Search term

Roughly speaking, a search term is everything you enter into a search engine, i.e. Google, Bing and Co. It can be a word, a product, a name or a combination of words. A distinction is also made between search terms that are only one word long (shorthead) and those that combine several words (longtail).

What is the difference between SEO keywords and search terms?

A search term is what you enter into the search field of a search engine. A keyword is in turn what the web is ultimately searched for. On the basis of keywords, certain results are displayed in the SERPs, which are then matched to your search term and apply to it. The main difference, however, is that keywords are always spelled correctly, while a search term can also be entered incorrectly by the user. Thus, there can often be several search terms for one and the same keyword.

How to google search terms correctly and find exactly what you are looking for

Maybe you know this: You want to get information on a very specific topic, but you don’t know exactly how to “ask” the search engine. As a result, you get search results that you don’t really need. To prevent this, there is the so-called advanced search. With this you can exclude or specifically include certain words. In this way, you can, for example, also define certain sequences and combinations that must always appear in the search results.

The advanced search

If you want to exclude a specific term from your search, simply put a minus sign (-) in front of the term. For example, if you search for “beach vacation -Greece”, you will find a lot of results that suggest possible beach vacations worldwide, but always without Greece. If you combine the minus sign with a search operator like :site you can exclude complete websites from your search. For example, if you search for “Fresh fruit -lidl.de”, you will get search results that show you retailers for fresh fruit, without taking Lidl’s website into account.

Similar to this, the other search commands for the search engine also work:

This will help you to be found better

To cover all possible search terms, you should do a detailed keyword research. You also need a detailed target group analysis. Only if you know your users and their search behavior exactly, you can optimize your page perfectly. If you have adapted the respective landing page and the content accordingly, this will help you to become more visible and can have positive effects on your ranking. In addition, with the help of Google Trends, you can see which topic is currently of particular interest to users and can also update your content accordingly.

Know the search intentions of your target group

To be really well prepared and rank well with your keywords and search terms, you should also take a close look at the corresponding search intentions of your users:

• Transactional search: The searcher has a clear purchase intention and already formulates this in his search terms (e.g. “buy jeans pants”).
• Informational search: The search query is designed to obtain information on a specific topic (e.g. “cooking potatoes”)
• Navigational search: The searcher already has a website in mind as a specific target (e.g. “eology GmbH”)