Negative keyword lists for HVAC, electrical and roofing ads

Why contractors waste so much on the wrong searches

Trade keywords attract three groups of people who will never book a service call: people looking for work in the trade, people trying to do the job themselves, and people shopping for parts or materials. All three type words like 'HVAC', 'electrician' and 'roofing'. Without negatives, your ads show to all of them.

The job seeker group alone is large. BLS projects about 40,600 openings for HVAC mechanics and installers^[2], about 72,700 for electricians^[1] about 12,000 for roofers^[4] and about 13,700 for pest control workers^[5] each year over the decade to 2035. Most US electricians learn the trade through an apprenticeship^[6], so 'electrician apprenticeship' and similar searches are common and have nothing to do with hiring an electrician.

How negative match types behave

Negative keywords work differently from the keywords you bid on, and the differences cause most mistakes. Google's help page sets out the rules for Search campaigns^[3]:

• Negative broad match: your ad will not show if the search contains all your negative keyword terms, in any order. A negative broad 'roofing jobs' blocks 'jobs in roofing near me' but not 'roofing job site cleanup'.
• Negative phrase match: your ad will not show if the search contains the exact terms in the same order, even with other words around them.
• Negative exact match: your ad will not show only when the search is exactly those terms in the same order, with no extra words.
• No close variants: negatives do not expand to synonyms, plurals or other variations, so 'job' and 'jobs' both need adding.
• Casing and misspellings: Google says these are handled automatically, so you do not need to add them separately.

Starter lists by theme

Trade-specific additions

• HVAC: car ac, auto ac, rv ac, ac recharge kit, refrigerant for sale, window unit if you do not service them, epa 608 study guide. EPA requires nearly all HVAC technicians to be certified in refrigerant handling^[7], so certification searches are frequent.
• Electrical: electric company, power outage, electric bill, electrical engineer, electrician salary, electrician school, electrical supply, extension cord.
• Roofing: roofing nails, shingles price per bundle, metal roofing sheets, roof rack, roofing jobs, roofing calculator if you do not want DIY estimators.
• Tax credit research: if you sell heat pumps, watch searches about the federal 25C credit. The IRS says it applies to qualifying property placed in service before December 31, 2025^[8], so 'heat pump tax credit 2026' searches may be research, not buying. Review them before blocking.

Other trades: quick additions

The same themes apply across home services, with a few trade-specific traps:

• House cleaning: cleaning jobs, cleaning supplies, cleaning products, cleaning schedule template, how to clean, and 'maid' searches about hotel work if they appear.
• Pest control: bug spray, ant killer, trap, pest control products, exterminator salary, pest control license course.
• Landscaping and lawn: landscaping rocks, mulch delivery if you do not sell it, lawn mower, landscape design software, landscaping ideas.
• Garage doors: garage door opener remote, garage door parts, garage door spring kit, how to program.
• Appliance repair: appliance store, appliance sale, appliance parts, user manual, error code meaning if you do not want DIY researchers. Review error-code searches first, because some customers search the code just before calling.

Words you should not block

Overzealous negative lists cost more than they save when they block buyers. Keep these unless your own data says otherwise:

• Cost, price, how much: homeowners comparing quotes are close to hiring.
• Free estimate, free inspection: these are buying searches for roofers and replacement work.
• Near me, open now, emergency, same day: high-intent searches.
• Brand names of equipment you install and service, such as a furnace brand plus 'repair'.
• Cheap: debatable. Some trades get price shoppers who still book; test before blocking.

Where to add negatives

1. 01

   Account-level shared list

   Put universal negatives, such as jobs, DIY and retail themes, in a shared negative keyword list and apply it to every Search campaign.

2. 02

   Campaign level

   Block services a campaign should not cover. For example, add 'repair' as a negative in a replacement campaign if you run a separate repair campaign.

3. 03

   Ad group level

   Use negatives to steer searches to the right ad group, such as blocking 'heat pump' in the AC repair ad group so heat pump searches reach the heat pump ads.

4. 04

   Document every list

   Name lists clearly and keep a note of why risky words were added, so the next person does not remove them or double them up.

A weekly search terms routine

1. Open the search terms report for the last seven days, sorted by cost.
2. Mark each costly term as good, neutral or wasted.
3. For wasted terms, find the word that makes it wasted, such as 'jobs' or 'diy', and add that word, not the whole search, at the right level.
4. Check for good terms that you do not bid on yet, and add them as keywords.
5. Check that no negative is blocking a keyword you want; Google flags conflicts in the account.
6. Note the date and changes in a simple log.

Weekly is right for the first two months of a new account. After that, a monthly review is usually enough unless you change match types or add broad match keywords.

Measure the effect of new negatives

Each batch of negatives should lower wasted spend without lowering calls. Check that it did. Compare the two weeks before and after a large change on four numbers: clicks, cost, calls or form leads from ads, and booked jobs. A healthy change shows fewer clicks and lower cost with calls and bookings holding steady. If calls fall too, look for a negative that blocked buyers, such as 'repair' added at account level by mistake, and remove it. Keep the before-and-after numbers in your change log, so you can explain the account to an agency or a new hire later.

Example: cleaning up an electrician's account

Example (fictional): an electrical contractor's account spends a fifth of its budget on searches such as 'electrician apprenticeship near me', 'electrician pay per hour', 'how to wire a 3 way switch' and 'electrical supply store'. The account has only six negatives.

Example: the owner builds a shared list with the jobs, DIY and parts themes, adds 'supply' and 'store' as phrase negatives, and checks that 'cost' and 'emergency' stay unblocked. Over the next month, clicks fall but calls from ads hold steady, and cost per booked job drops. The weekly review then finds a new pattern, 'electric company outage', which is added to the list.

Keep the list working

Set a calendar reminder at the start of each season to read the last quarter's search terms with fresh eyes. Heating season brings different junk searches from cooling season, storm season brings insurance and claims research to roofers, and spring brings DIY lawn and pest searches. A quarterly read-through, plus the weekly or monthly routine, catches patterns before they cost much.

Negative lists are never finished. New search patterns appear with the seasons, news and new products, and every change to your services should prompt a check. Keep negatives in step with your campaign setup, and apply the same discipline to social ads, where audience settings play the role negatives play in search; see Facebook and Instagram ads.