Sometimes, you might feel like finding something over the internet is both giving you too much and too little at the same time. Yes, at the same time.
Trying to find something like “needle”, with the intent of learning how to sew, will yield a vast range of needles and sewing-related topics, articles, and even sales, while the embroidery needles could be the 3rd page of the Google search results.
Companies and businesses are also aware of this, and like you, they also wanted to be found first, and most importantly by the audience they need. Like if you live in Salt Lake City, a good SEO company must include the keyword “Utah” to cover the entire state. This is how they utilize Search Engine Utilization (SEO) Tools to help them find you, and you, in turn, can also use these tools to get you started on your embroidery project the soonest time possible. So let’s get you started.
KEYWORDS
Keywords are basically what connect you to what you want to find. A single keyword (referred to as head keyword) can give you millions of results, so it’s important to add or combine more keywords to narrow down your results (referred to as a long-tail keyword). You can also use the following syntaxes for better results:
1. Use the hyphen “-“, to eliminate a word from your search or will not include the word that comes after it.
Ex. Embroidery needles –thread, you will get results for needles but will not include thread.
2. Put words in quotation to find exact phrases or get results only with the quoted keyword/s.
Ex. Embroidery lessons “videos”, you are likely to get results for video tutorials.
3. If you are looking for something with a price, you can use between two amounts to get the price range.
Ex. Embroidery needle set $10..$50, to get results for embroidery kits between 10 to 50 dollars.
3. Use a colon (:) after a website name to get results from that specific website.
Ex. YouTube: sewing techniques, will give you results from YouTube.
4. Use “OR” to get separate results from 2 keywords.
Ex. Embroidery OR Knitting
5. Use “Filetype:” to get specific files included in the document, article, or publication.
Ex. FIletype: embroidery patterns
Aside from using syntaxes, most search engines like Google offers tabs and tools to filter results and even advanced search. This will be effective in narrowing down results with options for location, videos, images, news, and more.
HASHTAGS
While most syntaxes won’t work inside social media search platforms, there are a few ways to narrow down results in Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, or even YouTube. These platforms also have search filters that can help your searches. While Facebook has a search results tab to separate people from pages, and YouTube has video duration and date-posted filters, Twitter has brought about a new way of filtering results – the #hashtag.
Using hashtags was first brought to Twitter in 2007 by Chris Messina. Chris injected the idea of using hashtags to improve “contextualization, content filtering, and exploratory serendipity”. At first, Twitter users hate them, simply because of the way they look. However recently, most users use hashtags as a necessity for a tweet, while Chris intended them to be used as Metadata for a tweet – providing information on what you are referring to.
Thanks to Chris, Facebook among all other major social media platforms, adopted hashtag use. People can now use and search for hashtags referring to a specific idea, event, or even place. If you are looking for ideas on embroidery patterns, you can be as broad and specific by adding the hashtag “#” to your keywords or set of keywords.
While search engines can give you links to several sites using “embroidery needles”, you can use your Facebook account and use #embroideryneedles to yield the same results – only better, since Facebook can connect you quickly to the right person who can sell, or a page where they talk about embroidery or a group you can join in to talk about embroidery.
Over the years, the internet has and will continue to develop ideas for end-user convenience. The bottom line is, it’s not the keywords that matter, but it’s how you use them.
