- Keyword choices are the most important part of an effective search. Use targeted words and short phrases. Nouns are the most effective choices for search terms. Think of how the terms you choose will be used in the information you are seeking. For example, when trying to find a dentist who caters to people with dental phobias, "dentist dental phobia" will produce a better match than "I have a dental phobia." The latter search will likely return a list of sites that provide information on dealing with dental phobias rather than a dentist who is comfortable with patients with dental phobias. Most search engines are case insensitive. In other words, terms in uppercase are all considered lowercase and return both upper and lowercase on search results.
- Special characters, such as single and double quotes, are used for most search engines. Using quotes will return all of the results with that exact phrase. For example, " "dental phobia" will return sites with the phrase "dental phobia" in the search results rather than sites with "dental" and/or "phobia" resulting in a much more targeted search.
- Including a capitalized "AND" will include the terms on either side. For example, "dentist AND orthodontist" will return both dentists and orthodontists. Using "OR" will return sites with either term of the Boolean operator. For example, "dentist OR orthodontists" will return sites with "dentist" or "orthodontist." Adding "NOT" between search terms will return sites with only the search term entered before the "NOT" operator. For example, "dentist NOT orthodontist" will return only sites with "dentist."
- To use a search engine to find businesses that are local, type the town and state or ZIP code before the search term. For example, "19380 dentist" will return dentists in the 19380 ZIP code as the highest ranking pages.
