Best Tips for Searching on Google

If you’re going to use the internet, it’s pretty much a necessity that you use a search engine to navigate through the endless websites to find what you’re looking for. And most people use the king of all the search engines for their internet searches: Google. But you’ll only receive relevant results if Google can understand exactly what it is you’re searching for. There are several things you can do to make your Google search experience easier, as well as things you can look for in the search results. We will go over some tips on what terms to use for more relevant results, along with what to look for in those results, and the different types of specific searches you can accomplish (image search, shopping, news, etc.).

How to Search Google more Effectively

You can’t just enter in a long phrase or combination of words and expect to receive outstanding results right off the bat. Unless you’re looking for general information like ‘what’s the current temperature’ or ‘what’s the capital of Delaware’, this will give you less than ideal results. You need to know exactly what it is you’re looking for and what terms are necessary to receive the most relevant results.

What Information are You Trying to Find?

How will Google know what results to show you if you don’t know what you’re looking for? You wouldn’t go to the police to report a stolen stereo if you were unable to adequately describe it. How are they supposed to find “a stereo” that they don’t even have a solid description of? That’s why a decent description of what it is you’re searching for goes hand in hand with optimal search results.

What Keywords or Terms Are You Typing in the Search Bar?

When searching, you should first be aware of the three categories your search can fall under. Navigational searches are where you’re searching for a specific entity and are expecting it to be the #1 result, Informational searches are when you want some general information about a particular topic, and transactional searches are when you’re looking to conduct a transaction of any nature on or through the internet.

If you were hungry for some pizza and searched for ‘pizza near me’, that would be an informational search, possibly combined with a transactional search, if you were to order delivery. But one thing you wouldn’t do is search for ‘Chinese food near me’. You’d end up with nothing but Chinese food results, which is obviously of no use to you. That’s why you search for ‘pizza near me’ to receive nothing but pizza results close to your location. But, if you’ve searched for ‘pizza near me’, and still can’t find what you’re looking for, sometimes adding an extra descriptive word or two can improve your results. Some examples could be a nearby street name or other businesses that may be in the area, which can help to cut down your search results even more so.

Focus on the Important Keywords and Phrases

It’s no secret that whatever terms you type into the search bar will dictate your search results. How descriptive those words are and how many you use can also have a deciding factor. There’s even a specific set of “operators” you can use to whittle down your results even more. How specific you want your search results to be is the ultimate determining factor.

Remember – Less is More

It’s not just the words you use in your search query, but the words you don’t use that can have a huge bearing on the quality of your search results. A good rule of thumb is that you only need to use the most important parts of what you’re searching for to get the best results. If you wanted to find out who the fastest man in the world is and typed “fastest man world,” you would get the same answer as if you were to type the entire phrase “who is the fastest man in the world.” That’s why breaking down your search queries into fewer, more descriptive words is the best way to lower the number of search results you’ll have to go through in the end.

What are Google Search Operators?

Google search operators (AKA advanced Google operators) are like the secret menu at your local fast-food joint. Not everyone knows about it, but those that do swear by it and use it all the time. All you have to do is add special words/characters to your search query to refine your results. There are currently over 40 Google operators that expand upon the search capabilities of google by excluding words from your search, only searching for certain words, or only searching one website, to name a few.

Let’s take a look at some of the more popular operators that people use:

“ “ - Place your search term between quotes for exact match results.
Examples: “best gaming laptop,” “quiet desktop fan”

site: - When you want your search results restricted to one specific website or domain.
Examples: site:target.com, site: wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Beatles

* - Use an asterisk, AKA a wildcard to match any phrase or word, basically telling Google to “fill in the blank.”
Examples: best * laptop, * kids toys

map: - Google shows you map results for a locational search.
Examples: map:san Diego, map:albany

define: - Finds the definition of a word. (see image A below)
Examples: define:cordiform, define:instantaneous

Whenever you search Google using operators, bear in mind that Google tends to overlook punctuation that isn’t already part of an operator. You also must leave out any spaces between the operator and your search query or they won’t work. A great example is if you were to search for ‘define: anime’ you would receive 1.7 million results, whereas ‘define:anime’ receives 1.3 million. That’s a difference of almost half a million search results, which ain’t no chump change.

If you’d like to learn more, we recommend you check out ahrefs Complete List of Google Operators where they go over each operator in full detail with examples.

Understanding Your Google Results

Now that you’re familiar with what to type into the search bar to get the best results, it’s time to dive into how to understand the results that Google spits out. Because if you’re not familiar with what to look for in the results, you’ll be lost combing through countless pages of websites, looking for what you want. We’ll touch upon the difference between paid ads and organic search results, what are TLDs (Top Level Domains), in addition to rich snippets, and how to spot them.

Organic Search Results vs. Paid Ads

Your first thought after viewing your search results may be, “I see ads, ads, everywhere, but where the heck are my organic results?” This will vary depending on what you’re searching for. Some searches might provide you with no ads at all, whereas others may feature multiple ads. It all depends on how many businesses or websites are targeting the keywords you’re searching for.

Pay to Be on Top

When you search Google and are met with multiple ads, this is all by design. Just like with TV and print advertising, businesses will pay a fee to have their website placed directly in front of your eyeballs, either just above, to the right, or sometimes below the organic results. Unlike other search engines, it’s in Google’s best interest to get you to click on that ad since that’s the only way they get paid. You can distinguish between paid and organic results by the “AD” text that’s displayed in the upper left corner of each ad set.

Now, these search results are probably relevant to your search query and what you’re looking for, but you always want to remember why they’re there in the first place. That’s why it’s much more difficult to get a website to the top of the organic search results naturally than merely forking over some cash for the top spot. There’s a reason why they call it “pay to play.” Hence, you’ll want to keep this in mind before you randomly start clicking on search results.

What Are Top Level Domains?

Short for Top Level Domain, a TLD is everything that comes after the last dot in a domain name. So, for the domain name ‘amazon.com’, ‘.com’ would be the TLD, whereas ‘wikipedia.org’ would have ‘.org’ as its TLD. This domain name system was established by the ARPANET (Advanced Research Projects Agency Network) to make memorizing IP addresses and managing internet addresses much easier. The TLD or domain suffix can also let you know about the characteristics of a website such as .org for organizations (typically charities), .gov for US government agencies, and .edu for educational facilities such as universities, just to name a few. This is to provide an idea about what the site is about without the user ever having to visit it.

Sitelinks

When we say ‘Google sitelinks’, we don’t simply mean when Google links to a website. Sitelinks are those additional links that can be found under the primary URL of some search results (image B). Their main objective is to allow the user to seamlessly navigate through important information on your website. First appearing in 2005, and officially announced in 2006, Google sitelinks are the result of their system analysis of a website’s link structure to locate shortcuts that will save users time on what they’re looking for. Currently, these links are automated with virtually every branded term featuring a set of sitelinks. They aren’t just relegated to branded terms either. You’ll also find them appearing on informational queries such as nearly 70% of Wikipedia’s organic keywords that feature Google sitelinks.

Spot the Schema Data and Rich Snippets

The terms ‘schema data’ and ‘rich snippets’ probably mean nothing or very little to you and most people who use Google. This is completely understandable with schema data since it’s something solely used by webmasters. Rich snippets on the other hand are something you need to be aware of if you want to have a decent understanding of your Google search results. First off, schema data is a selection of tags that are used to mark up the HTML of a website’s source code, which allows search engines to decipher what type of content is on a page. This allows search engines like Google to show additional links and information instead of only displaying a text description. These tidbits of information are what we refer to as rich snippets (image C), which we’ll go over more next.

Reviews, Pricing, and Other Helpful Information

When reading through your search results, you’ll likely come across multiple rich snippets featuring useful information. This information can be quite beneficial and save you the effort of ever having to leave Google. This can range from product reviews to product pricing amongst countless other useful bits of information. And knowing where to look for this information and what it all means can take you from searching Google like a noob to searching Google like a boss!

One of the first rich snippets you’ll come across after searching is the knowledge graph that’s located to the right of your results (image D). This provides you with various images, a description from Wikipedia (if one exists), a ‘people also searched for’ section, along with a multitude of other useful information. The information it displays depends on whether your search is transactional, navigational, or informational.

Another one you’ll probably come across in your searches is product-rich snippets. These can appear anywhere in your search results denoted by a star rating, review count, and price, just to name some of the information they provide (image E). This can be extremely beneficial since you may gather the information you were searching for without even having to go to visit the website. You may also contrast and compare different items or prices amongst merchants, making it easier to decide what you want.

The final rich snippet we’re going to touch upon is the one for the carousel or image pack (image F), as it’s commonly referred to. This rich snippet displays your results in a sequential list or gallery of images. If you only need a simple picture of a beautiful sunset, this is a great option. This way, you don’t have to go to the Google image search tab and look through all the results. This may be a great time saver, especially for individuals in the graphics industry or anyone who is constantly looking for that “perfect image”.

For a comprehensive list of all the current rich snippets accompanied by more examples, head over to Google Search Central for a complete rundown of every rich snippet.

Other Ways to Use Google Search

Whenever you search Google, you don’t have to search through every single page of results Google has indexed if you don’t want to. Now, if you’re not sure what you’re looking for, this may be your best option. But, if you’d like to narrow down what type of content you’re searching for, Google’s search filters that reside just below the Google search bar (image G) can be of great assistance. Image, Video, and Shopping searches are among the most used search filters. You can even use Google’s ‘search by voice’ option, which is designed for anyone who can’t, doesn’t want to, or is unable to type for whatever reason. There’s also a maps and flights filter for those who like to travel, a finance filter for the accountant of the house, and a books filter for the brainiac who enjoys a good read.

Searching for Images

The most used of the Google search filters would have to be the image search option. Because who doesn’t enjoy looking at funny dog pictures now and then? While looking through those funny dog images, there are multiple ways you can narrow down your results to make everything easier. Once you’ve received your image search results, click the Tools button located just below the search bar (image H) and you’ll see a new set of filters appear that you can play with. For instance, if you were looking to get your car reupholstered and were curious as to how green interior might look, all you’d have to do is type ‘car interior’ in the search bar and choose the green option under the Color filter. If we go back to our initial example of searching for funny dog pictures. Maybe you’re putting together a scrapbook and require all your images to be on the smaller side. To view only small images in your results, simply click on the ‘Size’ filter and choose ‘Icon’ to only view small images (image H). You’ll also notice a handful of terms lined up below the search tools. These are just terms that are similar to your search query that allow you to narrow down your results even more so than they already were.

Google Voice Search

Google Voice Search (sometimes referred to as Search by Voice) is exactly what it sounds like – a means to search Google with nothing more than your voice. Not to be confused with Google Voice, GVS was first implemented back in 2012, to allow users to make search queries and mobile commands with their microphone. Primarily designed for mobile users as a hands-free solution, it couldn’t be any easier to do. All it takes is one tippity-tap of the microphone icon found at the end of the search bar to get started (refer to infographic). Once you’ve pressed the button, hold it down as you speak your search query out loud before releasing it to receive your results. And similar to how Google search operators work, Google Voice Search employs complex commands which convey personal data in your results. You can ask about any recent purchases you’ve made by asking for “my purchases,” ask about directions to a restaurant by saying, “directions to [destination],” or something as simple as asking about the time by asking, “what time is it in [your location].”

Prep Before You Speak

Whenever you’re planning on searching with Google Voice Search, you want to make sure you take some time to get your thoughts together before you begin. Because, if you make any mistakes like mispronouncing a word, not speaking loud enough, or GVS simply might not understand what you’re trying to say, you’ll have to start the process all over again. You may want to write down what you want to say first so you can have a few practice runs before hitting record. We realize this may sound counterintuitive, but when you’re just getting started with GVS, this can benefit you immensely. After some practice, you should have no issues searching Google with only your voice.

Final Thoughts on Google Search

After reading this article, you ought to have a clear idea of how to use Google more efficiently and how to have a better understanding of the search results. You’ll find that there is a science to searching with Google. And when you have a better understanding of how Google’s search engine works, you’ll not just save some time, but also aggravation from not having to sift through pages and pages of results that have very little to do with what you’re searching for.

Getting the Information you Really Want

In the end, it all comes down to what exactly do you want from your Google search results? Are you making an informational search on a product? Then you’d want to search for that product name and keep an eye out for the product-rich snippets to obtain the information you’re looking for. Or maybe you’ve got a trip to Maui you’ve been planning? You could search for ‘map:maui’ to know where you’re traveling to or perhaps you want to have a look at the beaches and everything they have to offer? You could use Google’s image search option and use the search tools if necessary to narrow down the results. It always comes back to that initial sentiment, “what exactly do you want from Google?”