Mastering Google searches for B2B prospecting part 2

Just getting started with prospecting using Google searches? Check out our previous blog: Mastering Google searches for B2B prospecting part 1.

Mastering advanced Google searches for B2B sales

Knowing how to use advanced google searches is like a superpower forB2B sales prospecting.

With simple operators, you can get more relevant results and faster.

Here’s an example that will find you open spreadsheets with data on anything you want in 3 seconds...

We’ve previously shared a few examples of advanced google searches that entrepreneurs and people in sales can leverage.

After an overwhelming number of people providing positive feedback and sharing how these google searches made their life so much easier, we decided to launch Part #2 - with even more examples.

In this article, we’ll give you more tips for sales-related use cases that any super rep needs to learn in 2024. So, you’ll learn superpowers to efficiently:

1. Get data about a prospect when you need it fast (e.g.: during a sales call)  
2. Do meaningful deep research about an account or prospect  
3. Build lists of priority accounts from online resources (e.g.: “Fastest Companies in 2024”)  
4. Find a specific resource or material you’re looking for

This article will transform the way you think about Google searches and finding relevant information in general.

It’ll transform you to the point where you’ll believe you’ve become a magician (or more like a developer 👀).

The best part?

It’s incredibly easy.

Unleashing Google's superpowers for B2B prospecting

What is a Google search operator?

Google search operators (also known as “advanced operators”) are commands that extend the capabilities of regular text searches.

With Google search operators you can do anything from market analysis, prospecting people on LinkedIn, retrieving fundraising news, finding emails, etc. Understanding the basics of Google search operators will drastically improve the quality of your search results.

How do Google search operators work?

Even though there are lots of search operators for you to use, they usually follow a similar syntax like this one:

How can you use search operators for prospecting in sales?

Now, the part you’ll love...

Google search operators for efficient list building

Building lists of priority accounts isn’t just a strategic assignment, it can be boring and time-consuming too. When you’re building out your lists and collecting data from multiple sources, it’s important to be as efficient as possible.

The first two examples focus on helping you with that.

1. Use exact match (“”)

If you’re looking for accounts from a specific branded list or an event, use quotation marks to get results that exactly match your search.

For example, if you wanted The Cloud 100 2021 list of companies, it’s more efficient to use quotation marks like this “The Cloud 100 2021”. This way, you can quickly see multiple websites with the information you’re looking for and select the most appropriate one.

2. Use site:docs.google.com/spreadsheets “keyword”

If you’re lucky enough, this trick can be even more helpful. Use site:docs.google.com/spreadsheets to find open spreadsheets with anything you want.

Example: site:docs.google.com/spreadsheets companies hiring remotely

In one click, you immediately find multiple spreadsheets with hundreds of companies hiring remotely. This makes it extremely easy to copy and add those companies to whatever list you’re building.

Google search operators to help with prospect research

You joined a sales call and suddenly need to browse information about the prospect or the company? Google advanced operators are here to help you.

3. Use related:domain.com

This operator lets you find websites that are similar to the one you’re searching for. Let's say you have a really good customer that is benefiting a lot from your product and you want to find similar companies, use related:domain.com. Additionally, if you’re in a sales call and are not sure about the market where your prospect competes, use this operator to have an idea of similar companies that you are familiar with.

Example: related:google.com delivers results such as yahoo.com, bing.com, duckduckgo.com, etc. Never imagined there could be so many alternatives to Google.

4. Use site:domain.com filetype:pdf

With a quick search, you can immediately see all the branded content that your prospect’s company has produced. This works for event and conferences materials too. A lot of times companies share pdfs in their website about a conference they are launching, which uncovers a lot of information about the event too, such as companies sponsoring or attending the event.

Example: site:salesforce.com filetype:pdf dreamforce. This search will get you all the pdf material that Salesforce has launched about Dreamforce.

5. Use exclusion (-)

Do you repetitively do the same search multiple times and always find results you don’t want to see? Use the exclusion operator to not get results with a given keyword or domain.

Example: Browse content about a brand from different sources than the brand itself. This search LinkedIn -linkedin.com gets you news content about LinkedIn from other sources than LinkedIn itself.

This can be useful to see what other people are saying about your prospect’s company.

6. Use site:domain.com “topic”

This trick helps you browse specific content from a prospect’s website in seconds.

Example 1: browse site:amplemarket.com customers to quickly find examples of customers with whom your prospect is working with.

Example 2: browse site:g2.com “amplemarket” to quickly find reviews of a certain company or examples of other tools that are usually compared with Amplemarket.

Google search operators for deeper industry, account, or prospect data

Although this section might overlap with the previous one in a few ways, these examples are meant to help you do deeper research in your B2B sales prospecting, whereas the previous techniques focused on quick, specific information.

So, here you go:

7. Use after:”year” “topic”

Google certain topics and only see results after a certain year. This is especially helpful when you’re digging into industry research.

For example, use this to search for the most up-to-date regulations or practices in a certain industry. After:2020 “GDPR regulation” shows recent articles about what’s currently in practice for anything GDPR-related.

8. Use site:*.domain.com -www

Let’s say you want to search for a specific piece of information on a prospects’ website and you want to make sure you search it on all subdomains (fiverr.com, forum.fiverr.com, etc...), then you should use this search. This will help you find additional content that isn’t usually shown on the first results when you google a certain company.

9. Use site:domain.com filetype:pdf

There are a few websites that share industry knowledge extensively, Harvard Business Review or Mckinsey Co. are two good examples of it. If you’re doing research about an industry, try to search for pdfs within these domains about the topic you are researching.

Example: site:mckinsey.com filetype:pdf saas sales

Google search operators to find specific resources

10. Use (site:reddit.com | site:quora.com) ”question”

This search gets you to pages on reddit or quora where users are asking relevant industry questions. If social selling is something you want to invest in, use this trick to help you find questions that are being asked and provide thoughtful answers to those questions.

Users will appreciate your content and start following you for more advice. After a couple of successful answers, you start getting some results from the personal brand you have created.

Example: (site:reddit.com | site:quora.com) ”how to do sales in 2021?” and you’ll see what people are saying about it on forums such as reddit and quora. If you have something else to add, go for it and engage!

11. Use (site:forbes.com | site:fastcompany.com | site:ft.com) “list”

This search gets you to pages that usually compile famous lists in which the best-performing companies are featured.

Example: (site:forbes.com | site:fastcompany.com | site:ft.com) fastest growing b2b companies and you’ll see what people are saying about it on forums such as reddit and quora.

12. Use filetype:pdf

Besides “pdf”, there are plenty of file types you can search for on Google. These will help you better target the type of content you want to find. For example, you can always filter results based on file types such as:

• PDF
• XLS
• PPT
• DOC
• SVG
• TXT
• etc

See this article to find all the possible file types you can search for on Google.

13. Use other websites to browse more relevant information

We all agree that Google is massive. But sometimes it just doesn’t get you everything. As a last recommendation, browser for other websites that also browse the internet for very specific information. Bookmark those websites and make sure to always have them in handy.

Two great examples for techy sales reps are publicwww.com and builtwith.com.

The first one lets you browse the html code of all websites out there. Want to find which websites are using the Facebook Pixel? Paste the code snippet from FB’s tracking pixel and you’ll get lots of results.

The second lets you find all the technologies that a certain company is using. This can be helpful to see if a certain prospect is using any tools you integrate or compete with while on a discovery call. That’s how you stand out from the crowd.

Advanced search techniques for B2B lead generation

We’ve now given you plenty of examples to fuel your B2B prospecting ideas! It’s time to practice 🤓

Imagine you were to build a list of priority accounts to target until the end of the year.

Today, your manager asked you to find fast-growing tech companies using a tool your product competes with. This is an effort to get a couple of new customers until the end of the year at a time when companies are approving new budgets for the upcoming year.

What would you do?

We'll leave you with 3 little hints:

1. The query site:docs.google.com/spreadsheets “list” might be relevant to start searching what other lists already exist out there  
2. Websites such as builtwith.com give you intel about the tools certain companies use  
3. If you don’t want to go through all this trouble, Amplemarket brings you the best intent data about companies and prospects in a single place.*

*You can find pre-built lists of fastest growing companies, filter for those who use or don’t use a certain tool, and reach out to the best prospects in the most personalized way - across multiple channels such as email, LinkedIn, and phone.

But if Google searches are still your thing, here’s a little recap of the most relevant operators we’ve mentioned to help with your B2B sales prospecting:

• Quotation marks (“”)
• Site:domain.com
• Related:domain.com
• Filetype:pdf
• Exclusion sign (-)
• After:”year”

Now, it’s time to get creative!

We’ve also shared an article you might find useful about How to Leverage LinkedIn Search Operators for B2B Prospecting. Feel free to check it out 🤓