Like everything on the Internet things change. Technology changes, algorithms change (whatever that means), search engines change and most importantly the way search engines search for information, store information and what type of information they store and think important has changed.

But has the way you search changed?

Today, a search phrase like “Internet Marketing” no longer works to find what you may want because you get bombarded with so many results from all over the world. It can be overwhelming. Who wants to sift through 351 Million web pages that bring back a result on internet marketing? Since nobody wants to be put through that – they may only look at the first three pages, and many of them never get past page number on on their favorite search engine

1# Tip for searching on the Internet: Cut it with a “Quote”!

One way to narrow a search down immediately is to put quotation marks around it – (truthfully, when was the last time you tried that?) because when you enshrine a word or phrase with quotes then you are telling the search engine to only give you results in that exact order – instead of reading it as two seperate words and each word can be anywhere on any single page giving you inflated, and often unnecessary results. Just by adding quotes you can narrow the results down to 147 million. Wow! Big relief there. Not bad, but is it enough?

Do you have to use quotations? Absolutely not, but here is another example. If you are in Oklahoma, and you are looking for one of the group deals, social deals, or daily deals websites that you have heard so much about and you put in the search engine either one of those three phrases – you will get far different results. They will give you results from anywhere in the (probably) United States – and then you have to spend time narrowing your search anyway because you want the best deals in Oklahoma. So you use the following key words or phrase: oklahoma group deals, oklahoma daily deals, or oklahoma social deals. Immediately you will find websites and group deal websites that are specific to Oklahoma.

Internet Marketing Oklahoma

#2 Tip for generating an Internet Search: Always include the “State”.

Adding the “State or County” of your search (now we are presuming that you are looking for something within your state or county) – if you are searching specific cities – narrow your search by city instead of state and in some cases – use both. Oh, and don’t forget your quotes. So the above search phase could look something like this:

“Internet Marketing Services Oklahoma” now only gives me 9.9 million results without the quotes and 11 thousand responses (remember: that is web pages – not web sites). It is one of the fastest ways to narrow your search.

#3 Tip for Internet Searching: always use ‘lower case’.

Yes, it does make a difference in the results. Not a considerable difference – but a difference none-the-less. When you use upper case words in your search, search engines think that you want upper case words and it will only show those responses first – it leaves out a lot of good websites. If you always use lower case words when you search, search engines actually give you both responses without regard to capitalization. Yeah, I know, it’s weird but that’s the way it is.

GEO-Target or GEO Specific Searching

#4 Tip Search by topic and Zipcode

One of the more recent trends in search engine searching is to add the zipcode at the end of your search phrase to narrow your search of products or services. Now it really doesn’t matter if you are just trying to find some quick-n-easy recipe for a chicken marinade. Who cares if the person who wrote the recipe lives only a couple miles from your home or you find the best marinade recipe from a Hungarian website. However, when you are looking for local activities or local businesses it is now good practice to add a zipcode. Often, the results will show the first websites that are closest to your location and you can always work out from there.

As a company that provides Internet Market Services in Oklahoma, and Website Design, it is my firm belief that we will be seeing a lot more Geo-Targeting search engine searches as time progresses. Local websites will be including more often than not, a keyword or phrase with a zipcode added in order to narrow the search and search engines will store more geo-specific data to narrow the results for their users.

Until then, good searching and have fun!

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