Location targeting and negative keywords for local PPC

Two settings do most of the work of keeping local PPC clean: where your ads show and what searches they are blocked from.

Choosing the area

• Cities or zip codes: match the places you really serve.
• Radius: useful for a shop or office customers travel to.
• Exclusions: exclude areas you do not serve, or where customers are too far away to be worth the trip.

People in the area, or people interested in it?

Platforms let you reach people physically in an area or also people searching about it. For a local service, reaching people in or regularly in the area usually avoids wasted clicks from people who will never visit.

Check your own business address

Make sure a nearby city or neighborhood that you serve is not accidentally excluded, and that a place you do not serve is not included by default.

Negative keywords

These stop your ad from showing for searches containing certain words. Common starting points for a service business include free, jobs, careers, salary, diy, how to, course, training and used. Remove any that fit what you actually sell.

Check the search terms report

It shows the exact searches that triggered your ads. Add negatives for the irrelevant ones, and add good ones as keywords.

Negative lists

For several campaigns, a shared negative keyword list keeps them consistent. Check which campaigns a list applies to before adding words.