How do you apply search engine skills in different contexts?

1 Academic research

One of the most common uses of search engines is to conduct academic research for assignments, papers, or projects. To find reliable and relevant sources, you need to use advanced search techniques and filters, such as Boolean operators, quotation marks, site operators, and date ranges. For example, if you want to find articles about the impact of social media on mental health published in the last five years, you can use this query: "social media" AND "mental health" site:edu -site:com -site:org -site:net after:2016. This will limit your results to .edu domains, exclude commercial and non-profit sites, and show only recent publications. You also need to evaluate the credibility and quality of the sources you find, using criteria such as authority, accuracy, currency, coverage, and objectivity.

2 Competitive analysis

Another use of search engines is to perform competitive analysis for your business or brand. This involves finding out how your competitors rank, what keywords they target, what content they create, and what strategies they use to attract and retain customers. To do this, you need to use tools such as Google Trends, Google Analytics, Google Search Console, and SEMrush, which can help you compare and contrast various aspects of your competitors' online presence and performance. For example, you can use Google Trends to see how popular your competitors' brands are over time and in different regions, Google Analytics to see how much traffic they get from different sources and devices, Google Search Console to see what queries they rank for and what issues they have with their sites, and SEMrush to see what keywords they bid on and what backlinks they have.

4 Web development

A fourth use of search engines is to support web development tasks and projects. This involves finding out how to code, debug, and optimize your website or application, using the best practices and standards for web design and development. To do this, you need to use tools such as Google Developers, Stack Overflow, W3Schools, and CodePen, which can help you learn and apply various web technologies and frameworks, such as HTML, CSS, JavaScript, React, Angular, and Bootstrap. For example, you can use Google Developers to access documentation, tutorials, and guides for web development, Stack Overflow to ask and answer questions about coding problems and solutions, W3Schools to review and practice the basics of web languages and syntax, and CodePen to create and share interactive web demos and examples.

5 Here’s what else to consider

This is a space to share examples, stories, or insights that don’t fit into any of the previous sections. What else would you like to add?