There are a lot of data sources you can tap into as you build up your marketing strategy, ranging from Google Analytics to your SEO tool of choice. Google Trends is a free platform that many marketers forget about, but it can be a powerful tool that can show how in-demand a topic (or keyword) is and how this has changed over the last few years. Particularly important when you understand that companies that use and analyse data are six times more likely to be profitable year-on-year! In this blog, we’ll be taking a look at how to use Google Trends to effectively hack into the true potential of your marketing strategy.

How Do You Use Google Trends?

To use Google Trends for SEO, first search for the keyword or phrase you are interested in. Based on your chosen term, you’ll be able to see the trend for the specified date range selected. You’ll then be able to determine whether or not to spend time creating content around this keyword. If you scroll further down the page you’ll also find your ‘related queries’ and find other trending keywords around your term.

TIP: If you are using Google Trends but are struggling to select a keyword, you can generate fresh ideas by observing real-time searches however, these often tend to be one-time hits so you may want to consider your options.

Discover Topic Clusters

The topic-cluster model is a popular marketing strategy, allowing you to create super SEO-focused content for your website and drive more organic traffic to your page. The topic pages, or pillar pages, will act as comprehensive coverage of a certain subject, and showcase your expertise.

But how do you discover the search terms people are looking for? You can use the Google Trend keyword feature, otherwise known as related queries, to find out what users are searching for around a certain topic, allowing you to create relevant content that meets these needs. For example, ‘digital marketing’ brings up results for the ‘fundamentals of digital marketing’ and ‘how to create a digital marketing plan’. After delving further into these terms to find SEO opportunities, you can begin building content that you know your target audience already wants to read whilst boosting your search ranking.

Not only does this allow you to understand your specific audience, but when you know how to use Google Trends effectively you can also get ahead of your competitors. Related searches will uncover keywords, synonyms or phrases used by those in your industry and offer up an opportunity for you to advance by optimising your content or campaigns with these new ideas. You can even get to the very root by utilising the Google Trend Compare tool which allows you to analyse data side-by-side and discover where you may be falling behind.

Find Hashtags For Your Social Media

Hashtags have long been essential for social media, particularly for Twitter and Instagram’s platforms yet many marketers are still overlooking the potential of this little symbol. So, let’s look into how to use Google Trends keywords features to boost your social engagement.

With the help of Google’s online tool, you can find trending topics and keywords in a region, or around the world and tailor them to create engaging hashtags. You’ll find using just one or two targeted, tailored hashtags to be far more effective than an endless list of irrelevant ones! Social media algorithms actually reward you with a higher ranking when you avoid using too many hashtags, as they understand your content is not spam but actually part of a trending subject.

Publish Upward Trending Content And Avoid The Down

With Google search trends you can see the topics that are popular and are likely to remain popular over time. Keyword research, unfortunately, isn’t always foolproof and therefore it’s vital you spend some time cross-referencing what you have found with overall projections. Many online SEO tools will show great monthly volumes but you may be putting a lot of effort into trying to rank for a term that is already losing momentum and ultimately will offer little search reward.

This means you’ll be able to utilise your time to ensure you are trying to rank for phrases with a high yield, as you can avoid those on a long-term downward trend line. However, this isn’t to say that some niche keywords aren’t worth optimising your content for – some long-form, niche keywords can increase a call to action as opposed to those with high volume.

Spot Seasonal Trends And Set Budgets

Over 40% of brands want to increase the PPC (price per click) budget during seasonal peaks, but you don’t always need to increase this to see results. Thanks to the trend search Google tool, you can predict what content may interest your users in a given period, and make your budget work for you. When you take a look at trends and their performance over time, you may find interesting traffic spikes in certain months. Roughly 2-3 months prior to your predicted surge, you should prepare your website by optimising the on-page content and ensure its indexation and visibility in organic results. By doing so you’ll be meeting your users’ needs and thus, will rank higher in search engine results.

Not only can you optimise your current content, but you can plan and prepare a marketing campaign that will resonate with your customer’s needs in a timely fashion. By understanding these trends and planning prior, you’ll also be able to set a budget for your PPC accordingly – perhaps increasing the paid search in a month you know you’ll see high demand and therefore need maximum exposure to capture intent. However, by organising the budget ahead of the seasonal trend, you’ll have been able to maintain your annual budget.

Pinpoint Audience Location

One of the most underrated tools on Google Trends is the search by region function. Instead of looking at an entire country, you can pinpoint down into a specific area to understand what is trending in that region. After all, the audience demographics vary widely across countries – for example, London, Cornwall and Manchester are all very different and by analysing the popular trends in each, you can tailor your approach to best suit your customer in several locations. In turn, this can reduce your PPC costs as you can choose keywords that convert well for your audience, dependent on the region.

Furthermore, if you take your product international you may run into a few turbulence when trying to figure out keywords in a different language if you don’t speak it yourself. You can use Google Trends to discover the most commonly searched terms in a specific area, and therefore localise your content as best as possible.

It’s Not Just For Blog Posts

Content is no longer just about blog posts, it can take many forms – and video in the past year has skyrocketed in popularity, particularly on social media and YouTube. The SEO ranking for YouTube works slightly differently to Google as each has a separate algorithm to crack in to. However, you can use Google Trends for YouTube to find trending video topics, instead of the traditional keyword research for blog content. By changing your filter search, you’ll have access to data from:

• Web Search
• News Search
• Image Search
• YouTube Search

You can compare different trends happening across each search result, and identify opportunities to quickly rank across video topics. Traditional content marketing utilising keywords can take upward of 3 months, whereas video content around the same keywords offers the potential for quick ranking on YouTube – following the trend as it happens. Google Trends allows you, therefore, to bypass aspects of SEO that may slow down engagement and conversion rates.

Predict The Future

When using the tool, you’ll have access to Google Trend data from 2004 when the site was first launched. Google Trends maps out keyword patterns over time so you can gain a full understanding of what has been popular previously, and what is popular right now. When researching keywords you should try out several terms, and spend time analysing the different patterns.

Being able to recognise the rise and falls in popularity can be invaluable, catching a new trend in its early stages paves a route to success online as you can plan your marketing content ahead of time. It’s important to note, however, that you should not focus your attention solely on trying to predict the next ‘big thing’ – optimising your content for long-term trends is vital.

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How To Use Google Trends: Conclusion

Using the Google Trend search tool when creating your marketing strategy is essential, allowing you to build fully-rounded and popular content that your target audience wants to see. By creating SEO-focused content around specific topics or trends ensures your brand awareness increases, as you showcase your expertise in your industry. As a result, you’ll see your Google ranking gradually improve as you understand the keywords you should be targeting.

Are you looking to optimise your SEO content, or need a new marketing strategy to boost your brand? Contact us at hello@deliveredsocial.com and our expert team will be in touch to talk about how we can assist you and take your business to the next level online.