GOOGLE TRENDS
Google Trends (Trends.google.com) is a free resource from Google that shows the volume of keyword searches and can be drilled down by country and time period. It does not show actual volume data but a data trend of popularity. If you want search volume then take a look at the Google Keyword planner tool.
WHAT’S TRENDING?
Google Trends primary use is for identifying trends in search traffic. For example, take “gym membership” over the past 5 years and you will see expected spikes in January and also increases in September. Note the drop in interest during the coronavirus lockdown.
This is useful information to know when you should be spending your advertising budgets on specific keywords. It also shows that people are searching for topics like gym membership 365 days a year but if your budget isn’t big enough then target the spikes. However, your cost-per-click will likely be higher during a competitive period.
COMPARING TRENDS
The platform also allows you to compare varieties on keyword searches. For example “kids swimming lessons” vs “childrens swimming lessons”
On average there is 6 times the volume of traffic for the word kids than children, and the trends show the spikes following the school holidays.
This is useful information to help with your organic SEO and what copy you should be using within your website. With this example make sure the phrase kids swimming lessons is on your site.
If this can be difficult to incorporate specific copy into your regular web pages then writing an article or blog can help upload a lot of SEO friendly terms onto your website.
Another one to consider looking up is group exercise classes – compare “aerobics” “group exercise” “fitness classes”. It might sound a dated term but there’s a huge amount of traffic for the word aerobics!
YOUTUBE
One of the filters you can apply is where the searches have taken place – on the web, images or YouTube. YouTube searches can be useful to identify search topics you can target with your advertising, for example, gym membership is not a popular search on YouTube, but home workouts are. In this case you can see on the chart below the huge spike in YouTube traffic during the coronavirus lockdown. Can this be an opportunity to put your advertising message in front of an interested audience?
RELATED TOPICS AND QUERIES
Google Trends also gives you a section called Related Topics and Queries based on the keywords you’re exploring.
For example the keyword Swimming will show what other keywords users looked up – in this case swimming pool, times, lessons, timetable also see search traffic.
Changing the filter on the Related Topics to ‘Rising’ will show you the recent topics and queries that are associated with your keyword search. For example, Aerobics has been related with Bungee Cord, Disco and Anaerobic Exercise. So maybe searching these terms will give you some ideas for blogs for your website knowing that they are topical subjects to write about.
SUMMARY
As its free there’s no excuse not to go and check it out NOW. Bookmark the page and use it when researching topics and activities that you’re looking to promote. Remember to compare keywords to see if a slight variation attracts more traffic and incorporate these keywords into your website to enhance your organic SEO.