Finding the best search phrases. A step-by-step guide

If you type one word into the search box and work your way through all the results, you may get a few hits. However, if you invest 5-15 minutes to systematically investigate the search terms, you will significantly improve the relevance of your results. This will increase the number of relevant companies, decrease the number of false positives, and save you a lot of time.

This guide will walk you through the process of finding the best search terms for your topic.

General remarks

Operators are crucial for a successful delphai search.
Read here about how to use Operators in delphai

Words are ambiguous and their meaning may change over time.
delphai is deriving its insights from public data like websites and news articles. 
This means that some words may be used differently by people with different backgrounds, such as journalists or marketing experts.
Therefore, any new search project should start by getting an overview of the words used in the niche you are working on.

Part 1 Create word lists

There are 2 ways to find material to scout for potential search words:
(A) Make a simple search and check the first page  or (B) check a few specific companies you already know
 
A) Make a search but keep your search term simple and short.

Check the results on the first page and see if any of the companies fit your profile.
For these companies check the results in the reference column, the description on the company profile, and the company website itself.

B) If you already know some companies fit your profile very well you can look these profiles up directly in delphai. 

Look for words that are thematically related and that might broaden your search.
Expressions that describe what you are not looking for may also be relevant.

Start by collecting words, for example, create a small list that contains different expressions for the same or a very similar thing.
Another small list could be a collection of common terms that describe the type of business you are looking for, for example: producer, manufacturer, supplier 

Practical example

You are looking for manufacturing companies in the pharmaceutical industry:
After you start searching for pharmaceuticals, you will find other terms such as drugs and also the 2 specifications generic drugs and over-the-counter drugs and also the abbreviation OTC drugs.

If you check some company websites you might also come up with medication and life science.
Even though the term life science is used for a very wide range of topics, if the corporations are very large, there is a high possibility that there is enough overlap with your topic. There may also be too many false positives in the results and you may need some negative keywords to exclude some companies that are not in your interest.

Based on our initial research above we now have our word lists.
One with synonyms with for pharmaceutical:

• pharmaceutical
• drugs
• generic drugs
• over-the-counter drugs
• OTC drugs
• medication
• life science

One with synonyms for the type of company:

• producer
• manufacturer
• supplier 

Part 2 Building search phrases

Now connect words that are synonyms within the same list with or and parenthesis.
Connect words that are from another list with and

(pharmaceutical or drugs) and manufacturer

(pharmaceutical or drugs) and (manufacturer or producer)

Check for each step if the results are improving.
If you for example see that "drug" is too often referenced in the wrong context you might want to change it for the more specific alternative:

(pharmaceutical or generic drugs or over-the-counter drugs) and (manufacturer or producer)

Abbreviations and Acronyms

Acronyms can be a double-edged sword. They often describe a specific thing that is used in common by many companies.
On the other hand, acronyms are often just three letters, and those same three letters mean different things depending on the context.

For example, in an automotive context, CPO means "Charge Point Operator," but in marketing it means "Cost Per Order."

To refine your search, try using acronyms in their original format or combining them with another term for better results, e.g. CPO and electric vehicles