Google is an important tool for home office workers. It can be used for researching latest product trends, locating the best deals on office supplies, networking, market research, and a variety of other uses.
What You Type in the Search Bar
Don’t worry about capitalization when searching in Google. Your search for ‘new york city’ is the same as ‘New York City’. Also, don’t worry about typing in words such as the, and, I and or. Google doesn’t pick up on them. You will save yourself a few seconds by typing ‘ink cartridge dell printer’ rather than ‘an ink cartridge for a dell printer’. Google also picks up sites that list all of your search terms first, so do try to be specific. For example, you’ll have better luck searching for ‘ink cartridge dell printer’ than ‘ink printer’.
Search Operators
Google has a few operators that make searching easy. Perhaps the most well-known operator is surrounding exact phrases with quotes. This works well if you are searching for product numbers, businesses, or people.
Another helpful operator is using – to eliminate words from your search. For example, if you are searching for Dell products and you do not want the search to return laptops, you would search for dell –laptop.
If you would like to search for a term in which many words can mean the same thing, add ~ in front of your search term to pull up your term as well as any synonyms.
Site Specific Search
Google also has the capability of searching for search terms on specific websites. To use this feature, simply type in your search term (use quotes if needed) and then site:www.blahblah.com. For example, “ink cartridge” site:www.dell.com
Like-Minded Searches
If you are performing a search that is referred to by multiple names, you can use the OR operator. Keep in mind, in order to use this operator, you must capitalize it or Google will eliminate it as part of the search (see above). For example, you may wish to search for internet marketing OR advertising.
