How to Utilize Google Trends: Creative Ideas to Improve Your SEO

Good keyword research isn't a straight path. All of the information that assists you in selecting your targeted keywords should come from a variety of sources. You must understand keyword data, competitive practices, and your audience's changing interests. This is where Google Trends comes into play. It provides a fresh perspective on such discoveries.

Google Trends provides useful information into search demand and the market, which can assist website owners and marketers in developing more effective SEO operations. In this article, we'll show you different ways to use Google Trends to improve your SEO and drive more visitors to your website.

What exactly is Google Trends?

Google Trends is a free online tool that tracks the popularity of a search phrase over time. The search volume of a word is used to calculate this. Because popularity varies from place to place, you can also watch trends in an area, a country, or globally. If you're hearing about Bermuda grass everywhere, find out if it's because it's the overseeding season in your area or if it's something more universal.

Google Trends operates by analyzing real-time Google searches from around the world. It aggregates information on those searches based on the date, time of day, location, and platform, such as YouTube. Using all of that information, you can uncover any underlying patterns surrounding the keyword you're looking for. This could indicate less obvious seasonal trends, such as an increase in searches for twin sheets and blankets before college dorm move-in.

You may also use the tool's built-in comparison feature to compare phrases. Select two (or more) targeted keywords and make any necessary adjustments, such as adding a time span.

When you compare hot tubs to cold brew, Google charts both on the same timeline, so you can see when one was more popular than the other.

Google Trends gives real-time data, allowing you to check how your target keywords are performing right now.

What Is the Mechanism of Google Trends?

When you visit the Google Trends page, you insert a search phrase that interests you, such as "audiobooks." The results show the phrase's search volume over the last year, but you can change it to something more recent.

Google Trends also displays related topics and inquiries for your search terms. You may utilize this data to fine-tune your target keywords and have a better understanding of the relevant topics that people are looking for.

Take note of the rate of growth for each term in comparison to the beginning of the time period.

When a topic has an extraordinary rise in popularity, it may be labeled as a "breakout" instead of a growth metric. Often, these would be newer terminology that were not popular at the beginning of the time period. "Breakout" is an exciting classification to look for, especially for current, topical information. When you develop time-sensitive content, you benefit from increased interest (which means higher search volume) to get more eyeballs on your content and more visitors to your page.

These "Breakout" keywords are significantly more popular than they were a year ago.

There's one more item to call out in the results. Google displays the subregional interest in the search term. That could be a state in the United States, a metropolitan area, or a region of the world. This section's popularity is calculated as a share of the population.

How to Utilize Google Trends for Better SEO

Using Google Trends to gauge your targeted terms can help as another layer to your keyword research. Here are some essential principles to implement.

1. Schedule your SEO efforts to coincide with seasonal demand

It’s not just retailing; every sector is impacted by seasons. Even vehicle search volumes might vary by up to 70% month to month. And everyone is aware of how holidays, seasons, and weather affect the travel sector.

Utilize Google Trends to forecast seasonal demand for terms relevant to your business, and plan ahead of time to capitalize on the patterns.

Looking at search trends for generic phrases can help you uncover hidden opportunities.

2. Make the most of pertinent trends and find fresh content ideas

Over 2 million blog posts are published a day, and businesses are always clamoring for new relevant content ideas. By getting in front of a trend, you not only upload relevant material, but you give yourself a battling chance in ranking in the search engine results pages (SERPs) from the very beginning.

Yet catching a trend wave is not easy. Finding a trend that is actually applicable to your business is the first step.

And that’s where basic Google Trends exploration falls short. The simple advice is only to check trending material and latch onto innovative angles to gain traffic. Early in 2022, a wall of content with a Wordle theme appeared.

It might be a fun occasional practice, but it's not beneficial long-term when you want to create ongoing content that is relevant to your site or business.

If a hot phrase has previously peaked, you should focus on comparable keywords and topics that are currently gaining in popularity. You may locate them by using the "similar subjects" and "related queries" parts of Google Trends and setting it to "Growing."

These tips will always be relevant to your industry and worth your time.

3. Recognize Geographic Trends

We all know Google dominates search, but it's amazing how deeply it's woven into our daily lives. We make it part of our close-to-home research as 87% of consumers tap Google to search for local information. And, because trends often emerge in one area at a time, it's natural for general product interest to fluctuate across geographic regions.

Google Trends displays the most popular locations for a search query, such as the country, city, subregion, or metro.

4. Discover the type of content that is best for that keyword

Certain keywords may perform better when combined with the appropriate type of content.

Overall, Google Trends is an indispensable tool for organizations seeking to determine the most popular sort of content for a specific topic. Businesses may acquire useful insights into which sort of material is more popular among consumers by evaluating data from an online search, YouTube, and Google Images, and modify their content strategy appropriately.

Check Google Trends' YouTube search results for a term to gain a more complete view of content demand. You may learn whether videos or other sorts of information are more popular among consumers by comparing trends in traditional online search results.

Another important feature of Google Trends is the ability to check whether a search is trending on Google Images. If a subject is hot, companies may develop an infographic or an explanatory visual on the issue to attract hits and help them stand out in Google's image search results.

5. Differentiate Fads from Trends to Save Time on Content

It’s easy to get caught up in the moment thinking something is a trend and devoting a lot of time/energy/money to targeting a new search term/niche with a lot of content.

A quick word about measuring interest: Google uses a 1-100 scale and marks a keyword's peak with a 100.

If you or your team are considering tackling a new craze, be sure it is still on the rise before spending too much time and money on it.

To get a reasonable prediction of future demand, set the date range to the maximum. If you merely look at the recent few weeks or months, a craze might deceive you with its short-term oscillations.

Check Google Trends before committing to new large-scale initiatives on your website to avoid spending time on fads.

6. The Need for Competitor Search

Because no business lives in a vacuum, knowing your competitors is one of the most important aspects of running a business. Not just that, but also in general. Better SEO results from competitor study.

A significant push in Facebook, display, or even traditional marketing efforts can frequently result in an increase in branded searches. Large increases may suggest that they are launching a campaign or competition that you should be aware of. Large surges might also indicate that the competition has been in the press. Recall that this measures brand name search traffic, not rankings or consumer sentiment.

Google Trends Compare provides marketers with a quick comparison tool for evaluating branded search demand over time.

It's helpful when determining where you stand and which rivals you should pay special attention to.

7. Discover Region-Specific Phrases and Terms to Target

Identify and validate geographical area phrases and keywords to target.

Every year, billions of queries are conducted on Google alone. As a result, there are billions of search phrases. With so many alternatives, it's crucial to consider outside your own language and dialect while looking for keywords.

8. Investigate Decline in Organic Search Traffic

Utilize Google Trends in conjunction with Search Console to rapidly determine the cause of a reduction in traffic.

Trends, rather than SEO performance, might sometimes explain a reduction in search traffic. Search demand for events such as the Grammys and Oscars diminishes by up to 99% following the peak during the event weeks.

Google Trends is an effective instrument for validating new keywords and determining the general popular appeal of currently targeted keywords.

The primary thing to look for is consistency in public interest, which means that the keyword would retain a consistent level of attention across time. If the graph demonstrates a constant and persistent level of interest, the term is likely to be a strong target.

If, on the other hand, the graph shows a decline in public interest, it may be time to hunt for new keywords to target. Examining the popularity graph might help in circumstances when a keyword is losing popularity. It's more of a tool for firms with limited resources who need to decide which keywords to focus on. Overall, it's a good practice that can't hurt.

Conclusion

When utilized correctly, Google Trends may be a very beneficial tool for SEOs and content marketers.

It can help you from the beginning to the end, from identifying regional patterns to finding search keywords that are ideal for a new region.

These insights may also be used to steer your whole strategy, resulting in a more holistic SEO approach. To maximize your efforts, we always recommend doing an SEO assessment.

Yet, one area where it falls short is in its competitive analysis.

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