1) For Free Keyword Research

The market is inundated with tonnes and tonnes of keyword research tools. But Google Trends can be your one-and-only tool if you know how to use it. From e-commerce stores to brick-and-mortar shops, anyone can use this tool to amplify their online presence. Companies like eClerx Digital utilize Google Trends to refine their digital marketing strategies and gain insights into customer behavior patterns.

Let’s say you are a new entrant in the men’s grooming industry. You have a terrific product line but are clueless about the keywords that rock the industry.

You can now exploit Google Trends in multiple ways. To begin with, all you need is one main keyword. Let’s say your main keyword is ‘Men’s Grooming.’ Go to Google Trends and type in your primary keyword. Select the country you want to target. Then go to the Related Queries section. Now, you have a list of keywords that you can sprinkle across your content to drive targeted traffic.

2) For Keyword Volume Trends

There was a time when Google Trends comprehensively showed the search volume trends. Unfortunately, today, businesses have to spend a particular amount on AdWords to access such detailed data.

But that does not mean the tool is useless. You can indeed get a good idea of how various keywords are trending. This limitation also leads to confusion among the users.

Let’s retake the ‘Men’s Grooming’ keyword as an example. Under the ‘Interest Over Time’ tab, you will see a graph with numbers representing the interest for the keyword every day. For example, on August 22, the keyword’s ‘Interest’ is 38 across the US. New users may assume that the number denotes the actual search volume, which isn’t the case.

So how do you interpret the data? Here’s how! The numbers represent a value, aka score. For example, if the figure is 100, the interest for the keyword has gone through the roof. If it’s 0, Google doesn’t have adequate data regarding the query. In the case of Men’s Grooming, the value is 38. Hence, we can safely presume that on August 22, the interest for the keyword is bankable.

3) To Find Related Keywords

Queries related to your main keyword are your secret tentacles to firmly grab a position in the online space. For instance, assume that you want to rank high for the keyword ‘Beard Oil.’ The Related Queries section in Google Trends is the spot for you to achieve that.

In our test, 17 queries were categorized as ‘Rising.’ By taking a peek at the results, we found out that Growth, Black Beard, Beard Balm, Men, Castor Oil, Beard Care, Coconut Oil, and Patchy Beard are some of the related keywords that trend.

The ‘Rising Searches’ is the goldmine for Related Keywords. Google says the results of this section have the most significant growth in volume in the selected period.

Google Trends gives a percentage to each ‘Rising’ search term. Some results get accompanied by the term ‘Breakout,’ meaning that the term at least grew by a whopping 5,000%.

If you select the ‘Top’ option from the dropdown menu of the Related Queries section, you will get another set of results containing more Related Keywords.

4) For Local SEO

If yours is a brick-and-mortar store operating in specific regions, Google Trends has ideas and suggestions just for you.

To use the tool in your favor, you need to tweak the Interest by Subregion section. The dropdown menu offers you three categories — Subregion, Metro, and City.

Let’s say you are an emerging small-time roofing solutions company in Illinois. To find the right keywords your prospects are using, input the main keyword and wait for Google Trends to do the hard work.

In our test, we used the main keyword ‘Roofing’ and found out that the Search Interest score for Roofing in Illinois is 53. When you click the Illinois map in the Interest by Subregion section, you get metro-wise granular data. For example, Peoria-Bloomington’s score is 58.

The Related Queries section tells you what terms Illinois people are using to find a roofer. In this case, roofing contractors, roofing companies, and metal roofing are some of the top results.

Assume that you primarily do rubber roofing and mulling over metal roofing services. Having understood that metal roofing is trending in Illinois, you can confidently foray into the domain and change your SEO to rank high for metal roofing.

5) To Find out Seasonal Trends

To find out seasonal keywords, you need to expand your date range. Let’s use the term ‘Barbie Doll’ to check when it’s trending in a year.

So every year, the term barbie doll gets searched in high numbers from November to December. The pattern recurs since 2004.

This feature is excellent, especially if you run a store selling viral products such as fidget spinner.

If you have a blog associated with your online store selling seasonal stuff, you can plan your Content Calendar very well using seasonal keywords.

Let’s say you run an online fishing equipment store that has an active blog. A quick search for ‘fishing reel’ will tell you that the interest for the item peaks between every May and July in regions such as Montana, Alaska, and Wisconsin.

If you optimize your content strategy well in advance using keywords associated with Fishing Reel, you can grab more eyeballs when the interest spikes every year.

6) For Related Queries

This section is where you will find where your competitors are shining. Perhaps, you could steal some limelight if you know how to play the cards right.

Let’s see how you can use this tool to your advantage. We take the ‘Fishing Reel’ example again. Among the bunch of Related Queries that pop up, eight queries have a massive search volume. By ‘Massive,’ we mean to say that the interest for these queries is no lesser than 5,000%.

Among the eight queries are the names of four fishing equipment sellers — 13Fishing, Lew’s, Plusinno, and Yumoshi.

These eight queries reflect your potential customers’ search intent. Since your business is also in the same niche, you could use your competitors’ SERP spot to your advantage by creating You vs. Your Competitor posts, aka fishing equipment comparisons.

To give you an idea, assume that you have launched a rival product for 13Fishing’s Concept Z SLD Reel. You can compare both products’ specifications and features and convince the prospects that yours is the ‘Best’ among both.

7) To Step up Your YouTube SEO Game

For those who live under a rock, Google now owns YouTube. To find the relevant keywords for your YouTube SEO, switch to YouTube Search from Web Search in the dropdown menu below the ‘Search Term’ box.

For this test, we will take the ‘Fishing Equipment’ example. Assume that you want more brand awareness and create a series of how-to videos for your YouTube channel.

In this case, we typed ‘Fishing Reel’ in the search term box and got some excellent how-to video ideas in the Related Queries box. To prove the point, here are some results — How to put a string on a fishing reel, How to reline a fishing reel, Tying a fishing line to the reel, and One rod one reel fishing.

Keeping the above phrases as a baseline, you can come up with a lot of how-to videos sprinkled with high-value keywords.

8) To Find ‘Breakout’ Keywords

This section is another potential goldmine for keywords that are working ‘RIGHT NOW.’

A breakout happens when there is an outbreak in a search volume for a keyword.

At this juncture, Google thinks that giving a percentage to such a viral keyword is pointless. Hence, it terms it as ‘Breakout.’

The downside of these ‘Breakout’ keywords is that they are fads. Think of them as mayflies. They get you larger-than-life attention, which, unfortunately, is short-lived.

But if you are willing to jump on the bandwagon, this could be your golden ticket for Google’s page one spot.

Some assume that the competition for breakout words is high. But the truth is quite the opposite. You could potentially enjoy a spot among the top rankings for a few weeks, if not months.

But do not get carried away by the glitters of ‘Breakout’ keywords. Remember: At the end of the day, they die down just like mayflies.

9) To Find Related Topics

This one works like a charm if you have a blog associated with your business. Let’s say you have a blog about Keto Diet and you want to broaden your horizons. The Related Topics section is all you need.

As proof, we searched for ‘Keto Diet’ and were provided with dozens of topics that we could cash in on. Some of the topics worth mentioning are Plant-based diet, Monotrophic diet, Beta-hydroxybutyric acid, Diet Coke, and Type-2 diabetes.

You will also find some off-center topics, such as Shark Tank, an American television series. Dig deep, and you will discover how this entrepreneurial-themed reality show made its way into the results box for ‘Keto Diet.’

For those who aren’t aware of the ‘Shark Tank’ row, here is a synopsis. Swindlers created advertisements on fake Keto diet pills that never appeared on the Shark Tank show. But they promoted the pill, saying that it appeared on the show. By creating content around the keto pill scam, you could harvest a fresh influx of traffic and make them your readers.

10) To find LSI keywords

This section may seem like an extension of the previously discussed one. But trust us, it is not. LSI, aka Latent Semantic Indexing, is a crucial part of your SEO. Put simply, LSI keywords are the terms and words that are highly related to a primary keyword. They are not necessarily connected to the main keyword but contextually.

Often, these words seem outlandish to the main keyword. Though it is true at first glance, one needs to see the big picture to understand their true potential. They are indeed not directly related to the main keyword but semantically associated with it.

You can find these words mainly in the Related Terms and Related Topics sections.

Say that Dwayne Johnson is our main keyword.

The first place where you need to look into is the Related Topics section. Look what all LSI keywords Google Trends has to offer to you: Gal Gadot, Bench Press, Energy Drink, André the Giant, US President 2032, Polo Neck, Ethnic Group, and a lot more.

Now, people who are interested in Dwayne Johnson are interested in the topics mentioned above too. Because Google says, the users who searched for your term (insert Dwayne Johnson here) also searched for the topics above.

11) If Newsjacking Interests You

This method goes hand-in-hand with the fifth way we recommended in this article. Newsjacking is relatively a new form of content strategy gaining traction among many leading brands.

To do this, you need to subscribe to Google Trends. Don’t worry; it’s completely free. Once onboard, you need to keep an eye on the top trending news. Say that a news story is related to your niche, and you want to get some SEO mileage out of it.

The first thing you need to do is to connect your product/service with the news story in a shrewd way. Do not ‘include’ your product in the article but ‘slip-in.’ Use relevant hashtags wherever necessary.

For instance, assume that you run an online store specializing in selling US army figures and playsets. Given that the Afghanistan-Taliban crisis is trending, you could produce a few spin-off articles highlighting the losses for the US in the war. Note that the US has lost more than 2,500 men in the last two decades in the Afghan Crisis.

Since yours is a store selling army figures, the content will resonate with those who read the articles. Eventually, the readers may be interested in buying your stuff.

How to Use Google Trends to Create SEO-friendly Content?

1) By Finding New Blog Post Ideas

No matter what niche you are in, your business will face Writer’s Block at a point. Your writers will have a tough time coming up with new blog ideas. At such a time, Google Trends can be your savior.

The section you need to concentrate on is the Related Topics. For this example, assume that you sell Posture Correcting Belts online.

You start writing about the benefits of using your Posture Corrector on your blog. But there comes the point you run out of content ideas and need to brainstorm for new ones.

At this juncture, type in your main keyword in Google Trends and look for ideas in the Related Topics and Related Queries sections.

In our test, some of the content ideas we got from the Related Topics section are Exercise, Kyphosis, Bra, Cervical Collar, Lordosis, Sitting, Low back pain, Neck, and Vertebral Column.

The Related Queries section has got even more value to provide. But you need to play around with the keywords. We used ‘Back Pain’ and got the following queries.

A) Is back pain a sign of Covid?

B) What causes lower back pain in women?

C) Is back pain a sign of labor?

D) Is back pain a sign of pregnancy?

E) How to sleep with lower back pain?

2) By Comparing Different Keywords

Mindlessly drafting content after content may not bring you success in SEO if you don’t include the right keywords. You should know what keywords your prospects are using to find answers for their queries.

To achieve this, you need a complete list of keywords that dominate your niche. Or at least you need a handful of keywords that you think are relevant to your industry.

Say that you run a DIY blog and have a ton of articles covering a broad range of topics. But you have never done proper research and are pretty clueless about the keywords you are ranking for.

To give you an idea, we took four main keywords and searched in Google Trends. Those keywords are — DIY stuff, DIY Crafts, DIY Projects, and DIY Ideas.

Of all four keywords, the interest in DIY Ideas surpassed the other three by several folds. For example, the Interest Score for the keyword DIY Ideas is 56 out of 100. Whereas the Interest Value for DIY Crafts and DIY Projects are 12 and 11, respectively.

Now you will have a good idea of what keywords to target while writing content for your blog.

3) By Taking Advantage of Local Trends

Let’s retake the DIY example. You now have a clear idea of what keywords to sprinkle in your content. But still lack data on what regions to target.

All you need to do is scroll down the same page and come to the ‘Breakdown by Subregion’ section. Look for the keyword you want to target.

Pretend that you want to ‘kill the’ keyword DIY Ideas. So you decide to narrow down your approach and laser-target the states that have an enormous interest in DIY Ideas.

Let’s fix the benchmark value as 80. The states with an Interest Value above 80 for DIY Ideas are 14, including Dakota, Idaho, New Mexico, Arkansas, Mississippi, and West Virginia.

And the queries trending among these searchers are DIY stepping stone ideas, DIY firepit ideas, DIY closet organizer ideas, DIY bookcase ideas, etc.

Now, you exactly know what to write to attract the prospects of different regions.

4) By Creating Reactive Content

A quick hack to turn heads is by creating reactionary content. But what content you choose to react to is essential. You cannot put out content for every breaking news. The news has to be connected to the domain you are operating in.

To illustrate, put yourself in the shoes of an Insurance Blogger. You write the ins and outs of insurance but fail to attract a large audience.

What you need to do is to keep your eyes peeled for insurance-related news. For example, you could get some SEO mileage out of the Tennessee Flooding that left 22 dead so far and many missing.

The way insurance is connected to Tennessee Flooding is interesting. According to local officials, certain counties and communities dislike building restrictions and thus chose to stay out of the Flood Insurance Program.

As expected, they are the most affected by flash floods. They cannot avail of certain types of disaster help from FEMA (Federal Emergency Management Agency).

Against this backdrop, you could write about the pitfalls of not taking part in an insurance program.

Google Trends and SEO FAQs

1) Why Should I Use Google Trends for SEO?

There is no magic pill in the SEO industry. But if there is something close to it, it must be keeping up with the trends. But bear in mind that riding on the back of trends may not ensure long-term success. If done consistently, you can expect a steady inflow of traffic which you can capitalize and grow.

2) How do I use Google Trends for SEO Properly?

Many misread the data Google Trends gives. For instance, the numbers that appear on the Interest Over Time section do not represent the actual search volume. Google provides a value to each term for a requested region and time. For example, the term hot-air balloon gets a score of 100 between June 27 – July 3, meaning that its popularity was in peak. If you are unsure how to interpret the data, click the ‘?’ icon, which usually appears next to each heading.

3) Can I Use Google Trends for E-commerce SEO?

Absolutely. You can use it to your full advantage. Using the features of Google Trends, you can create a strong buyer persona. You can learn where your customers are from, what their queries look like, their interests, what keywords and phrases they tend to use, etc. For example, assume that you sell Spiderman toys. Chances are less for you to know that people in Ohio are twice as interested in Spiderman toys than those in New York, which is the fictional birthplace of Spiderman. Interesting, huh?

Author BIO:

Joseph Schneider is the Marketing Director at Haitna Digital. With high-quality content and targeted content marketing campaigns, he has helped hundreds of SMEs to increase their inbound leads organically.