no conversion), it is the merchant, who they will eventually stop promoting, that will loose too. So if you are a merchant or an affiliate program manager reading this, compile your own list of negative keywords (the above one will help you get started quickly) and offer it to your affiliates.

8 thoughts on “Paid Search Advice & List of Negative Keywords”

  1. Thanks for this post Geno, I am thinking about dabbling in Adwords, my only concern is that I write reviews and from previous feedback it seems like it might not work for my site. However, it is worth testing and I will def be following step no.3…don’t rush!

  2. Glad you’ve enjoyed the post, Bryan.

    I am surprised someone told you that paid search “might not work” for your site. What was the reasoning behind the statement? I see that you run a blog about soccer cleats. It looks like most of your individual post’s webpages would make perfect landing pages for PPC campaigns.

  3. Well, I tried with adwords for 2 weeks, $50 campaign, but it resulted in no conversions, around a 6% click through, but no conversions! I spoke to a friend about it and he was the one that suggested it might not work as I review rather than sell. So, it makes me nervous trying it again, but you think I could find some success in it?

  4. You had a good CTR rate, but you were obviously doing something wrong. Since the click-to-sale conversion rate was at 0%, it either had to do with how targeted your PPC traffic was (or wasn’t), as well as how well optimized the paid search landing pages were.

    I’d highly encourage you to pick up the above-quoted Perry Marshall’s book on AdWords and study it carefully before you move any further. I am sure PPC marketing can work for your site too. It’s just a matter of analyzing your previous campaign carefully to see what’s been done wrong, and learning from the mistakes.

  5. Howie Jacobson wrote a book entitled “AdWords for Dummies”. He does an excellent job of outlining and elaborating on Google AdWords as well as an extensive look at email marketing in general.

    That’s a really good read.

    I do have to check out Perry’s book, too.

    Maybe this week 🙂

  6. Yes, I meant to mention that Jacobson’s book too. I picked it up on Amazon after seeing that it’s got 70+ stellar reviews. I have it on my shelf, but haven’t started reading it yet.

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