The lack of conventionally heroic attributes defines the term anti-hero. A flawed hero is one who is less than pure or noble in their intention.

The typical anti-hero is selfish, vengeful or sometimes even working for the forces of evil, but with underlying heroic qualities.

A classic example of the anti-hero would include Han Solo. In the world of paid search marketing, it is the negative keyword that is the proverbial “anti-hero”. However, these dark heros can serve great purpose if used skillfully.

In this article, I want to discuss the importance of keyword targeting, development strategy and the benefits of building a strong negative keyword list.

Why You Want an Agency

The anti-hero needs the guidance of the right friend or mentor to turn them from their less than pure nature and align them to the side of good. In the same fashion, your digital agency should have the experience to make negative keywords an effective and important part of your overall paid search strategy, and not just make them work for you, but to be the unseen hero of your paid campaign

Top Notch Strategy

Like the anti-hero, paid search advertising when not properly managed, can leave you with limited results and a lack of trust. Your digital marketing agency has the right tools and extensive experience to build you a highly result-focused PPC campaign and ensure it is on the right path while being aligned with your business and goals.

Extensive research is put into learning your products and services to ensure that the specified keyword strategy is aligned to your core customer.

Measurable Results

One of the key benefits of paid search is the amount of data provided. A digital agency has the patience and experience to understand and monitor this information as a part of your regular account maintenance. Keywords can be tracked from search query, to click and ultimately to conversion of a sale or other business goal.

Measuring the success of your key terms is an important part of paid search strategy. Your digital agency is constantly reviewing these metrics to ensure your terms are on the right path to your success, and excluding those that provide less than favorable results.

Quality Over Quantity

Personalization of your keyword strategy is paramount to its success. Most agencies will focus on building you a targeted keyword list, but a great agency will put equal effort into your negative keyword list.

Fine tuning both of these lists helps to laser focus on quality customers you want to attract for your brand, product and service and exclude those that don’t align with your predetermined goals.

Improved Performance

Utilization of negative keywords can reduce the grey area in between “good” and “bad” to a minimum. With both a focused positive and negative keyword strategy, your agency can help you reduce costs, increase your click through rate and improve conversions.

If it wasn’t for Han Solo, Luke Skywalker would never have had the chance for that last shot that took down the Death Star. Your business, products and services are the hero of your paid campaign and your digital marketing agency is behind the scenes working to ensure all of the characters in your paid search story are working toward your success.

By: Jeff