How to Use Google Trends for Keyword Research

How Do I Use Google Trends?

Google Trends can be utilized for everything from technological forecasting to SEO optimization. How you use Google Trends is contingent on what you hope to glean from it. Business owners can get insight into the products and services in demand across different countries or the United States.

Social media managers can track the success or popularity of athletes, performers, and other influencers. Advertisers can save time and money by pulling hard numbers on what does and doesn’t work across a martech stack or other mediums.

For example, here’s a screenshot of Google Searches for “Taylor Swift” since Dec. 29, 2019. You’ll notice a spike near the end of July 2020 when she released her “Folklore” album. You can sort the data by category, type, region, or time period. As you get more comfortable with Google Trends, you can utilize trending topics, trend predictions, and find related queries to optimize your local and video SEO.

For instance, using the platform to analyze search volume over a period of time can help you identify the peak seasonality of topics within your industry. Knowing this can help you plan an editorial calendar that promotes content around that topic during its peak season. Below, we’ll look at how you can use Google Trends for keyword research: 

•Understand Keyword Search Volume

•Identify Seasonal Trends

•Avoid Temporarily Popular Keywords

•Find Trending Relevant Topics

•Use Trend Predictions

•Find Related Queries to Beat the

Competition

•Optimize Your Local SEO Strategy

Keyword search volume refers to the number of times a term was searched within a set time frame. For marketers and those concerned with SEO, this is vital, as search volume is ultimately what drives new traffic to any site. Google Trends allows you to enter any keyword phrase and see graphics of how interest in that topic has waxed or waned over the course of any time frame. 

You can also view the regional interest of a given topic or business and inspect state maps that reflect places where these are most or least likely to be searched. A savvy keyword researcher will place findings like these into a dedicated log or keyword manager so that items trending on Google can be saved and exported for appropriate use.

It’s vital to recognize that Google Trends presents relative keyword popularity. This means that the line graph you see for any term represents a ratio of the number of times that word or phrase was searched related to the total number of searches of anything conducted in a given place at a given time. 

To get the full context for search volume, you’ll want to pair this data with what you pull entering the keyword into our Keyword Overview Tool. You’ll see the exact search volume and how difficult it is to rank for the specific keywordIdentify Seasonal Trends

Most content marketers want to plan out content calendars well in advance and stay on top of updates in keyword popularity.

To that end, tracking seasonal trends via Google Trends can help you know when to produce content that is likely to be highly searched in conjunction with particular times of the year, such as the holidays. These search trends help your company hit the right promotion window.

Google Trends can offer visuals on when and how much a given keyword was searched compared to how often it’s typically searched at other times of the year. Being able to prioritize the cyclical trends with the highest traffic means fewer marketing missteps.

Avoid Temporarily Popular Keywords

Is a new keyword on fire, or is it just a passing phase? When you need to know whether the keyword people are searching for is a legitimate trend or just hot for today, Google Trends can help. The tool's left sidebar shows a “Year in Searches” tab where you can explore the search interest for popular topics across the last 12 months. “Spikes” are clearly visible and generally occur surrounding unique moments in time. 

When creating search terms, it’s helpful to avoid those that only enjoyed Google search popularity during a special or limited period of time (such as Christmas or the Olympics), as they won’t provide as many new visitors to your company’s homepage throughout the year like more carefully curated terms will.

A great example of a term that faded as quickly as it became popular was “Tiger King.” Released at the end of March on Netflix, you’ll notice a spike right before April, with the term not really gaining any traction since. 

Find Trending Relevant Topics

Strong content creators always have to think ahead to future content. Google Trends helps with this, as a basic examination of Google word trends will also provide related topics. A table appears next to any term you search where the top five related searches are listed. You can use these topics to help inform your content and build links.

Use Trend Predictions

Using Google Trend predictions can be a simple way to help with your keyword research. Google has added forecasting and trend data for existing keywords to the Google Trends tool in recent years. If a keyword related to your business is expected to rise in search volume in the next few months to a year, seize the opportunity and target that keyword.

Find Related Queries to Beat the Competition

Alongside the related topics in any Google Trends search, you will also discover related queries. These allow you to see what types of search terms people used in association with the ones you put in and lets you analyze a popular search against the total searches for your subject of interest. This kind of information can prove highly valuable when seeding keywords or creating content calendars for marketing or social media campaigns.

For example, say you want to create a blog post on “marathon training.” If you’re using the pillar/cluster model for content, you can use the related queries section in Google Trends to generate ideas for cluster topics. 

Optimize Your Local SEO Strategy 

Because Google Trends can be refined to filter for specific locations and subregions, you can use it to discover local trends to refine your local SEO strategy.

For example, if you live in a coastal town and run a small graphics company, finding that a search term like “horseshoe crab” has jumped in popularity can inform the imagery of the next business logo you design.

One key point is that nearly all competitive marketers are utilizing the same keyword breadcrumbs from Google Trends that you are, so taking the local searches and turning them into innovative usage often means getting creative with long-tail phrases.

Continuing with the “marathon training” example from above, you might be surprised to see which metropolitan areas carry the highest Google searches — something that would be incredibly helpful when outlining a regional SEO strategy.