From the world’s most popular website…
…we bring you the lowdown on one of the web’s most unappreciated tools, GOOGLE TRENDS.
We’ll forgive you if you haven’t used this tool before, Google have given businesses, marketers and entrepreneurs some of the best gadgets ANYWHERE…
…Trends has had to compete with Analytics, Adwords, Search Console, Drive, Alerts and Google+, to name a few…
…but today is its time to shine.
Einstein Marketer’s going to explain exactly how to get the most out of this AWESOME TOOL and strategies to put these lessons into practice.
Google Trends…??
Ever wanted to discover what’s hot in your area? Or what people are searching for? Or discover tons of marketing inspiration?
On Google Trends, you can do all this (and more) for FREE.
So, right click this link >>>>>> Google Trends, open it in a new tab, and stick with Einstein. You’re going to get LOADS out of this article, trust us.
Before we dive into strategies, here’s a quick summary of what Google Trends actually is:
Google Trends is a FREE PUBLIC TOOL, (based on Google Search engine statistics) that shows the popularity of particular search terms. These results can be filtered by many different valuable methods.
Want it a little clearer? No problem:
Google Trends is a website that shows you how many times people are making SPECIFIC searches.
Get Started
When you land on the Trends website, you’ll be hit with a page that looks like this:
The Featured Insights and Stories Trending Now tabs are VERY INTERESTING, (trust me, I’ve fallen down a deep rabbit hole in those tabs before), but for now, we’re going to focus on the EXPLORE TOPICS search bar at the top of the screen.
If your eyes are bad, here’s a visual demonstration of where we mean, (I hope you don’t miss it):
Google Trends: Explore Comparisons
Now you’ve found that search bar, go ahead and type something in. Einstein Marketer suggests your industry, business area or an interest point around your product.
For the sake of this blog, Einstein Marketer’s going to pretend that we have a business selling IT COURSES (we picked a service-based-business, because Google Trends is EVEN EASIER if you sell physical products).
Our ‘IT COURSES’ search has brought up a line graph, demonstrating how popular our KEYWORD is…
…but, it’s not SPECIFIC enough for us yet, we only sell IT Training in the UNITED KINGDOM, so we’re going to narrow our results even more via the LOCATION tab.
BTW: The other three tabs will narrow the results by TIME RANGE, CATEGORY and SEARCH TYPE. These are all VERY USEFUL, but for the purpose of this blog, we’re going to stick to LOCATION.
Einstein Marketer can now see how popular the search term; IT COURSES is in the UK.
Pretty cool, right?
But, is it the coolest term?
There’s only one way to find out, just to the right of our original ‘IT Courses’ search, you’ll see ‘+ COMPARE’.
Einstein’s going to click that compare button, and test the popularity of ‘IT Courses’ against a bunch of other words:
[quote type=”rect”]EINSTEIN MARKETER MOMENT – Google Trends lets you compare up to 5 different keywords. Use all 5![/quote]
The results (in the graph above), show us that ‘IT COURSES’ is not the best keyword for our product or content.
We can see that ‘IT TRAINING’ is consistently the strongest search term and holds the highest AVERAGE (demonstrated by the bar charts on the left-hand side of the screen, as you look at it).
So, our content and products should use this term to snag more search traffic and improve our VISIBILITY.
Google Trends: What’s Hot?
Einstein Marketer also (hypothetically) runs another business, that sells…
…curtains.
(Yes, I know, very inventive)
But, our business doesn’t want to sell any old curtains, we want to sell the HIPPEST, MOST CURRENT curtains on the market.
So, we get over to Google Trends, type ‘CURTAINS’ into the search bar and scroll the page down to RELATED TOPICS and RELATED QUERIES.
By leaving the tabs on RISING, these two areas will tell us what the fastest growing topics and queries are in the CURTAIN INDUSTRY.
But, we also want to know what the TOP searches are. So, we’re going to change the results:
The combination of both RISING and TOP TOPICS AND QUERIES demonstrate exactly where our CURTAIN BUSINESS needs to focus its attention.
Google Trends: Calendar
The Trends Graph doesn’t just tell us what the most popular keywords are, it also tells us WHEN they are most popular.
This data allows us to create a CALENDAR of content, search terms and product names.
For example, this search tells us that the keyword FRESH is very popular from MAY to AUGUST, but after this, search entries fall.
With this knowledge, we’ll use the keyword FRESH to describe our products during the popular months and change it during the rest of the year.
Google Trends: Inspiration
If none of those tactics tickle your marketing taste-buds, Google Trends is an AWESOME TOOL for NEW IDEAS.
Trends has given our team tons of ideas for clients’ content marketing campaigns over the years.
One simple search can reveal a hot topic that guarantees to drive waves of new traffic…
…and just because we’re using Google Trends, that doesn’t mean we need to worry about competing for a high rank on Google.
If you know a topic is RED HOT, create content around it and promote it on your social media channels. Einstein Marketer has used this tactic to BIG EFFECT numerous times, because it REALLY WORKS!
Google Trends: Your New Ally
If you knew about Google Trends but couldn’t see a use for it…
…shame on you.
It’s a FREE gift that can make a huge difference to your ongoing content strategy and by adopting the tactics in this blog IT WILL.
Like any tool, the more you use it, the more USES you’ll find for it.
Einstein Marketer suggests visiting TRENDS every time you begin creating a new piece of content.
And if you’re into DROPSHIPPING or ECOMMERCE, discovering the latest trending areas in your product area might just CATAPULT your results.
Did you enjoy this blog? What do you think about Google Trends? Leave a comment or send us a message and we’ll reply as soon as our Social Media Manager has stopped checking out the form of Shamrock Rovers for his next obscure football bet.
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