Alpha Technical Solutions

Posts Tagged ‘strategy’

Its a commonly held view that everything you need to know is somewhere on the Internet. This is a good thing. The problem is that the Internet is a very big place.  This means that to find what you want any given time may be difficult. The best way to solve this problem is develop a strategy for dealing with search engines. Search engines such as Google are more powerful than most people realise. However like all powerful tools getting the most from them may not be obvious. The best way to maximise your chance of finding what you want is to create a strategy – a set of things that you do when approaching the problem of searching for something that tends to work for you. I say tends to work for you as we all types of web searches that reflect our personal and professional lives. That means that some techniques will be more useful to you than others.

To develop your personal strategy you need to try different ways of running a search, and remember the techniques that work. Over a not very long time at all you will have build a repertoire of useful methods that will cut down the time you spend looking for things.

At this point you may well be saying “what techniques!”

Fair point so in order to get you started here are my 7 favourite tips for searching the web.

1) It does not matter if you use capital letters or not. London is the same as london.

2) Keep searches simple. Use as few words as possible this usually yields the most results.

3) Try to use the most obvious words first then add additional words to the search in order to home in on your search. For example if you are looking for a holiday in Cornwall you might try the following

1. a. Search using ‘Cornwall’
2. b. Then try ‘Cornwall Holiday’
3. c. Then try the type of holiday ‘Cornwall Holiday Hotels’

4) If you know the name of what you are looking for then use the name. Names help search Engines home in what you are looking for. In the Cornwall Holiday example try ‘Cornwall Holiday Newquay’ to find holidays in Newquay.

5) If you looking for something to do with a technical item. For example – parts for a Washing Machine. Mobile Phone, Computer etc then use the model name, model number or part number if you can find it.

6) DO NOT common words such as ‘and’, ‘it’ ‘where’ ‘how’ etc. These will slow down the search and are unlikely to improve the result.

7) Numbers generally do not work well in a Search. There are two exceptions to this rule

1. a. If the number is part of a name then the number will help
2. b. Adding a ‘+’ sign in front of the number will generally help improve the search.