Google Trends

With Google Trends the interest in relevant search terms can be analyzed. This allows search queries to be valued and, over the course of time, such as for the seasonality of search terms, be classified.

Google Trends also shows the most common search queries – either currently or for certain regions or time periods. An overview of the most important functions as well as a tutorial on the best possible use of Google Trends is available in this entry.

What is Google Trends?

Google Trends shows the interest of Google users for certain search terms. With this information search volumes and seasonality of search terms can be better assessed.

What functions does Google Trends offer?

Current trends and topics are shown on the Google Trends homepage. Here the most popular search queries in the world are documented in real-time and which have been able to register the highest growth of search queries at the moment and are normally supported by entities such as person, city or event.

For content marketing and search engine optimization (SEO) the “Explore” function is the most exciting. Here Google offers the opportunity to find the search interest for a selected keyword – and does so both historically back to 2004 as well as the minute-by-minute developments over the past hour. Here the search volume is not given in absolute figures, but in relative values. The highest value is 100; this expresses the highest search interest. The other values in the chart show the relative demand compared to the demand peak.

Here the chart can be adapted to your own requirements. The filter options for the chart are:

Region: Here you can choose whether you would like to view the “worldwide” chart or individual countries.
Time period: Here you can select whether you would like to view current developments over the “past hour”, by week or the historical monthly comparison “2004 to present”.
Categories: Particularly for ambiguous terms or differing user intentions you can display the result relevant to you here.
Web search: Behind this tab you can select whether you want to view the chart for web searches or integrations of universal searches – i.e. Google News, Google Images or video search with YouTube or for Google Shopping.

This allows SEOs and marketers to not only find out about individual terms, but also compare similar, relevant search queries with one another. Furthermore, Google shows aditional data under the main chart – on demand in individual countries, related topics and similar search queries.

How do I use Google Trends properly?

For an online business the creation of the right content is important. Here it is not just the user intent that must be served: content must be created that is in demand – i.e. has a certain search volume that is as high as possible. The time of publication is important.

For example, the term “parasol” is not typically entered into search engines by users in autumn and winter. The interest over the course of time shows the seasonality of the topic. Here Germany was selected as the “region”, the demand each month since 2004 as the “time-period” and the “category” of house and garden. Plus, only “web search” was set. It shows that users are mainly interested in a “parasol” in early summer; the peak is in May. Keywords can also be compared with one another in the chart; in the example at hand it shows that over the course of the past few years more users have used the term “parasol” instead of the plural “parasols”.

Why is Google Trends important for SEO and online marketing?

From a marketing and SEO point of view, it is recommended to evaluate both search interest and seasonality using the trend tool by Google before writing. The tool can only fulfill part of the topic research, but it can show long-term trends, particularly with the display over the course of time, including: Are my topics in demand? Are there similar searched topics, the trend of which may be more positive? When should I publish my content?

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