What is Google Trends?
Google Trends, a free analytics tool from Google, allows you to search for trends and compare them.
Google Trends Search can be a very powerful tool for many people, including marketers, researchers, and business owners. It allows them to find out the trends that are important to them in their specific situation.
Find out about trends early and know when to exit your business when trends go down.
This article will explore Google Trends and its benefits. You will also learn how to utilize it to enhance any project you wish.
Google Trends Benefits And Use Cases
- Market research
- Product research
- Keyword research for SEO
- Location-based variations in trend
- Discover seasonality
- Determine the stability of a search phrase
- Online marketing and advertising
- Find niches for products
- Ideas for content marketing and social media marketing
- Brand Competition Comparison
- Brand Interests
- Discover the local differences in search patterns
What is Google Trends?
Google Trends was launched in 2006. It allows you to explore web trends data dating back to 2004. Google Trends’ wide range of available dates makes it an excellent tool for accurately observing how trends have evolved, especially in this internet age.
Start with the basics of the tool.
What do the numbers on Google Trends mean?
You’ll first notice that Google Trends does not use search volume but a scale from 0 to 100.
You can verify the search volume of popular search terms by using the keyword planner from Google Ads.
A score of 100 means that the search term is at its highest relative popularity. Scores of 0 indicate that there are not enough search terms to generate a score.
Search volume may affect relative popularity, but they are not the same thing.
It is possible to compare many trends, including those that are unrelated, using the relative scoring system.
The score will always be relative to other search terms.
You can compare scores of unusual combinations, allowing you to analyze questions precisely and creatively.
What is the source of Google Trends data?
Google Trends data is derived from five Google sources:
- Web Search
- Image Search
- News Search
- Google Shopping
- YouTube Search
We’ll discuss how to use YouTube and other data sources later.
Searching with Web Search will only give you data back to 2004. You can go back up to 2008 using the other sources.
If you want to compare trends between platforms, it is best to use data from 2008.
Google Trends is a good indicator of the current trends.
Google trends data are accurate, but you must understand that it is based on data from Google. Google’s accuracy may not be enough for your specific use case.
If you are conducting keyword research to improve your SEO, this will be more accurate than using it to predict future trends.
Google Trends can be used to provide accurate results for queries.
If you don’t use it correctly, you may get the wrong data. So make sure you always correctly use Google Trends.
Next, we will explain how to use Google Trends.
How to Use Google Trends
The basics will be covered first, followed by how to apply it in specific situations.
Start with a keyword or topic. You will be asked to select a keyword. Choose a type of keyword that best matches your search goal.
- Keyword Search Term Type –
- Includes all the data from the only search term.
- Keywords grouped by search term –
- Google will combine data from several search terms it deems relevant.
- When you enter your search term, you will see a group of keywords. Below, you’ll also find words other than “search terms.”
Remember also to check the Related Topics & Related Queries below if you are using grouped keyword types.
Try again and select the keyword search instead if the results don’t match what you searched for.
The data you receive may be affected by the grouping of keywords. Search term keyword type shows you all the data for a particular word that you entered. This makes it more reliable.
Add a search term to Compare for times. You can compare up to five search terms. To get better results, compare keywords of the same type.
Please check the following data filters for your search query:
- Country (Can also be global! )
- Time Range
- Category
- Data Source
We’ll start by analyzing the results of your search.
Analyzing Google Trends Search Data
After you’ve mastered the basics of searching, we will dig deeper into how and what to interpret from Google Trends.
The first thing you’ll see is the Interest Over Time report:
The relative popularity of each search term in comparison to the other words over a specified period.
In the image below, you can see, for example, how the term Digital marketing has been 90% more popular on average over the last five years than online marketing or social networking marketing.
You can also see that digital marketing is on the rise compared to other marketing methods, especially internet marketing.
The second report is the Comparison Breakdown by Sub-region:
This report allows you to compare trends in different sub-regions.
This report is vital for understanding differences between regions as the results can vary widely from one area to another.
This report shows that digital marketing in New Mexico is not as popular as social media marketing.
Sub-regional data can help with online advertising targeting, like for Facebook Ads, SEM, or LinkedIn. If you are looking to maximize your ad spend, it is beneficial to target regions where the term has more popularity or find cost-saving options.
Lastly, you’ll see the search terms Breakdown by Region and Related Questions side-by-side:
The report’s breakdown by region is the same as the one compared, except that it now shows the trends of each search term between subregions.
The Related Questions: The report will show you queries that are related to the original query. You can filter related questions by Top Or Rising if you have enough data.