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The Art of Effective Google Searching
Most of us now rely on Google for finding information, but the vast majority just type their search in and look at the top results. In this post learn to use Google more effectively so you can find exactly the relevant content you need.
I hate it when you search for something and Google just shares a load of Pinterest boards and really you want to go directly to blog posts and not have to faff about scrolling through Pinterest boards to find what you need! Learn how to exclude Pinterest or any keyword or website from the results in this post!
It's not rocket science to be good at content marketing or top secret (there's loads of advice on this blog) but sometimes you just need to be shown how to do something you hadn't even thought of that will ultimately save you time you'd rather spend crafting and marketing!
I love this card from Crafty Lemon Prints - Keep at it - you're improving your Craft Business every day the more you learn about effective content marketing!
Why do you need to be better at searching?
Being a savvy searcher will save you time and get you great, shareable content more easily. It will enable you to find exactly what you are looking for. If you are looking for relevant content to share on your social media channels and relevant bloggers and websites - content and people/companies that will help you engage with your target audience and get them sharing, retweeting and coming back for more you need to brush up on your Google skills.
Google Image Search
Google Image search is a fantastic tool that I use on a daily basis!
You can discover fantastic blogs and resources by filtering the image search using the drop down “search tools” tab
Filter results by:
Colour - great for creating colour themed Pinterest boards which look stunning when embedded in a blog post.
Size - you will find if you search for larger images, often you get better quality results.
Type - search by Face, photo, clipart, line drawn or animated. Perfect for finding a specific image to illustrate a post.
Time - find the most recent photos from an event for example
Usage Rights - here you can find images that are free for you to use and adapt.
You should always credit someone if you are using an image, email the owner of the image by looking for their contact details on their website if you are unsure. Many bloggers have a little section that states how they would like you to notify or credit them for using their images - keep an eye out for this in their sidebars before using an image.
Time to get organised with your craft business marketing plan - another fab card from Crafty Lemon Prints that rings true with me!
Google Search Operators and Filters
This is the really useful stuff - it's all free and super easy to do!
You can filter web results by country, location or time as well as a few other filters. Google recently dropped some of the most fantastic filters I used to use, including being able to search just for blogs and discussions (lets hope they are reinstated) - however you can still find this information by using carefully worded search queries which will also work with an image search.
You can also use the Advanced Search page to create these searches.
Similar to searching on Twitter use the following ‘operators’ to improve your search results when using Google.
Search for an exact word or phrase | "search" | When searching use quotation marks around text for an exact phrase. “uk craft blogs” will return only results that contain exactly these words in exactly this order. |
Exclude a word or website | - | By adding a minus sign immediately before a keyword or website in your search query, Google will ignore any results that contain the keyword or come from that website. You can add multiple negative keywords to further refine results. Handmade Stationery -wedding Tana Lawn -ebay.com -ebay.co.uk mens card ideas -pinterest |
Search within a site or domain | site: | Filter results so that they only come from a particular website, or a domain. Really useful for searching for blogspot or wordpress blogs posting about a particular subject. craft site:blogspot.co.uk |
Search for pages that link to a URL | link: | You can use this to find web pages that link to a site - really useful when you find a site within your niche as this will give you a list of lots of other sites that may also be good for networking with link:ukcraftblog.com |
Search for pages that are similar to a URL | related: | This is a very useful operator as it offers up sites similar to a site you already know - again great for building up your lists of blogs to follow and bloggers/influencers to network with. Also good for finding sites similar to your own. related:ukcraftblog.com |
Fill in the blank | * | Adding an asterisk gives you results that contain the words you search for plus a blank - can be a fun way of finding interesting sites beautiful * crafts |
Search for either word | OR | When you use two words in a search Google will tend to show results that contain both words (why keywords and keyword order is so important in SEO) Use OR (capitalised) in order to get the best results that contain either word. Knitting OR Crochet tutorials |
Find site information in one place | info: | A quick way to find links to the cached version of a site or web page, similar pages, and pages that link to the site. info:ukcraftblog.com |
See a cached version of a site cache: | With this operator you can find what a page looks like the last time Google crawled the site. Useful for quickly checking if Google has crawled your website since your last post. cache:ukcraftblog.com |
Look no Pinterest pages clogging up your search results!
If you find these tips useful please share the post or let me know/ask me questions by tweeting me @craftbloguk and remember there's plenty more top tips for selling your crafts online and being a better blogger here on my site and in my book "Online Marketing for your Craft Business"
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