Most of them are familiar with Google Trends
and the SEO benefits of using the services as a keyword research tool. For
those of you who are new to the concept, Google Trends shows you terms on your
website and you might be able to generate a lot of traffic quickly by ranking
for the trendy term.
If you use any popular keyword research tool
you will get excellent information about which keywords were most heavily
utilized along with nicely formatted rankings.
What if the search
volume for your keywords is falling? Or rising?
What if search
volume for your keywords has shifted in the past three years?
So, what tool
will? Google Trends.
Google
Trends is a keyword research tool that can help you see at glance how many
people are searching on Google for the keywords you’re considering. Since
Google is far and away the search engine of choice, focusing on Google keywords
information provided can prove to be quite helpful.
Google
Trends in Action
Let’s
do one exercise together. Go to Google trends (google.com/trends) in your
browser. Enter the following search terms, separated by comma:
·
Online Marketing
·
Social Media Marketing
·
Website Development
 |
| Google Trends For SEO |
Several
things become apparent from this initial search. Now let’s drill down the data,
click the drop down that says “All Years” and select “Last 12 months”, select
country and relevant category, you can see the moving trends in more details.
If
you used Google Trends to see that one keyword was gaining searches over time
while the other was losing its’ steam, you’d want to emphasize the keyword with
the rising trend in your copy. If you have to make a choice between keywords,
Google Trends becomes even more important in making that decision.
Google Keyword tool Vs. Google Trends
Both tools rely on and present
historical data I reaction to the criteria you set. But there is marked
difference.
Take
the term ‘Olympics’ as an example. Google’s Keyword Tool estimates that there
are a massive 30,400,000 monthly searches per month for that term, based on the
activity over the last 12 months. Of course we know that last year’s event will
skew the results and that until the next event interest will fade. But imagine
that we didn’t have that knowledge. We might pursue this keyword traffic based
on an estimate that is inaccurate and potentially a waste of resource.
Google
Trends is a fantastic stand-alone tool that can help to understand market
demand and search trends; and its use is not limited to SEO alone. The information it provides is highly
valuable and a business can use it to make decisions about market strategy.