Negative Keywords for Local Google Ads: The First List to Add

Negative keywords are how you stop paying for searches that were never going to become a customer. They are the cheapest optimization in a local account, because unlike bidding or copy they remove cost without risking anything you wanted.

Why local accounts leak here specifically

Broad and phrase match reach searches you never listed. That is useful — it finds phrasing you would not have thought of — but a local service business attracts a predictable set of searchers who will never buy:

The starting list

Add these at campaign level for a local service account:

jobs, job, hiring, careers, career, salary, salaries, wage, wages,
resume, apprentice, apprenticeship, internship, employment
free, freeware, gratis, no cost, trial
cheap, cheapest, discount code, coupon
how to, diy, tutorial, guide, yourself, step by step
course, courses, class, classes, training, certification, exam, degree
wholesale, supplier, manufacturer, distributor
software, template, templates, plugin, theme

Then remove any that are genuinely part of your offering. A business that does run training should not exclude "course". The list is a starting point, not a rule.

Match types behave differently here

The most common surprise: negative keywords do not match close variants. A positive keyword for "plumber" will pick up "plumbers" automatically; a negative keyword for "job" will not block "jobs". Plurals, misspellings, and spacing variants each need their own entry.

The practical habit is to add the singular and plural of every negative, and to add misspellings as you actually see them appear in the search terms report rather than guessing at them.

The weekly loop

The starting list handles what you can predict. The search terms report handles what you cannot:

1. Open the search terms report for the last 7 days.
2. Sort by cost, descending — the expensive mistakes matter more than the frequent ones.
3. For anything off-intent, add it as a negative at the right level.
4. For anything on-intent that you had not listed, add it as a positive keyword — the report finds opportunities as well as waste.

Step 4 is the one people skip. The report is not only a filter; it is the cheapest keyword research you have, because it is drawn from searches that already reached you.

Where to be careful

Over-excluding is a real failure mode and harder to notice than overspending, because the loss is invisible — you never see the inquiry you blocked.

Two specific traps. Broad single-word negatives catch more than intended: excluding "cheap" also excludes "cheap to run", which can be a buying signal. And excluding competitor names removes comparison searches, where someone actively choosing between providers is often close to deciding.

When unsure, exclude the phrase rather than the word.

Further reading

• The full framework this sits inside: how local businesses can use Google Ads without wasting budget.
• What the spend actually buys: Google Ads cost for a local business.
• Before handing the account over: 5 checks before you sign with a Calgary Google Ads agency.
• Prefer it handled: Google Ads management.

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Updated 2026-09-21: rewritten from an auto-generated stub into an actual starting list, with the close-variant behaviour, the weekly loop, and the over-exclusion traps.