Whether you are trying to look up new information or find your business online, chances are you turn to Google for your inquiry. Google is pretty good at pointing people in the right direction regardless of what they type into the search bar, but doing this haphazardly may lead to less-than-perfect results. By learning how to effectively search with Google, you can find the information you need online and potentially track your website’s SEO success. Here are some tips to get the best results from Google searches.
Search For Keywords, Not Sentences
Some folks think that throwing large statements into a search engine will bring them more accurate results, but that isn’t always the case. Sometimes filler words in a sentence can cause a search engine to get distracted, just like you would be if someone started to shove a lot of information into your brain at one time. Rather than searching for “Where can I find a window washer in Detroit, Michigan?” you could search for “window washer Detroit MI.” Chances are you would get the exact result you need from the second option, even if it has fewer words. If you don’t find exactly what you are looking for from the start, you can add more words to refine your search over time.
Google is fueled by keywords, so you have to think about the most important search terms to look for, rather than looking for a whole question. You don’t have to use proper grammar in your search because that is not going to influence your results. “Window washer Detroit” may not sound pleasant to the ears, but that is all Google needs to generate results for you.
Use Quotation Marks For Exact Search Terms
If you want to find a specific term that you don’t want Google to break apart, you need to put that term in quotation marks. For instance, if you want to search for a business by name, you may use quotation marks so Google does not split apart the individual words in the name. The same idea would apply if you were searching for a person, a product, a movie, etc.
Try Different Versions Of The Words
If you can’t find something by looking up one set of keywords, you may want to replace a few of those words with their synonyms. Let’s say that you want to look up information about going to school online. You could look up distance learning, online schools, online colleges, online universities, web based colleges, internet degree programs, and anything else in between. You can use a thesaurus if you can’t think of a replacement word on your own, but you should be able to come up with a few variations to test out.
Google has adjusted its algorithm to catch similar words and phrases on a page. This is part of a process known as latent semantic indexing, which internet marketers and SEO companies use to strategically rank webpages in Google. As long as you search for a term that is fairly close to the one you want, Google can point you where you need to go.
