What is your audience looking for today? Will it still need you in a few months? To find the answer you need an amazing tool called Google Trends.
Your success – especially in advertising – is largely tied to the popularity of the topic within a given time frame. This tool will help you stick the bread while the oven is hot!
In this article, we are going to see not only what Google Trends is and how we should use it, but we will review its applications together; So stay with us until the end of the article
What is Google Trends?
It is one of Google’s free tools that is responsible for analyzing the popularity of terms searched in Google in time intervals. In simpler words, with the help of this tool, you will find out what users are searching for at different times.
For example, “buy jackets” is – predictably – more searched for during the winter season than at any other time.
The search process for buying jackets in Google Trends
Of course, this is just one of the uses of Google Trends! For example, with its help, you can find out which similar terms such as “digital marketing” and “digital marketing” are more popular. We will talk about all the applications later.
So, what’s the point of finding out the popularity of topics in general? According to statistics, Google has 3.4 billion users and occupies more than 92% of the market. According to this statistic, you can plan your marketing and sales strategies with its help; Because the results of Google Trends are based on all the searches that are performed daily in this search engine.
For example, what should be your sales campaign in the next season and what keywords to work on or what products to choose for launching an online shop.
Of course, as you can see in the picture, it also tells you the popularity of the phrase in different cities. In the last part, we talk more about the different parts of Google Trends; Now let’s get to know its uses
10 uses of Google Trends that you should know
In this section, we have listed 10 uses of this tool; Without further ado, let’s move on to the first application.
. 1. Count on Google Trends for market research, understanding needs, comparing demand in different areas, etc
According to the topics that are trending (i.e. they become popular among the people of a society), you can find valuable information about the needs of the market.
For example, if your business is selling pet supplies, you might see “catnip” trending; This makes you understand that bringing this product and promoting it in your store will lead to an increase in sales and profits; Because it is probably in high demand.
Also, the possibility to compare between different queries is another useful feature of Google Trends.
Let’s assume you are a hosting provider and you want to see if people are looking for “shared hosting” or “virtual server”. Pay attention to the image below:
According to this image, the demand and search rate about virtual server is higher than shared hosting. This issue helps to design a special promotion and festival to use this capacity – which is the result of recent restrictions.
In addition, this tool is your crutch in market research, with the help of which you can do the following:
- Find hot topics
- Recognize recurring seasonal patterns
- Monitor competitors
For example, according to the data of the last 5 years, the search for jackets increases from October 1 and reaches its peak on December 8. After that, the trend decreases until 26 Bahman, when it reaches the previous point again.
Overall, Google Trends helps you understand the market and customer needs well. what do they want Why not respond to a phrase your target market is most likely to search for at a given time?
2. Find hot topics
Sometimes the topic may become very hot (even popular) for a while! Working on these topics and producing the necessary content for them can flood the site with traffic.
To make sure the topic is hot, set the time frame to 30 or 90 days when searching for it on Google Trends. With this, you can even find out which days of the week have the most searches.
This is called surfing, which can be very beneficial for you. Of course, provided you don’t ride any waves!
Note that the hot topic must be related to your field of activity so as not to harm your brand’s identity and position.
For example, let’s assume that due to the popularity of “Ajil Shab Eid” we publish content on the topic of “Choosing or buying the right nuts” on the blog.
The traffic caused by this surfing is not only not good for us, it even damages our identity and position. We are known as the business that will do anything to be seen!
We recommend that you do not enter into matters not related to your work. Surfing works when you ride the relevant waves.
3. Compare keywords
The attractiveness of the work is that you are not limited to comparing 2 keywords or phrases and you can compare more words.
Above, we compared 2 queries “virtual server” and “shared host”; Now we added 2 more queries, namely “dedicated server” and “cloud host” to this comparison:
This feature is very useful when you have several similar products or services from the same category. With the help of Google Trends, you can find out which one is more interesting to the audience.
To a large extent, this picture points to the change in the demand and behavior of the target market of hosting services, which have gone towards buying “dedicated server” and “virtual server”.
4. Always have topics and ideas for creating content
At the bottom of the results page, we have 2 more sections called “Related Topics” and “Related Search Terms”. These 2 sections will help you have more ideas for creating content; Ideas based on the wishes of the target audience, for example, in the last 90 days.
For example, the image below is a result related to “Digital Marketing” in the last 90 days:
Apart from things like “Digital Marketing Training” and “Digital Marketing Course”, you will see “Google Analytics” on the right side. Considering the migration to Google Analytics 4, the sudden hotness of this phrase makes sense.
These 2 sections will help you complete your content puzzle and meet the needs of the audience in different sections; Like what we did recently with the publication of the article “4 Free Digital Marketing Courses”.
It is necessary to point out a few points about “subject” and “search term”:
A sudden increase means that the search volume in the specified time period is much, much higher than before, and a lot has changed.
Top ranks the most popular topics, with 100 representing the hottest; 50 means that topic is half of the most searched topics
Ascending lists topics and phrases based on the most changes in the specified time interval
- A sudden increase means that the search volume in the specified time period is much, much higher than before, and a lot has changed.
- Top ranks the most popular topics, with 100 representing the hottest; 50 means that topic is half of the most searched topics
- Ascending lists topics and phrases based on the most change in the specified time interval
The last point is that the subject means this: users who have searched for the term you are looking for, have also searched for related topics. The phrases that are getting hot are the best options to get ahead of the competition and help you complete your content map.
Note: You may see terms or topics that are not relevant to your business. This issue is more common in Farsi, which should not worry you. Because you know very well which topic and phrase is useful for you and you should work for it.
If you want to learn the basics of keyword research, read the article “Learning keyword research based on real examples”.
5. Get to know seasonal products and topics
Seasonal products and topics mean products and topics that are trending and searched for a lot every year in a certain period of time.
Do you think “stationery” is seasonal or not? According to what we see in the image below, a pattern is repeated from August to the end of Mehr, which shows that the highest demand is in this period and you should be ready for it.
This analysis model is a possibility that becomes trends with the help of Google: when and what the market needs!
6. Take your local business and local SEO a few steps forward using Google Trends
But what is the role of Google Trends in improving local SEO?
One of the most important information that this tool provides us is the level of interest in a query according to the location of the searchers.
For example, we saw that apart from the northern provinces, the people of Alberta, British columbia and Manitoba provinces are very interested in buying villas. Well, now if you are a local business in one of the 5 provinces, you know that you can attract a lot of traffic by optimizing your site for “buying a villa”.
Suppose you own a restaurant in Ontario and want to add “Korean food” to your list. Is this phrase searched a lot in Ontario? How is it? Let’s see:
According to the image, it is a good idea to invest in the keyword “Korean restaurant” for local SEO of a restaurant site in Ontario.
On the other hand, you can find out what the people of a city are most interested in and whether it is worth spending time on that phrase or not.
7. Monitor competitors
Another use of Google Trends is the possibility of monitoring competition between competitors in different industries.
Being ahead of the competition is not always the case, and competitors can get ahead of you by changing their plans and strategies;
8. Watch out for the growth of the search brand
One of the ways to measure brand awareness is to use Google Trends; With the help of this tool, you can find out how much people searched for your brand name.
In the image below, you can see the search rate of our brand name in a 5-year period in canada:
This graph shows that we have done well in the field of awareness of our target market; Because the search trend of HiNet has been almost upward in these 5 years.
Probably, when you search for your brand name, you will see that the chart has increased during important launches, such as introducing a product, running a successful campaign, etc.; Instead, the amount of attention is lower during times when your brand is dormant.
Should you just stick to product introductions? No, you must have a specific plan for the whole year so that the target market knows about your existence.
For this, we have several suggestions for you:
- Using video ads on popular sites
- Using banner ads on popular sites
- Using video ads in applications
- Using SMS advertising
At HiNet, we help you reach the segment of the market that is likely to need you by using targeted advertising, rather than random advertising.
For example, in HiNet SMS advertising, you can send SMS based on 3 characteristics of your audience:
- Location (for example, Tehranis)
- Interest and behavior (for example, those interested in buying cosmetics)
- Occupation (e.g. digital currency market workers)
9. Choose the best product to sell online
Above, in the keyword comparison section, we said that you can use Google Trends to identify products that have more value for advertising.
If you want to build an online store and you don’t know what products to offer, get help to find the right answer; That is, not only in advertising, but also helps you choose the best products to sell.
10. Shine on YouTube
Are you a YouTuber? Don’t know what to create content about? Do not worry! Google Trends will help you here. What is trending on Google is not necessarily trending on YouTube! But this tool has another section for YouTube that will help you.
Instead of “Web Search”, choose “YouTube Search” option to see the status of your desired phrase on this platform. Based on experience, set the location to “Worldwide” in the YouTube keyword research
Well, we understood what Google Trends is and how it helps us; As you can see, this tool is not just for comparing two key phrases! Now, if you agree, let’s see how it is used and learn more about its different parts.
How to work with Google Trends?
Fortunately, using this tool is not difficult at all and very quickly, you can get a lot of useful information from it; Even with a simple look!
As it is clear in the image, there is a large field at the top of the screen where the phrase “Add search word” can be seen. This field is where you have to enter the word you want.
Under this field, there are 4 filters that you can specify as follows:
- Location (Canada)
- Time period (e.g. last 30 days)
- Subject and field of activity (for example, whole categories or cosmetics)
- Search location (e.g. web search or YouTube search)
An important point:
- Be sure to set the location as “Worldwide” to search YouTube
Before we move on with the Google Trends tutorial, let’s explain about the 2 “Search terms” and “Query terms” sections of the home page.
Here you see the hottest topics in Canada that have changed in search; That is, you understand what people are talking about, thinking about and searching for.
We promote education by searching for “Digital Marketing”. After adding the search term, we will be directed to the results page.
Here, you can add other terms to compare in the “+Compare” section. The first part of the results – “Trend over time” – shows the search trend based on the selected period (for us it is 12 months).
100 means the peak of popularity and 50 means half the peak of popularity 😁 Let’s go to the second part.
In this section, you can see the topic’s popularity by region or city. As you can see in the picture, if you click on “Area”, other options will open for you.
The last part is the related topics and phrases section. There are 2 options in front of you: increasing and superior.
With incremental selection, you can list topics and terms, as we said, based on the most changes in the search trend. Top also ranks based on popularity.
Note: In the “Increasing” section, the Google Trends list is sorted based on the percentage of growth, and in the “Top” section, based on the popularity number; For example, 100 is the most popular. The label “sudden increase” also means that a significant change has occurred in the search for a topic or query (search phrase); Either the topic is new or previously, this topic or phrase has been searched very little.
You will see an interesting section at the top of the page: Trending right now. If you are planning to enter the highly competitive, but lucrative field of English content production, this section is also useful for you.
Well, this is also a tutorial on how to use Google Trends, which is really simple and straightforward.
Do not miss the pure ideas!
In this article, we examined what Google Trends is and realized that this free tool can play a significant role in improving the state of internet business.
To summarize, we must say that this tool determines the popularity of each keyword and topic according to the amount of searches that are made for them over time.
Using Google Trends is very simple and because it is free, anyone can easily use its features. We reviewed its 10 main uses in this article. If we missed something, write us in the comments section.
We would be happy to hear your opinion about the article
