At the MnSearch Snippet #14 event held at Spyder Trap in Minneapolis, MN on May 28, 2014, Matthew Midwinter presented his slidedeck "Comprehensive Negative Keyword Research."

1. Comprehensive Negative Keyword
Research
Matt Midwinter

2. Who is this Guy?
Matt Midwinter
 PPC Specialist at Collegis Education
 5+ Years of Internet Marketing Experience
 @MattMidwinter
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3. Here’s What We’ll Talk About
 How Most People Do It
 How You Should be Doing it
 Pre-Launch:
 Before You Launch, Do Keyword Research
 Don’t Just Rely On Google’s Keyword Tool
 Do Manual Research Using Google
Recommended Searches
 Post-Launch:
 You’ve Launched! Now It’s Time To Do A
Mass Search Term Analysis
 Visualize The Data
 Work The Data
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4. How Most People Do It
It’s too late!
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5. How They Should Do It
Preparation is key!
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6. Before You Launch, Do Keyword Research
 When doing “normal” keyword research, keep a list
of the keywords you DO NOT want in your keyword
list
 Example: bbq grills, bbq smokers, Korean bbq, etc.
 Keyword Planner can help
 For local keyword research, consider geographic
areas you can’t or don’t want to appear
 Example: Edina restaurants won’t want to show up for
St. Cloud restaurant searches
 Add these keywords to your negative list
 Think of common terms you know will drive poor
results
 Example: “how to” or “DIY” or “backyard”May 29, 2014| Copyright Collegis LLC. Proprietary and
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7. EXAMPLE: Keyword Research Using
Google Keyword Planner
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8. Don’t Just Rely On Google’s Keyword Tool
 Try Übersuggest:
 Free tool that provides
suggested terms based
on real search trends
 Allows you to dig as
deep as you like into
different queries
 Great for finding new
keyword possibilities and
finding terms that you
don't want
 http://ubersuggest.org/
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9. Do Manual Research Using Google
Recommended Searches
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 Glimpse into what people are actually searching for
near you
 Gold-mines for potential keywords -- both positive
and negative
 Example: A BBQ joint probably doesn’t want to bid on
Pizza terms
 May be a better indicator than keyword planner in
Google AdWords.
 BONUS: Great way to see what your competition is
doing ahead of time!

10. Example:
Google Recommended Searches
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11. Example:
Google Recommended Searches
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12. You’ve Launched! Now It’s Time To Do A
Mass Search Term Analysis
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 Run a search term export on the keywords you want
to analyze.
 Next open your Excel document with the list of
search terms and the data
 Create a pivot tablet to lookup the data
 Use the search term field as a filter to select multiple
search terms at once
 Need help with pivot tables? Follow this guide from PPC
Hero.

13. Visualize The Data
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 Leverage Word Cloud Tools (i.e., Tag Crowd)
 Visualize your data to find the most common terms
 Tools allow you to input vast numbers of terms
 Example: Using Tag Crowd can provide the frequency
of terms and can be easily imported directly to Excel

14. Example: Mass Search Term Analysis
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15. Work The Data
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 Copy the list of common themes from the word
cloud tag back into excel.
 Enter each theme into the search term filter.
 Make sure to check select multiple items.
 Save the data next to each theme.
 Identify your winning and losing themes.
 For any theme that is inconclusive you can look up
the search terms that were part of it manually to get a
better feel for performance.
 You can use conditional formatting to quickly identify
how the themes are performing.

16. Example: Excel Pivot Tablet
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17. The end. Thanks for listening!
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Matt Midwinter
• PPC Specialist at Collegis Education
• 5+ Years of Internet Marketing
Experience
• @MattMidwinter