Google is the most popular search engine, capturing over 70% of search market share and over 85% of mobile search. It’s used for entertainment, business, education, medical care, and more by millions of people. And yet, many people don’t realize Google’s full power as a search engine. Google has many different ways to provide users with relevant search results. As a content marketer, you should know how to search effectively and adapt your SEO strategy keeping in mind Google’s power users.
Master Your Search Techniques to Create Quality Content
Google search crawlers index information fairly well, but they can’t always read your mind. Type “infinity” into the search engine, and you may get references to the Marvel movie, the Nissan luxury car or the symbol. How can you narrow it down to what you really want?
- Search for an exact phrase and put it in quotes. Example: “Avengers: Infinity War”
- Use a hyphen after the search term to exclude particular words. i.e. infiniti - car
- Get results from a certain website. Infinity War site: rogerebert.com
- Use an * (asterisk) to represent a wild card in search. For example, you want references to rock and roll and Buddy Holly, but rock-n-roll might be phrased differently. Search Buddy Holly “rock*roll.”
- Search for multiple words or phrases using the word OR. Example: banana doughnuts or strawberry donuts.
- Search for phrases in text using allintext: to find pages with a particular phrase. i.e - allintext: pizza delivery near me
- To find two phrases or terms that occur together on the same page use intext: Example - ruby engagement ring intext:Ontario
- Use location: to search for news related to a particular place. Covid-19 location: Tulsa Oklahoma
- Searching for a particular year? Use two dots to indicate a specific year or range of numbers to narrow your search. Example - Who won the Masters Golf Tournament..1984
Google also has search engines to search books, images and abstracts and articles from scholar. Use Google Goggles to use your phone’s camera to search. Google is a very powerful search engine that lets users search and find the information they want efficiently.
Drive Power Search Users to Your Site
Understanding search can help you in your SEO strategy. Google doesn’t need the searcher to spell correctly. Grammar and capitalization don’t matter much in search. Searchers can use general terms to get information, but the more specific they are with important words, the better results they’ll get. Power searchers use professional language. Instead of saying “I need to fix my flat tire,” a power searcher might say “repair my tire.” Thinking like a power searcher can help you write content that will get results.
When you’re thinking about content, remember to think like a user searching for your product or service. MintCopy has a team of SEO writers who provide optimized content for your business to power your SEO strategy. Contact us today to see what we can do to support your online content marketing efforts.
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