I don’t think searching the internet was ever meant to be a skill reserved for “tech people.” Searching is just asking questions, and you’ve been asking questions your whole life. The internet is simply a very large place to ask them.

Here’s the thing nobody tells you: there is no wrong way to search. You can’t break anything. You can’t run out of tries. Nobody is watching or grading you. Every search is free, and you can do as many as you want.

In this lesson, I’ll show you how to research something online from start to finish. We’ll use two real-world questions as our working examples:

1. How do I enroll my kid in school?
2. Which bus should my kid take to get there?

These are just examples. The steps are the same for any question: finding a food pantry, locating your polling place, making a doctor’s appointment. Learn the steps once, and you can answer almost anything.

Who is this lesson for?

This lesson is for people with little or no experience using the internet. I won’t assume you know any technical terms. I will assume you have a phone or computer with internet access and that you can tap or click on things.

What do I need?

You need a device connected to the internet and a web browser. A browser is the app you use to visit websites. You already have one; every phone and computer comes with a browser installed. On iPhones it’s called Safari (the compass icon). On most Android phones and computers it’s Chrome (the colorful circle). Others include Edge and Firefox. Any of them will work. This lesson works the same on all of them.

Step 1: Open your browser and find the search bar

Open your browser. At the top of the screen you’ll see a long, empty bar. This is the search bar (sometimes called the address bar). It’s where you type your question.

Tap or click on it. A keyboard will appear on a phone; on a computer, you can just start typing.

Step 2: Type your question in plain words

You don’t need special computer language. Type your question the way you would say it out loud to another person. For our first example:

how do I enroll my child in school in Las Vegas

A few tips that make searches work better:

• Include your city or area when the question is local. “How do I enroll my child in school” could apply anywhere. Adding “in Las Vegas” tells the search where you are.
• Spelling doesn’t need to be perfect. The search will usually figure out what you meant and even suggest corrections.
• Shorter is fine too. “enroll child school Las Vegas” works just as well as a full sentence. Use whichever feels natural.

Press Enter on a computer, or tap Go or Search on a phone.

Step 3: Choose a trustworthy result

Your screen will fill with a list of results. This is the step where most people freeze, so let’s slow down. You do not need to read all of them. You need to pick one good one, and there are clues that tell you which results to trust.

Look at the web address, the short line of text near each result, something like www.somewhere.org. The ending of the address tells you who runs the website:

• .gov: a government website. City, county, state, or federal. These are official sources.
• .org: usually a school district, charity, library, or community organization. Generally trustworthy.
• .edu: a school, college, or university.
• .com: a business. Not necessarily bad, but businesses are often trying to sell you something.

Two more clues:

• Skip results labeled “Ad” or “Sponsored.” These appear at the top because a company paid for that spot, not because they’re the best answer.
• Look for the official name. If you’re searching for school enrollment, the result you want has your actual school district’s name in it.

For our example, the result to choose would be the school district’s own website; it will have the district’s name in the address and likely end in .org or .gov.

Step 4: Scan the page for your keywords

Here’s a secret: nobody reads entire websites, not even people who use the internet all day. When the page opens, don’t read it top to bottom. Instead, scan for words that match your question.

For school enrollment, hunt for words like:

• Enroll or Enrollment
• Register or Registration
• New Students
• Parents or Families

These usually appear as buttons or menu items near the top of the page. Tap the one that matches. The page it takes you to will typically tell you exactly what documents you need (things like a birth certificate, proof of address, and immunization records) and often lets you complete the process right there online.

If you can’t find your keyword on the page, that’s okay. Go back and try a different result, or search again with different words. Going back and trying again is how research works. It’s not a sign you did it wrong.

Step 5: Ask your next question the same way

Research is rarely one question. Answering the first one usually raises another. That’s normal, and the process is identical.

Our second example question: Which bus should my kid take to school? Back to the search bar:

RTC bus route to [school name]

(RTC is the public bus system in Las Vegas. In another city, you’d search that city’s name plus “bus routes”; the steps don’t change.)

The official transit website will typically have a trip planner: a page where you enter your starting point and destination, and it shows you which bus to take, where the nearest stop is, and the schedule. You didn’t need to know the trip planner existed. You found it by asking the question.