You know how to Google, right? You just go to Google, type in what you want and BAM – you get what you want.
Depending on what you’re searching for, sometimes you’ll get some totally random results that aren’t quite what you were looking for. So what do you do next?
Do you keep searching for different things and hope Google will eventually figure out what you really want?
What if I told you there was an easier way?
There are a few different things you can do to make your search more effective. You can use different punctuation – referred to as search operators – to help you narrow down exactly what it is you are looking for. They help Google work out what you want to find so you can find the right information quickly.
If you want to know how to Google like a boss, here are 10 tips for your next Google search.
1. Site:query
If you’re looking for information on specific websites, you can type your phrase and then site: followed by the website. For example, ‘The Bachelor site:dailymail.com.au’ will return all pages on The Daily Mail that mention The Bachelor (because who doesn’t want all the latest news on that!?).
You can also use this without a phrase, to find all URL’s on a website. Just type in ‘site:cuttingedgedigital.com.au’ will return a list of all URLs on my website.
2. “ “ Quotation Marks
If you want to search for an exact phrase, use quotation marks around the phrase. This means that your results will only include pages that mention that exact phrase.
An example would be “fun things to do in Perth”.
3. – Dashes
Need to exclude a word from your search?
Sometimes words have more than one meaning and Google gets confused as to which variation you want to see. Add a dash before the word you want to exclude and these results won’t appear at all.
An example could be if you’re looking for information about Jaguar cars, not the animals you could search for ‘jaguar –animal’ and then all animal-related results would be excluded.
4. * Asterisk
The asterisk is excellent for finding things like the names of songs if you don’t know all the lyrics. Add an asterisk in the phrase where you aren’t sure of the word and Google will find the name of the song that’s been bugging you for days!
So searching for ‘does it almost feel like *’ will give you Bastille’s ‘Pompeii video and lyrics. It’s like Shazam for words!
5. .. Two Periods
This search operator is little used but really helpful when searching for ranges of data. If you want to find information within a range, such as years or prices, add the range to your search with two full stops in between. An example could be ‘moon landings between 1960..2018’ – your results will show pages that talk about moon landings within this date range.
6. ~ Tilde
Add a tilde in front of a search term to include all synonyms of that phrase.
This could be used say if you were looking for Christmas dessert recipes, but some people might call it sweets, afters, puddings, etc. Searching for ‘Christmas ~desserts’ will give you all possible variations of desserts and puddings for your Christmas feast.
7. Define:query
Do you just want to get the definition of a word or phrase? Write ‘define:’ in front of the phrase and you’ll get the definition as the first result.
8. Movie:query
Looking for information about a movie but getting results about books or other random things because the title is too generic? Add ‘movie:’ in front of the phrase and you’ll only get movie results.
9. Map:query
Want to get a map of an area quickly? Add ‘map:’ at the start of your search and the first result will be a map one.
10. Related:query
If you’re looking for sites that are similar to another site, it can be hard to know what to Google. Using ‘related:’ followed by the website URL and Google will show you what sites it thinks is similar to this one.
11. Link:query
If you need to find sites that link to another website, this is a super quick way to do that. Simply type ‘link:’ followed by the website you’re looking for links to, and a list of them will appear.
And now you know how to Google like a boss!
If you need help researching and writing your blog content, chat to me today about blog writing today. I love researching and writing blogs for other busineses and would love to help you create some awesome content that helps you get seen on Google.
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