How to use Google Trends?

Today, companies are faced with a choice: they can choose to spend a lot of money on online advertising or they can use their resources in a smarter way. Indeed, as e-commerce grows, it is essential for companies to find an effective strategy to stand out from the crowd and this is where Google Trends comes in.

If you work in a fast-growing sector, you are probably aware of the importance of having a web presence. However, if you are still sceptical about the usefulness of your online presence, you should know that there is an indicator that will certainly convince you. It is possible to use the Google Trends search statistics to get an idea of the interest that users have in your field of activity, and using this visualisation tool does not require very advanced skills. In this article we show you how to use this free tool!

The features of Google Trends

This online Google tool developed by the dominant search engine presents an estimate of the search volume of Internet users for specific words or groups of words. It is represented by a curve from 0 to 100 and does not represent a search volume. This volume is to be discovered with Google Webmaster Tools. The first feature that Google Trends offers is the evolution of the popularity of an expression, for example a political figure or a product. The second feature is the comparison of the popularity (expressed in search volume) of two different expressions.

It is possible to analyse the evolution of an expression or to compare the evolution of two expressions over a recent period, notably day after day, but also over a much longer period of several years. In addition, Trends offers the possibility of targeting searches by country, region and city. Traders who want to develop their sales through local SEO know what they have to do! In addition, Google’s tool offers a well thought-out segmentation that helps avoid confusion. The French language is full of terms that have different meanings, so this feature is particularly useful for removing doubts about homonyms.

Example of its use

Let’s take the example of a webmaster who practices affiliation and seeks to identify which game consoles arouse the most curiosity among Internet users. He compares the trends between searches for the Playstation 4 and the Xbox One, and can clearly identify an explosion of requests during the end-of-year celebrations (figure 1). This will allow you to set up period targeting to increase your conversions.

The arrival in the second half of 2016 of two upgraded versions of these machines may also provide important information for web-based retailers. French internet users’ interest in Sony’s new console is clearly still stronger than their interest in the Xbox One S (Figure 2), Microsoft’s new flagship product. Nevertheless, the gap seems to be smaller than the one between the Playstation 4 and the Xbox One.

It would therefore be interesting to monitor search trends even more closely (week by week, or even day by day), especially as the holiday season approaches. Here we looked at the analysis that an affiliate could do as part of a content creation strategy to attract potential buyers to their website, with the comparison of the popularity of two products and the evolution of this popularity.

Let’s look at the trend in fan requests (Figure 3). Logically, the largest volumes are observed during the summer period. However, we can see that the interest of Internet users for this type of equipment increases from May onwards. This lesson should perhaps be considered by merchants who sell household appliances or webmasters who practice affiliation.

Google provides very interesting information that can be used for local referencing. The distributor specialising in household appliances could particularly work on the visibility of its appliances in certain regions or communes and put forward promotions on these products in shop. And despite what one might think, it is not only the cities around the Mediterranean that are most concerned, Besançon and Grenoble, for example, are in the top 4 of requests over the last 12 months (figure 4).

A new feature has been proposed by Google Trends, when you search Google on the tool, you will now be able to compare yourself to your competitors or similar products, with Google Shopping. This is a great news for e-commerce sites, they will be able to discover when to promote and highlight products according to current trends.

Also, with the Youtube searches. If you want to offer videos with good SEO, you can offer videos with a strong trend and try to gain notoriety in your market.

Conclusion

Should you use Google Trends to develop your SEO strategy? Without a doubt, yes! But it is essential to correlate it with other tools. You have identified a theme with keywords (important for your activity) that are very sought after at a certain time of the year? We invite you to take a look at Google Ads to determine the number of searches, but also to check the index of the engine to get an overview of the competition. It would be a shame to produce a lot of content that will have no impact on your visibility, as some e-commerce behemoths are already well positioned on the terms you are targeting.

For more information, contact our SEA agency. We will advise you on the best strategy for your website.