How To Really Use The Google Search Engine

Use Keywords

When Google was introduced to me, I didn’t understand what all the fuss was about. I would search the same way I did on Yahoo, but could never find any results. You can’t just type ‘how do you do. . .’ or ‘where could I find. . .’ even ‘what does this do. . .’.

Google and the search engine behind it, is big on ‘keywords’ and ‘keyword phrases’. This didn’t register until 6-7 months after I learned about and started using Google back in 2002. Instead of typing out entire questions in the search box, break it down into the most essential keywords.

Before

1 - Where can I find hybrid car dealerships?
2 - How do I fix a leaky pipe?

After

1 - local hybrid car dealerships
2 - fix pipe leak

- See how I took how the generic ‘where can I find’ and just put ‘local’. You can also replace ‘local’ with the closest major city in your area.
- Along with just ‘fix pipe leak’ you can throw in, ‘tutorial’ ‘how to’ or even ‘walk through’, and sometimes even ’step by step’. Those are some of the ‘top words’ used by web developers for tips on how to do stuff.

Use Quotation Marks

After I started getting used to what I should be searching for I learned about how Google uses Quotes in its searches. It is really very intuitive, and if used correctly will narrow down your 6 million search results to maybe 200,000-300,000. Making it much easier for you to find what you’re looking for.

If you are searching for

Ford F150

Try something like

“Ford F150″

- With the quotation marks around it. If it matches the EXACT PHRASE, this can really control what you are looking for.

NOTE - Like I said earlier to put in ‘how to’, when trying to find out how something is done. Try putting quotation marks around. . .

“how to”

. . .and it will improve your results even more.

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