AllOut Marketing > Marketing Minute

Resolution Research!

It’s a New Year and whether you vowed to lose weight, quit smoking, or simply to spend more time with your family, the worldwide web is a powerful tool to find information that can help you follow through with your New Year’s Resolutions. But in order to get the information you need, you have to be able to find it.

AllOut Marketing has assembled some ideas to help you conduct a more successful web search. Take notes and than hop on the web to try out what you’ve learned. Follow these AllOut search tips to become Web Search Savvy!

Start you search by choosing a Search Engine. Some of the big search engines are AltaVista, Excite, FastSearch, Google, HotBot, Infoseek, Northern Light, and Yahoo! After you select what search engine to use, you need to create your search phrase. When crafting your search phrase…

BE SPECIFIC… the more specific you are about the topic you are researching, the better. Searching under more specific phrases like quitting smoking will get you better results than smoking.

USE "SYMBOLISM"… make your search more specific by using symbols.

  • + limits the search returns to only those that contain all the words you are listing. You would get only items which include ALL the words quitting, smoking, hypnosis if your search was phrased +quitting +smoking +hypnosis
  • - limits search returns to only those which contain the word before the minus sign and NOT the word listed after. +quitting +smoking -hypnosis will NOT yield search finds that mention hypnosis as a means to quitting.
  • " Search phrases enclosed in quotation marks retrieve only items that include the EXACT WORDING that appears inside the quotes. "aerobic exercise" will only find information that highlights that phrase, not ones that highlight both words when they are not used together in a phrase.

DON’T GIVE UP! Keep experimenting with different words and word combinations, refining your search as you go. If you want more clinical information on quitting smoking, try smoking cessation. If you want information on how to stay motivated as you diet, try diet tips or diet inspiration. You may need to broaden your search if you are getting information that is too narrowly defined. The more you practice these tools, the more Web Search Savvy you will be!

— Posted 08/29/2002

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