12 Google Search Operators for a Competitive Advantage
56% marketers claim they have “too little to do with their time.” marketers must plan campaigns that are different from others, create content that is loved by both search engines and readers , and achieve very specific ROIs. Google search operators are able to help reduce tension.
Google search operators can be special characters/commands that enhance your search abilities beyond regular searches. These characters are sometimes called “advanced search operators” and they can be useful for a variety of tasks such as content research and SEO audits. They can be productivity boosters and make marketing easier. You can get a glimpse at what your competitors are doing and come up with better ideas.
I will be showing you 12 Google advanced search engines to help you outplay your competition.
1. Find out where Competitors have been Featured
Many marketers share one commonality: They all want their content to be featured on popular sites. Google search operators can help you find more content from competitors.
These are the main reasons
- You’ll find more websites that accept guest post from your industry.
- It will help you save time looking for sites that are open to your topic.
- You can find the websites linking to your competitors, which will make them rank high on Google.
These search operators can help you find these sites. This is where exact match and the minus sign operators can be of great help. Search “‘name of my competitor’ is” -mycompetitorswebsite.com and Google will show where your competitors have author bios apart from the ones on their website.
Take Julia McCoy is -expresswriters.com
These results include many sites Julia has been mentioned that aren’t expresswriters.com. They range from Magnificent Marketing, Canva, SiteProNews and HuffPost.
Jason Quey is the co-founder and CEO of GrowthRamp.io. He shared another method for operators to find opportunities for guest posts:
“Here is a tip that my intern shared to me. You can find guest posts opportunities by looking up the blog’s content marketer if you use it as a lead generator. Look up “FNAME LNAME”, “author” and “Jason Quey”. You will now have a list with target websites to pursue.
“Jason Quey”, “author”:
If the competitor has multiple websites or is featured on a site that you don’t care about, you can exclude them from your results by using the “–” operator.
Here is one example. This is an example. Like, “Julia Mccoy is” -expresswriters -amazon.com -anyotherirrelevantsite.com:
You will notice that the Amazon result is not in the photo.
These are the results that you want – Julia McCoy’s published works.
Next, click on each link to check the quality of the content needed to be published.
2. You can use the “Site” option to get better writers
Writing is becoming increasingly critical as more companies report success with content marketing. 53% say that their content marketing approach is moderately successful. The same report also revealed that 21% of B2B marketes consider their approach to content marketing as being minimally successful. 20% describe it as extremely successful, while 4% say it is extremely successful. Only 2% say their content marketing has been unsuccessful.
98% of respondents stated that their content marketing efforts had been successful to some extent.
You need to be a good writer, given the importance content market has gained. You can use search operator commands to help you locate them. It is easy to search for a publication in your industry for the topic you need and then find out the names of the authors.
By hiring the best writers within your industry, you will be able to outsmart your competition. If I want to start a blog about red wines and need a writer , I can search for someone who writes for a publication in the health industry–since it is close to my wine company.
I can perform a site search for red wineson health publications like health .
Let’s assume I click on the first result. Is red grape really good for my heart?
Julie Corliss was the author of the post. It is obvious that I need to find out her identity. I searched her name on Google and found this:
I found out that she is a professional medical writer. She even has a LinkedIn profile that says she is a freelance medical writer. Voila! She is a writer on red wine for a large publication in health. Her knowledge of my topic is quite validating.
However, it might not always be that simple. You could be any freelance writer, or anyone else. Julie, for example, could have just been a doctor who is interested in sharing her knowledge in health publications, but not in freelance writing.
In that case, I would have to look at other results in the ‘site:health.harvard.edu “red wine”‘results page. I tried, but couldn’t find any other writer. What should I do next? I’ll conduct a site search for another health publication, and continue trying until I find a competent writer.
It shouldn’t be so difficult to find a good writer. You need great writers to keep your prospects engaged with your content. The average reader will spend 37 seconds on a blog or article.
You should do everything you can to find the best writers if content marketing success is your goal. Your industry’s top publications can be a great place for you to start looking for great writers who can outsmart your competition.
You will find any writer in these blogs or publications because they are skilled writers. They won’t choose material from substandard writers for these publications.
3. Where are Your Content Gaps Use “Site” “-“, or “Intitle:”.
What could you be overlooking when it comes to the news that your competitors are reporting? Let’s say Buzzsumo.com is your competitor.
Although you are aware that they often write about content marketing topics, you still want to see what they wrote about other topics without going to their website. That would be quite a task. You can find help here by using a combination of the site (site), minus (-), operators and intitle(intitle:) operators.
Search website:buzzsumo.com intitle: content market to see all the topics Buzzsumo.com writes about.
You’ll find everything you need to know about social media marketing. This will allow you to see what your competitors are writing about and how they differ from yours.
4. Locate the Best Content of Your Competitor – Using “Site” and “Intitle strong
Let’s assume you have a competitor who creates lots of great content. Your target audience seems to love their style, and you admire their content. They may be even more popular than you for certain keywords that you both compete for.
If you are looking for content on a particular topic, it is worth checking out the work of your competitors. The site, intitle, as well as exact match operators are all useful search commands.
Let’s say contentmarketinginstitute.com is the competitor in question, and you want to see what they’ve published on the keyword infographics. You’ll need to search site:contentmarketinginstitute.com intitle:”infographics”
By doing this, you are telling Google that all posts on your site have infographics in the title.
Plus, Google puts their best content last. This search will bring up the best infographic posts Content Marketing Institute wrote on infographics. You can also see the angles from which they wrote each one.
5. You can use “Filetype to” to find the specific file types your competitors publish
You might be developing a new content marketing strategy. Perhaps you want to write some ebooks. However, you aren’t sure which topics should be restricted or which ones should be open to all.
Driving leads into your funnel will be done by gating ebook. While it might not bring in as many leads, leaving your ebook unattended can increase search traffic and shareability. It is important to do it right. You shouldn’t gating all topics. You might be missing out on opportunities to generate leads by not gating some topics.
You can learn from a competitor how they handle it. What ebook (PDF), topics have they restricted and what ones have they left open?
There are two search engines that can be used: website:
It’s possible to see which topics they have included in ungated PDFs. The most successful competitors may have top-notch marketers, so you might consider doing the same.
To find out what their customers are interested in, marketers often conduct rigorous tests. It is smart to imitate them in this area.
6. You can use “+” to find what competitors have written simultaneously on both topics
Searches for multiple keywords can sometimes be done simultaneously to compare or show how different things work together. You might find content from your competitors using those keywords.
They are probably ranking for these keywords already. To rank higher for these keywords than your competitors, you must create content that is superior to theirs to win the Google ranking game. Searches for SEO and Content Marketing are often done simultaneously, so it’s easy to see how they interact. These terms are actually searched by more than 800 people each month.
A keyword research tool can be used to determine which websites rank for this keyword. Google is much faster than searching keyword research + content marketing.
This will allow you to find all the websites that have written about SEO+ content marketing as well as their most recent writings.
7. Outsmart your competitors with listicle posts that use “..”
What if you could look at the list posts that your competitors have written on a certain topic? You might be looking to create a listicle and want to verify that you are not using the same topic or list number as your competitor.
Let’s say that you want to write X most delicious dinner recipes , but you don’t want the same titles or lists number as your competitors. Also, if your competitors have written 17 top recipes, you want 17 to be your number.
Here, the “..” operator is a useful tool. It allows you to search for listicle posts related to specific topics. Search “Top 1..100 Dinner Recipes” to find other list posts on the topic.
All the numbers created by your competitors on this topic can be viewed. This will allow you to avoid creating similar results, which will make you stand out for Google as well as visitors.
8. * Operators are used to remember something you saw
Sometimes you see a post from a competitor on your social media timeline. Because you are busy, it is impossible to pause and review it right away or make time to add it onto your to-do list.
You loved the idea and want to make it even better for your organization. You can’t recall what you saw. Two words are however easy to remember.
This wildcard operator is represented by an (*).asterisk. It tells Google that it will search for unknown keywords in your search query. Let’s assume you’re trying remember a title Furniture Arrangements Ideas for Small Living Rooms. But only three words keep coming up: Furniture Arrangements Ideas.
Search Furniture Arrangements Ideas * and you might just find what your looking for.
Google will then show you all posts containing your keyword.
9. The Operator “Related to” helps you locate sites similar or identical to your Main Competitors
The “related:” operator allows you to use one of your competitors in order to see if they are competing with you. Add related before you competitor’s domain and you’ll see a list of other competitors in the same field. You can also do this using a social listening tool. But, this is a faster way of searching.
related.semrush.com
Google then shows you all websites that are related. This is much faster than navigating through another platform.
10. Is there anything a competitor has said about your brand?
It doesn’t matter if your competitor says something about you in the text of a page. You might not have been notified about what they said. Perhaps your brand-mentioning tool missed it.
It doesn’t matter what case it may be, competitors can say things about you. SpyFu might want to check if Ahrefs mentions them in the body or any other post.
SpyFu is able to search site.ahrefs.com with text: “Spyfu
Google then shows SpyFu any pages in which SpyFu is mentioned.
11. Locate Long-Tail Keywords with the AROUND (X) Operator
What if you could search for all the long-tail keywords relevant to a particular topic on Google? It’s not necessary to log into any keyword search engine. It would save you a lot of time.
The AROUND(X), operator will help you locate all the long-tail keywords related to a specific topic. design HTML3 photoshop. Three words is the limit between design and photoshop .
This will allow you to see the long-tail keywords used by your competitors for specific topics. This is not always true. However, just because you put three keywords in between two other keywords does not mean that all results for long-tail keyword searches will return the same number.
12. Search for Competitor Pages Which Have Been Removed by using “Cache”
You’ve probably come across a page that is informative or helpful on the website of a competitor. You might have been given an insight into a new technique that could help you attract more customers. It is now impossible to find the page. It is worth so much that you will want to find it.
If your competitor has created a page with links, you can create one and reach out to those websites. Let them know they are able to replace the competitor’s backlink by yours. People don’t want to link on a dead page so they will most likely be happy to link to your site.
Conclusion
These tips are not intended to be used as a way to backstab your competitors or copy them. These tips will help you make better business decisions in the same industry as your competition.
These search operator commands can be used to quickly find relevant information. You can also look at ideas from your competitor and modify them to suit your company’s needs. To be unique, you need to set yourself apart from the rest. However, it is also a good idea to stay on top of what works. You can use these search commands to create a completely new strategy or tool for your business.
What are your thoughts on using Google search engines in your marketing strategy. Comment below about your experience. my most recent research has more information.