Add your keywords

Learn how to add keywords and negative keywords to associate with your ads.

Keywords are the words or phrases that you associate with your ads so that potential customers searching the web can find your ads. Think about how a customer would search for products or services that you offer when you choose your keywords. You can then decide how closely you want the search queries to match your keyword, which is determined by what we call keyword match types. Learn more

If you’re a new Microsoft Advertising user, we recommend broad match for your keyword match type. Broad match means your ads can show if a relevant variation of your keyword is included when a customer does a search. Using broad match attracts more visitors to your website without having to spend a lot of time building keyword lists. Learn more

Ready to add keywords? Head over to How to add, edit or delete keywords.

Use negative keywords to avoid paying for unnecessary clicks

Negative keywords prevent your ads from showing for searches that won’t likely lead to sales. For example, Sarah owns a toy store and wants to run a sale for electronics for kids. To avoid paying for clicks for customers searching other types of toys like "dolls", "board games", or "puzzles", she could create a negative keywords list to include these keywords.

Learn how to add, remove, or edit negative keywords.