Using Google Trends for Keyword Research

Introduction

We all know that Google Trends is the backbone of any online industry. Hence to learn and understand the proper use of Google Trends is must for any type of website.

However, I have seen that a lot of people do not use this tool or they do not know how to exactly use it. So, in this lesson, I will tell you the way in which we can use Google Trends for our keyword research and content development strategy.

What Does Google Trends Actually Do?

As the name suggests, Google Trends shows which topics are being searched at a particular time. However Google Trends is not limited to that.

  1. It shows popularity of a topic since 2004.
  2. It also shows related topics
  3. It shows country-wise search of a topics and even state-wise
  4. We can filter the results into the platforms (image, video or web).
  5. We can also filter using categories and so on.

In other words, Google Trends provides us everything we need to work for.

Interest Over Time

When we insert a keyword in Google Trends and hit search, we get a number of sections, each having one kind of important information. First, we have the trend line which shows the interest of keyword year-wise, month-wise and even day wise.

This line is important for keywords research because it tells us whether to work for a keyword or not. e.g. in the image below, we have searched “Orkut” and found that this keyword is no longer searched in Google.

Hence if we decide to write an article on Orkut, it will not be worth writing and rather a waste of time. So when we think of writing an article or forum topic, we must put it in the Google Trends to understand if it is relevant or not.

Now, we have different types of trends in Google Trends. e.g. “Diwali” is a seasonal keyword. Its searches boom when Diwali comes. So, any site which ranks for keywords relating to Diwali get massive traffic for 7-8 days in a year.

There can be keywords having traffic for a month (e.g. Ramadan). There can be keywords which get traffic for just a day or two and then become irrelevant (e.g. keywords relating to jobs or exam results) and so on.

So, when we begin keyword research, we must acquire knowledge about the popularity of a keywords and also how to use those keywords for our content.

A good website has both seasonal as well as evergreen topics. So, you should have a combination of both.

Interest by region

The next important feature of Google Trends is “Interest by region” which shows in which country the keyword is mostly search. Using this section, you will be able to understand your audience.

In addition, if you are targeting Tier-1 countries like USA, UK, Canada, this section is extremely useful for you because you will be able to filter out those keywords which are specific to a particular country.

You can also breakdown the interest state-wise to get deeper analytics of a keyword.

Related Topics

This section shows all the topics relating to our keyword. However for this to work, we must put a short-tail and popular keyword.

These are not keywords but broad topics which can have hundreds of subtopics. e.g. if we search “Keyword Research”, it will provide topics like “Google Ads”, “Keyword Tool” etc. We can use them as categories for our blog or course or forum topics.

Make a habit of doing at least 30 searches a day on Google Trends. This way you will understand how the Google Trends work and you will be able to grab thousands of opportunities for your blog/courses/forum topics.

Related Queries

The last and most important section of Google Trends is “Related Searches”. This section shows a number of keywords which relate to our main keyword. Note that this section is better than Google Search page’s “Searches related to [keyword]” because the former will show just related keywords but the latter will show those related keywords which have recently got a spike and have significant amount of traffic.

You can easily export these keywords and search them in google one by one in order to make them long enough for ranking easily.

I hope this lesson would have added to your knowledge and now its time to flood Google Trends with your queries 😁.