Using Google Trends

Google Trends is an excellent database that can provide you with valuable information to use in your Internet marketing campaign. Not only is it free but it’s based on the Google search engine, which if you don’t yet know, is being used by almost 70% of Internet users.

Using Google Trends is easy and fast. Let me tell you how we use it in our Internet marketing firm.

1) After we’ve conducted our keyword research (using a variety of tools such as Keyword Discovery, Wordtracker and website logs) If there’s a question between two varieties of a keyword topic, we use Google Trends to help us identify which is the more popular.

Example: Let’s say we’re trying to choose between the two phrases, “name tags” and “name badges“. Using Google trends, we type in both keyword phrases, choose our region (USA) and our time frame (last 12 months). The results are that a significant higher number of Internet users search for “name tags”.

The result: Obviously we’re going to try and focus as many pages as possible on the phrase “name tags”. We won’t ignore “name badges” but in order to attract more visitors to the website, we need to use the phrase that more Internet users are using.

2) Going global. Many website owners (and many businesses) are unsure of how to go global. How can they take their small business in their town to a national or international level? The first step is to identify if there’s a market for your products or services.

Example: Let’s say you’re a men’s rights attorney practicing in Florida. A search on Google Trends for “mens rights” (using all regions and last 12 months) shows us that Australia is the #1 country where searches for men’s rights are conducted, USA is 2nd and Canada is 3rd. Our advice then to the client is to explore ways that their services can be provided to the #1 country where the need seems to be the greatest.

The result: We can recommend “virtual partnership” with Australian legal firms, consultation services or even outsourcing your services to a home based firm that has an office in Australia. The idea is to get our client to start thinking about ways to expand outside of his office, his city, his state, his country.

3) Popularity. Sometimes traffic to a website starts to go down even though the rankings are high. Is it the keyword phrases? Is it the product / service? Is it the time of year? You can find out.

Example: Using Google trends, you can determine if there’s been a general trend downward for a specific or generic product / service. Let’s say your website sells Skin Cap cream, but lately, sales in the USA have been down. A search in Google Trends for “skin cap” (all regions, last 12 months) shows that the number of searches went down beginning in July but has slowly begun to creep up. Interestingly enough, Slovakia is the #1 country searching for this product, Viet Nam is #2 and USA is #3 (with a very large difference between #2 and #3). Next, we change the “all regions” to “United States” and find that the numbers are very low, this tells us that there’s not enough information about this specific phrase. So, we expand it a little by using the keyword phrase “eczema cream”.

The results then show us that since July the general trend has been downward but recently, there has been a small spike. And just a note, New Jersey seems to be the state where the most searches for this keyword phrase are conducted. Result: We can now determine that in general, there has been a downward trend for this product line so at least we can understand that the lower number of sales is not necessarily because of the website or the marketing, it’s the product itself. Our recommendation then, to our client is to expand the website to include more “product related” phrases. These would include phrases that describe the use of the product (eczema cream, treatment for psoriasis, etc).

Well, there you have it. 3 great ways that you can start using Google trends to help you with your Internet marketing campaign. Have fun!