Negative keywords for home service campaigns

Negative keywords are where the budget is protected. A properly built list costs nothing and prevents the highest-leakage spending from ever happening.

This guide has three layers: the core list every trade gets on day one, the trade-specific additions, and the weekly sweep that keeps the list ahead of the bleed.

The three leak classes

Almost every wasted click in a local service account falls into one of three buckets:

1. DIY and how-to. Searchers who want instructions, not a technician.
2. Parts and supply. Shoppers looking for a product, not a job.
3. Job seekers. Resumes and job alerts feeding quietly on your keyword list.

These terms show up as high-volume queries in the platform report. The report calls them interest. The ledger calls them a leak.

The core 40 (shared list every trade gets)

free
diy
how to
how do i
tutorial
learn
course
school
degree
training
certification
jobs
hiring
career
salary
resume
apprentice
volunteer
internship
scholarship
reddit
youtube
pdf
download
manual
definition
meaning
what is
used
second hand
cheap
discount
coupon
sale
rent
rental
parts
supplies
equipment only
wholesale

Build this as a shared negative list named “Core exclusions” and apply it to every campaign on day one. Shared lists matter because they apply everywhere at once, and one edit updates every campaign that uses them.

Match types for negatives

Negatives have match types too, and they work differently than keyword match types:

• Phrase match is the workhorse. “how to” as a phrase negative blocks any search containing those words in that order. Most of the core list should be phrase.
• Exact match is for surgical blocks: one specific query you have seen burn money, blocked precisely, without catching anything else.
• Broad match negatives catch the loosest variants, but use them carefully, because they can block more than you intend.

When in doubt, phrase. It catches the family of junk queries without starving the legitimate ones.

The trade-specific layer

Cleaning adds: airbnb (if you do not take it), commercial (if you are residential only), deep oven, carpet machine rental.

Roofing adds: metal coil, shingle price per bundle, how many nails, roof estimate formula.

HVAC adds: freon price, recharge kit, filter subscription.

Plumbing adds: plunger, snake rental, under sink, faucet parts.

Electrical adds: breaker box diagram, outlet types, wiring colors, license exam.

Build each trade layer the same way: list the DIY searches, the parts searches, and the job searches specific to that trade, and add them as a second shared list named for the trade.

The weekly sweep

The seed list is a start, not a finish. New junk arrives every week as the platform matches your ads to searches you never named. The sweep is short:

1. Pull the search terms report for the last seven days.
2. Sort by spend, not clicks. The expensive mismatches are the ones that matter.
3. Mark every term that cannot become a booked job and add it as a negative.
4. Note what you added, so the list compounds instead of resetting.

Weekly in the first month, monthly after. When a junk query leaks through, the fix is one negative keyword, not a new campaign.

The test that tells you it is working

Watch the share of spend landing on searches that can become a booked job. If more than a few percent of weekly spend goes to terms you then have to negate, the list is behind the leak, and the sweep needs to run more often until it catches up.

I count conservatively. Every untracked job is your upside, not my credit.