How Searchers Search: How to Get Found on Search Engines (Video)

Introduction to How Searchers Search

Welcome to this video tutorial in which we discuss how searchers search. This video article is part of my series on ‘Understanding Search Engine Optimisation for the Small Business Entrepreneur’.

Series Contents

How to Find SEO Company in Local Neighbourhood?

Our objective in this lesson is a not so simple task:

• The objectives for this SEO lesson is to show how to get a local companies website into the top listings of the major search engines by improving their onsite Search Engine Optimisation. In this instance the company with be an SEO company in our local neighbourhood.

The results for this lesson will be very interesting for those who have local businesses as it provides a very easy solution for getting in the top ten of the search engine results.

We’re going to simulate the typical routine used by most searchers, including you and me, to find what they are looking for when using an internet based search engine. By doing this simulation we will try to analyse what the searcher is trying to accomplish and how we can use this search method to improve our SEO techniques and ultimately get more hits for our web pages.

 

 

How to Use Search Engines – Google Tips

One of the first things you need to do is become an expert in how to use search engines. It’s not much good, trying to predict how to get found on the web if you don’t know how to use search engines yourself.

• So spend a few hours learning the ropes and learn some of the search engine secrets. They’re not really secrets, it’s just that no one bothers looking.

Just try the help section of your favourite search engine to see what goodies can be found.

• As it’s the most popular search engine, I’m going to be using Google for these lessons.

Google Basic Search Help

To begin, Google Search Tips are well worth the read.

Start with the Google Basic Search Help. Here you will find some basic tips and tricks to help you get started with improving your searches.

 

Google Punctuation and Symbols in Search

Next read the punctuation and symbols in search help page.

Generally, most punctuation and special characters are ignored in Google Search. However, you can use some characters that modify search terms to help you find exactly what you’re looking for and the Google Punctuation and Symbols in Search help page will give you the information you need.

 

Google Search Operators

Now read the Search Operators help page.

If you’re not finding what you’re searching for after using Google’s basic search tips, try a search operator. Add one of these symbols to your search terms in the Google search box to gain more control over the results that you see. Don’t worry about memorizing the operators, you can use the Advanced Search page to generate many of these searches.

 

Google Advanced Search

For certain complex searches, you might want more control over the results that you see. Try the Advanced Search page to see options for making your searches more precise and getting more useful results.

 

Search Direction

Open a search engine, I’m using Google, and enter “search engine” into the search field. This of course could be any query, but “search engine” is an obvious starting point for this task.

The point I’m trying to make here is this, when people begin their search they begin with very broad spectrum queries and gradually narrow their search down.

• Take note of that fact, it’s important if you expect to win the SEO wars.
• At this point I would like to point out the huge mistake that novice SEO’s make. They optimise a site for very, very broad search terms, such as “Search Engine”.

Just look at the results for this search, over one billion hits. How would you fancy checking each of these results for your ideal solution? No? Well, it would be quite an impractical task anyway.

If it took only two minutes to check each page, working 24/7 it would take you almost 5000 years if your target page happened to be the last result. But look on the bright side, it your ideal solution might be the first page.

We obviously need a better answer to finding our ideal solution.

Search direction: Broad to narrow.

As I said earlier, a big mistake with those new to SEO (me included) is to optimise our sites for very broad terms. There’s only one situation when you should optimise your web site for broad terms and that situation is, when you don’t have any competition.

• Most people search broad to narrow.
• So, don’t optimise your site for very broad search terms,
• and do optimise your site for narrow search terms.

Seems obvious doesn’t it, but it’s surprising how often the obvious is overlooked.

Search Engine Query Results

Look at the results for the, search engine, query.

• query = search engine
• result = 1.220,000,000 results

With over one billion results, what do you think the chances are of our web page making it into the top 10 search engine results for the term ‘search engine’?

Admittedly someone’s web page will get the top spots, but I doubt it will be yours or mine. These slots are occupied by entrenched, top players in this field. Just look at the some of the names returned:

• Google, Bing, Yahoo, Wikipedia, Dogpile.

Do you think it would be worth the effort trying to compete with them? I don’t think so. There are easier ways.

Narrow the Search

Lets narrow the search and try entering another query:

• search engine optimisation.

Well, that improves the results significantly but it is still totally useless for our purposes, as with almost ten million results there is still far too much competition.

• query = search engine optimisation
• result = 9,830,000

 

 

Lets narrow the search yet again and try the query:

• query = search engine optimisation cambridgeshire.
• result = 1,040,000

Well that drops the results down to about one million, another significant improvement, but still, far too much competition for my money.

Lets narrow the search one last time, this time to the actual town where the company is located, Fulbourn, because lets face it, most local businesses do business in their local area.

• query = search engine optimisation cambridgeshire fulbourn
• result = 209,000

With just 209,000 results, that is definitely a target we can compete with. To improve the targeting even further things like postal codes or district codes could be used.

 

 

What is Geo-Targeting?

This search was an example of geo-targeting. Geo-targeting is the secret ingredient for local anything. Just by adding your neighbourhood details as a keyword will work wonders for your search engine rankings especially as part of a high ranking query result, search engine optimisation in this case.

• Geo-targeted searches are ideal for local companies, clubs, etc. In fact any web site where the main target audience will be local.

How Searchers Search: How to Get Found on Search Engines Conclusion

Well, I hope you found something useful and enjoyed this article, How Searchers Search: How to Get Found on Search Engines.

• Should you require more SEO related tools, then you will find my article, “SEO Tools” useful.