We all know the importance of keywords for SEO strategy. However, to find the right keyword, thorough keyword research is a must. Although you can use Google keyword planner tool to do the research, Google Trends is a great option.
What is Google Trends?
Simply put, Google Trends is an online search tool that helps you to see how frequently specific keywords and phrases are entered into Google search engine over a specific period of time.
It provides keyword related information such as the search volume index and geographical information about users. Additionally, you can view if a trend is on the rise or going down.
What is the difference between Google Trends and Google Keyword Planner?
The below images shows the trends graph for the keyword "Coffee" in Google Keyword Planner and Google Trends. While both look quite similar they are not identical.
Google Trends
Google Keyword Planner
Google Keyword Planner shows absolute search volume data while Google Trends shows the relative popularity of a search query.
Relative popularity is the ratio of a query’s search volume to the sum of the search volumes of all the queries.
How does Google Trends work?
It analyzes a part of Google searches to determine how many searches have been done for the terms entered relative to the total number of searches done on Google over the same time. Google Trends provides updated data. However, Google includes a disclaimer that the data provided by Google Trends may be inaccurate due to reasons like data sampling issues and other approximations that are used to compute the results.
How to use Google Trends?
You can enter your keywords directly on the website. You don’t need to have a Google account to access Google Trends. You can use commas to separate multiple keywords or search terms.
While Google Trends is mostly used for marketing, it can be used for other purposes as well.
Measure your brand’s popularity
You can use Google Trends searches for your products and services as well as that of your competitors and vendors. You can include up to five terms in Google Trends and compare their relative search popularity.
You can always look up for an unfamiliar vendor’s company and product brands on Trends before buying.
Plan your business trips
Heading to Rome? Set the country like Italy and explore the recent trends at your destination. This will help you be aware of some of the top topics that people in the country currently care about and plan your business trip accordingly.
Identify new market
Search trends may also help you promote in new markets. For example, if you sell cloud back up, Google Trend can help you understand international markets and help make an informed decision.
Google Trends should not be the only data you should rely on but can help inform discussions and decisions.
Track popular interest in technologies
Google Trends data can show popular trends in technologies over time as well. You can enter the tech terms and expand the time horizon to as long as the term as possible to view how the popularity changes.
Helps you find relevant topics
Google Trends can help you choose words carefully. For instance, webcast and Livestream communicate similar meanings but now people look-up for the term Livestream more often. Thus, Google Trends can help you select a term that is more popular and relevant among people.
Refine your video SEO strategy
Although Google earns YouTube, the popularity of a particular search query is different across both the search engines.
You can use Google Trends to filter for YouTube trends (hit YouTube search on the drop-down) and check for the popularity of a search query.
If you find that people are increasingly turning to YouTube for a particular search term, you can create a YouTube video and try to rank for that particular term.
Conclusion
Google Trends is a very useful tool for keyword research and not specifically designed for SEOs and content marketers.
It provides you with the freshest data on what’s trending in search currently so you can leverage the data and make the necessary changes in your marketing strategy.