Google Trends: What is it and How to Use it

Trends, trends, trends, trends, trends.

“Hey, is that keyword trending at the moment?”

“That keyword would be really trending right now on Google.”

“Write a blog so you can rank for that trending keyword!”

These are questions and phrases you would find an SEO specialist saying at least 5 times a day.

Now, don’t get confused – this blog won’t cover the latest trends in pop culture or Hollywood gossip, but you’re in a for a treat (or maybe not).

Let’s dive straight into it.

A key component that can be easily overlooked during a keyword research process is checking for keywords that are currently trending or expected to trend. Missing out on keywords means that you could potentially miss out on traffic coming through your website.

You’re probably wondering, well how do I find these trends?

Well, we’re glad you asked! By far, the best free tool out there that a lot of content writers, digital marketers, and SEO specialists use is Google Trends.

What is Google Trends?

• Google first launched Google Trends in 2006, which is a free tool from Google that provides data and graphs on the popularity of specific searches in Google across different countries.

• Google Trends only shows data for popular queries, so ‘less popular’ keywords might not appear in trends, such as the below.

• How are these queries calculated?

According to Google, a search query is calculated by dividing the total number of monthly searches that happen in a geographic location by the number of searches a certain keyword gets in order to compare relative popularity.

For example: Total Monthly Searches in Australia = 100,000

Monthly Searches for keyword ‘Standing Desk’ = 10,000

10,000/100,000= 10 (relative score)

How to use Google Trends?

1. Simply type in Google, ‘Google Trends’ and click on the first result that appears.
2. Enter your desired keyword into the search bar and select your location to your desired country in the top right corner.
3. Google Trends gives you the option of filtering your desired keywords by country, timeline, category, and web search.

4. Compare your keyword against another keyword you are interested to test and see what’s most popular. A perfect example is ‘Napkin’ vs ‘Serviette’ – both refer to the same thing, but you want to see what exact term users are searching for.

The verdict = Napkins

5. Dive deeper and see exactly which regions are most interested in your keyword (Standing Desk) by scrolling down to ‘interest by subregion’ in your desired country.

6. Find related keywords to your target keyword that will give you an idea if something else is more or less popular. We can see below that ‘DIY Standing Desk’ is trending more than ‘Standing Desk’.

How will Google Trends help with Keyword Research?

• Identify popular products and topics: Once you identify the topic you want to write about or the product you want to launch, Google Trends will help you easily find keywords that are becoming super popular in your target country.

• Seasonal Trends: Google Trends gives you the opportunity of identifying seasonal trends, so you can create and promote content at the right time. A good example of this is the ‘Australian Open’, as it reaches peak popularity once a year.

• Prepare content calendar: A better example of a topic that you want to prepare a content calendar for would be the keyword ‘full moon’, as it appears to gain popularity at the start of each month.

• Identify evergreen & upcoming trending topics: Use Google Trends to find evergreen content that never goes out of popularity and see if those keywords are relevant to your topic’s industry/niche.

Use Google Trends to find content that is about to become popular and start preparing the content to be published. Below we can see that ‘Marketing Automation’ is a keyword that is expected to trend. Once you have identified a topic you want to go after, cross-check with a tool like SEMrush to see how many times this keyword has been searched.

Another popular free tool is Exploding Topics by Brain Dean, which has a lot of similar functionalities to Google Trends.

• Keywords for Local SEO:  Google Trends allows you to see where (i.e., country, city, subregion, or metro) a search query is most popular. This will help you understand as a business owner, where your products or services are needed most. If you’re a retailer that sells surfboards in Australia, this will give you an idea where your biggest markets are.

We hope this gave you an overall idea and insight into the power of Google Trends when it comes to finding current topics that are trending or topics that are about to trend.

Approach this tool with a strategy in mind, as leveraging it opens up a world of opportunities for content inspiration and writing. Go and get those blog’s ranking!