Google Trends is not just any average SEO tool. For those in the eCommerce business, it’s a pretty handy tool to know the daily, weekly, or seasonal trends of specific keywords. You can also monitor your competitor’s keywords and give them a cut-throat competition. In this article, we shall discuss what Google Trends is and how to use it for the SEO of your website.
What is Google Trends?
A free tool from Google, Google Trends helps search trends over the popularity of a keyword or search term. It provides data and graphs based on the popularity of keyword searches on Google and YouTube. It shows the rise and decline of a trend as well as demographic insights and related topics and queries. Google Trends was first launched in 2006, and its most recent version was launched in 2018.
What Is the Use of Google Trends?
Most people generally use Google Trends in the most straightforward way – enter the term and get the graph that displays the popularity of the keyword over a specific time for the given location. Some entrepreneurs take the graph numbers as the search volume for the given keyword. But that’s not the exact thing.
The search volume and keyword popularity are not the same. Google Trends shows the popularity of the term and not how many times it is searched on the search engine. Google Trends gets the keywords and then places them on the scale of lowest to highest popular.
So, a term may be less popular but have higher searches and vice versa.
Google Trends can help you with:
- See the time span for which a term is popular. The pattern is clear if the popularity is for a longer time span.
- Check the popularity of the keywords over time and geography and compare them.
- Compare terms and their popularity on one graph.
- See related searches and topics.
- Compare different keywords and topics.
- Check keyword’s popularity across various search engines like Google, YouTube, and Images, etc.
How to Use Google Trends?
Google Trends are pretty easy to use:
- Visit Google Trends.
- Enter the term or topic that you want to search.
- Set the specific location for your term or topic and press enter.
- The next page will show the popularity of the term.
In the results page, you can again set the country (location) and the time period for which you want to search the term. In the category section, you can select the category. And in the Web Search section, you can choose whether you want to search the term’s popularity for image, news, Google Shopping, or YouTube.
How to use Google Trends for Website SEO?
With a lot of benefits on offer, you can use this free tool for in-depth topic research and gain insights.
Plan Content Strategy
Keyword trends and popularity can help you plan your content strategy activities. You can check which topics are performing well and which ones are not. Google Trends shows data that supports search volume numbers.
Some events happen regularly, like in education and entertainment industry. You can prepare content in advance and then post when the topic is on the peak. For example, if you look at the trends of keyword “college admission”, you will notice that it spikes every year around May and June.
Similarly, you will notice that the New Year is the time when people make resolutions to lose weight. Thus, you can publish your content related to the same topic. For a fitness center or a store that sells sports equipment, New Year would be the right time to post relevant content.
Hot Topics
Hot topics are those whose searches decline very fast. These topics last only for a day or two because of the audience’s short interest. For example, if you check Google Trends for Chandrayaan 2 search term, you will notice its peak was around September 2019 only. It was the day when Vikram Lander failed to land on the moon’s surface.
So, articles on hot topics may not bring you results in the long term. But you can encash on the opportunity when the topic is popular by being well-prepared in advance.
Keyword Research
Different search items have different popularity in Google web search. You can compare different search items and focus on the ones that offer a good opportunity. You can check where the term is more popular, Google Shopping or YouTube. You can spend your time and money on the platform where you see rising trends. If you see a rising trend for a topic on YouTube and not Google Shopping, maybe it’s a better option to create a video rather than an article.
Optimizing Local Keywords
Some keywords don’t work nationally, but they work exceptionally well locally. For instance, snow boots are popular in states like Jammu & Kashmir and Sikkim. So, you can use Google Trends to check the popularity of terms in different locations, like countries, regions, and cities.
This data can be used to create local keyword targeted content for the website or blog. Therefore, you can create a content piece for the local audience – “What to Consider When Buying Snow Boots.”
You can plan PPC campaigns for your local store in a similar way. Thus, you can stop spending money on targeting the entire country when you are serving a region only. Just create ads for a state or region where your potential customers live.
Seasonal Articles
Some queries are tied to dates and seasons. There are some holiday or seasonal terms like Diwali Sales. Many marketers don’t take seasonal queries seriously and don’t bother to create content for them. But they can be very beneficial for your website, specifically for entertainment, travel, shopping, and health-related categories.
Related Queries
When you check out for a particular topic in Google Trends, you will notice a “Related Queries” section as well. These are similar terms and topics that people have also searched for. With these related queries, you can find and target more terms and even benefit from your competitors’ keywords.
Besides, you also get an idea of the requirements of your potential customers. Thereby, you can refine your keyword choice to serve the customers better. You can use these related searches as seed keywords to find long-tail keywords.
Another way is to do in-depth research through related queries and explore the keywords your competitors are using. You can create a nice piece of content where you can compare your competitor’s product with yours. This way, you can target their keywords and both customer groups as well.
Final Thoughts
Though Google Trends is not a marketers tool, but it can help you in content creation for your website with its informative data and that too for free. With Google Trends, you can plan ahead of seasonal trends and find a rapidly growing niche. Also, by applying the Google Trends tips discussed in this article, you can stay ahead of your competitors.
