Keyword research - Quotation marks

[clizra]

If you're a beginner you may not know why you should be using quotation marks when searching your keywords in Google.

If you just put in your keywords without " then you get the number of results that contain your keywords in any combination not the exact match.

If you use " before and after your keywords then you get the number of results that only include pages that contain your exact keyword phrase.

An example of this

how to lose weight fast without dieting - 1,570,000 results in Google (without quotes)
"how to lose weight fast without dieting" - 71,900 results in Google (using quotes)

The quotes give you a true idea of the number of pages that you're competing against. So in this case it's 71,900

Hope this makes sense and helps you to find those keywords you stand a better chance of ranking in Google with.

Clint Barber

 

[Linda Buquet]

THanks Clint!

To drill down further and find the true competition for a key phrase do this:
allintitle: "how to lose weight fast without dieting"

The ones with that exact phrase in title are the ones that you are really competing with.

 

[yusra]

here are some more:

1.Either/or
Google normally searches for pages that contain all the words you type in the search box, but if you want pages that have one term or another (or both), use the OR operator -- or use the "|" symbol (pipe symbol) to save you a keystroke. [dumb | little | man]


2.Quotes
If you want to search for an exact phrase, use quotes. ["dumb little man"] will only find that exact phrase. [dumb "little man"] will find pages that contain the word dumb and the exact phrase "little man".


3.Not
If you don't want a term or phrase, use the "-" symbol. [-dumb little man] will return pages that contain "little" and "man" but that don't contain "dumb".


4.Similar terms
Use the "~" symbol to return similar terms. [~dumb little man -dumb] will get you pages that contain "funny little man" and "stupid little man" but not "dumb little man".


5.Wildcard
The "*" symbol is a wildcard. This is useful if you're trying to find the lyrics to a song, but can't remember the exact lyrics. [can't * me love lyrics] will return the Beatles song you're looking for. It's also useful for finding stuff only in certain domains, such as
educational information: ["dumb little man" research *.edu].


6.Advanced search
If you can't remember any of these operators, you can always use Google's advanced search.


7.Definitions
Use the "define:" operator to get a quick definition. [define:dumb] will give you a whole host of definitions from different sources, with links