Researching search trends has long been a vital tool for effective marketers. Currently, digital marketing researchers frequently rely on tools like Google Keyword Planner and SEMrush to understand seasonality and search volumes. These platforms are primarily use to develop strategies for SEO and Search Ad Marketing
Other popular search marketing tools, like BuzzSumo, offer more advanced features beyond just search volume and search result data. For instance, its Real Questions feature provides social listening capabilities, allowing you to gather insights from thousands of forum discussions. This helps you anticipate and identify emerging keyword trends more effectively.
AnswerThePublic is another popular tool among researchers, offering more than just the standard data points like search volumes and keyword competition. AnswerThePublic’s Search Query Visualization feature categorizes queries into groups such as questions (Who, What, Where, When, Why, How), prepositions (for, to, with), and comparisons (versus, vs.). This feature simplifies understanding user intent, allowing marketers to create personalized content based on consumer’s preferences.
Listening tools such as Sprinklr have introduced features like Explorer, which I personally find very useful. It includes Smart Quick Insights, a feature that swiftly analyzes data from your search queries and aggregates information from multiple sources. This helps in identifying key trends, content opportunities, and consumer sentiments, allowing you to keep your content aligned with customer interests.
While these tools deliver advanced research capabilities, they often come with a cost. AnswerThePublic, SEMrush, and BuzzSumo for instance do offer free versions, but these provide limited insights compared to their premium plans. The free tiers typically offer only a glimpse of the full range of features and data, which means investing in the paid versions is often necessary to access comprehensive and actionable insights.
This brings us to Google Search Trends. A free marketing research tool from Google that provides a detailed look into search behavior, revealing which keywords are gaining traction and how interest in specific topics evolves over time. With its ability to offer insights into search volume fluctuations and regional interest, Google Search Trends helps marketers make data-driven decisions and optimize their campaigns effectively.
Sample use case
Imagine you’re a marketer for a travel agency, with the goal of continuously generating interest in your brand by creating content that both captivates and resonates with your audience. Here are the top 3 strategies you can use to leverage this tool effectively, for free.
How to search in Google Trends
1. Understand seasonality
If you want to analyze when people search for “Beach Resorts” throughout the year, simply enter the keyword into the search term box. The trends will then reveal the peak periods for that term. This means that peak periods indicate when customers have a heightened intent to search for beach resorts. These periods are ideal for developing targeted product content or positioning your top booking options to align with your travel agency’s offerings.
To validate these trends, you can also check the traffic data of top booking websites using SEMrush to see if their traffic patterns align with the spikes indicated by Google Trends.
2. Compare customer interest
Compare customer interest in Google Trends is a powerful tool for understanding how different topics, brands, or products perform over time and across regions. After entering your first term, click on the “+ Compare” button that appears just below the search bar. Enter the second term or topic you want to compare. Then, review the graph that shows interest over time for your search terms. This helps you understand how interest in each term has fluctuated.
In this scenario, let’s analyze the top beach destinations in the Philippines during peak periods as shown in the graph. We’ll compare the terms ‘Boracay,’ ‘Palawan,’ and ‘Puerto Galera’ to determine which destination stands out during these peak times.
As a result, it is clear that among the beach destinations, Puerto Galera aligns most strongly with the peak trend times. The next step is to identify what type of content we should create to meet this demand effectively.
3. Find relevant topics to write for SEO
Using related topics and related queries in Google Trends can be a strategic way to enhance your article content by tapping into current trends and addressing what’s on your audience’s mind. Once you have your search results, scroll down to the “Related topics” section. This will show topics that are frequently searched alongside your main topic. This can give you insights into what your audience is also interested in.
Based on the findings above, here are some topics that customers are interested in regarding Puerto Galera. We could develop article content on subjects such as ‘How to Travel from Batangas to Puerto Galera,’ ‘Travel Requirements for Puerto Galera in the Post-COVID Era,’ or ‘The Current Status of the Puerto Galera Oil Spill.’
Above are just some practical tips on using Google Trends for market research to inform your digital marketing or content strategy for your business.