Negative keywords are an excellent way to curb your spending and drive better-targeted traffic to your site.  While broad, phrase, and exact match types allow you to target certain search terms – negative keywords allow you to refine your results so you aren’t receiving unnecessary or unqualified visitors.

Negative keywords are included in your campaign by adding a minus sign in front of the keywords you would like to filter out, and you can use them at the ad group or campaign level.

Advertiser Education: Negative Keywords

Google has put together an excellent overview of what negative keywords are, and how they can help you.

Why should you use negative keywords?

There are several reasons to use negative keywords, not only in your AdWords campaign – but all of your PPC campaigns:

• Reduce your spending – When you use negative keywords you are refining your search terms so that you are only bidding on those keywords that are relevant and help you meet your goals
• Higher quality visitors – Negative keywords can bring you higher quality visitors who are searching for what you offer because you are filtering out the non-relevant and non-converting keywords.