7 Ways to Use Google Trends for SEO & Content Marketing

Google Trends is one of the best tools for SEO research.

With these seven tips you’ll be able to extract hidden insights that no other tool offers.

These tips affect keyword choice to content marketing to how to best promote your website.

Google Trends & SEO Strategy

1. Learn Amount of Keyword Traffic

Google Trends is an official Google tool that offers a visual comparison of traffic levels. It does not tell you the exact amount of traffic. But it does show a relative amount.

This is especially helpful if you know the amount of traffic from a related keyword phrase.

Tip#1 How to Obtain More Accurate Traffic Data

If you want to unlock the traffic data of a keyword, compare that keyword with a keyword you already rank for and are familiar with the traffic levels.

Although Google Trends won’t show you the exact amounts, as long as you know the amounts for one keyword, the traffic levels of the other keyword will become more understandable.

2. Gain Insights for Content Marketing

There are two ways to look at the keyword data, stretched across over a long period of time and a short period of time.

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Long Period Trends

You can set Google Trends to show you the traffic trends stretching back five years. This is valuable for showing you audience trends.

Upward Trending Long Range Trends

If a trend is going up this means to focus energy on creating content for this trend.

Downward Long Range Trends

If the trend line is moving down, then it may be a signal that audience content consumption is changing.

For example, review this five year trend for WordPress the search term, WordPress the software and WordPress the website:

An image of Google Trends tool showing a five year trend

An image of Google Trends tool showing a five year trend

There’s a clear downward trend for WordPress in all it’s variations. The downward trend extends to phrases such as WordPress themes, WordPress plugin, and WordPress hosting.

Tip #2 Plan Future Content

The long view helps you make decisions about future directions. The long view helps you understand where to put the focus for content. If a product is trending downward, then maybe it’s time to think about shifting content resources to another topic or product or even change the content model altogether.

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3. Short View Insights

Viewing keyword trends in the short view, such as the 90 day or even 30 day view can reveal valuable insights for maximizing your content marketing.

For example, two of the top trending keyword trends are How To and and Near Me searches. When you scale down to the 90 day view you can see what days of the weeks those searches are popular.

Tip #3 Plan Publishing Schedule

This takes the guess work out of creating a publishing schedule. Searches related to How to trend upward on Sundays and Mondays. Searches related to Near Me trend on Fridays and Saturdays.

If you have a site or a podcast focused on how to do things or a hobby related site, then publishing on a Sunday, Monday, or Wednesday and sending out an email to subscribers may be the best approach.

If your business is a restaurant, then you know that it is important to have specials, special pricing and so on published by Thursday so that it’s ready for site traffic on Friday and Saturday.

Tip #4 Keywords by Category

Google Trends has the capability to narrow down your keywords according to categories in order to give more accurate data on your keywords.

Image of Google Trends showing trends for the phrase

Image of Google Trends showing trends for the phrase

Tip #5 Keyword by Geography

Google Trends provides keyword information by geographic location. This information can be used for determining what areas are the best to outreach to or for tailoring the content to specific regions.

Keyword popularity information by region is valuable for link building, content creation, content promotion and pay per click.

For example, if a topic is popular in a particular region you can narrow your content promotion to identifying regional magazines, groups and clubs that are related to the niche you’re publishing or marketing to.

Tip #6 Geography Data May Enhance Ranking

Geographic information can also be used to enhance your content so that it is relevant to the most people. Google ranks pages according to who it’s most relevant for, so incorporating geographic nuance into your content can help it rank for the most people, especially if those people begin to promote your content in social media, blogs and podcasts.

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Tip #7 Rising Queries

The ability to gain insight into keyword phrases that are rising is quite possibly the most useful feature of Google Trends.

Image of Google Trends showing how rising trends can be discovered

Image of Google Trends showing how rising trends can be discovered

All you do is type in a keyword phrase and this section will give you twenty five related search queries that are trending upwards. This data helps keep you on target with how consumers are changing. It allows you to react to new opportunities.

Takeaway: Google Trends is Useful

Google Trends is an incredibly useful tool. A little creativity yields important search marketing insights. Spend some time with Google Trends, I’m certain you’ll discover insights that will improve how content is created and promoted online.

Visit Google Trends and explore.

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