It seems that people are getting increasingly used to the notion that doing a search on Google can be more than just sticking a few words down and seeing what comes up.

It is not that the use of the quotation marks is new, but rather it is catching on, and many non-IT people who just use search engines when they need to find something know that they can make their search more specific by writing one or more key words, or even a whole phrase, in inverted commas.

Thus when I wanted to know about Edward Liddell, often known as Ned, who played for Arsenal FC in 1914 searching for “Edward Liddell” would be no good, because in any article he might be called “Ned” (or Edward, or anything else).   But Liddell had to be in the article, “Liddell” went into inverted commas.  Likewise since there could be lots of other guys in history with this name I knew I only wanted the one who played for Arsenal, so again the speech marks came out, resulting in Edward Ned “Liddell” “Arsenal”.

This kind of slightly sophisticated search pattern is growing, as is the number of words that people put into searches, and the beneficiaries of this change are the people who fill their web sites with text full of relevant words.

So I am tending occasionally to add to my internet articles phrases such as “as Fred Blogs, as he is referred to in some places (or Fredrick Blogs as he is known elsewhere) has said…” so if anyone has a different variation on the name of a person or a machine or a technique or anything else, I am equally liable to pick those readers up.

In other words writing articles for web pages is not as simple as just describing what you are and what you do.  A little artifice is required as well.

Which is why large amounts of relevant and interesting text remains just about the key way to get your site up the search engine rankings.

If you would like to talk about this approach, do call 01536 399 000 or email Tony@Hamilton-house.com

You can follow us @HHMailings and on www.blog.hamilton-house.com

Tony Attwood