Get that scrolling thumb ready, because I’m about to show you how to use Google Trends for market research!
If you’re a new or intermediate blogger, you probably want to know what you should be writing about on your blog. And coming up with good ideas for blog posts is not the easiest task!
So in this article, I’m going to introduce you to one of my favorite free blogging tools: Google Trends.
I’ll show you some awesome Google Trends features and teach you how to use it for your marketing research.
WHY USE GOOGLE TRENDS
Coming up with relevant, searchable blog post ideas is essential for your website’s SEO (search engine optimization).
If we want people to find and read our blog, we need to be writing about topics that our audience is actively searching for online.
Without proven data, we don’t know what blog content isn’t going to do well with our audience. We can’t just take a wild guess about what they might want to read on our site, we need to KNOW what they’re searching for online so we can write about those topics.
This is where Google Trends comes into play!
GOOGLE TRENDS INTRO
Let’s start off with a quick introduction to Google Trends. This is a free tool. You aren’t even required to have a Google/Gmail account to access it.
Just go to trends.google.com to get started (be sure to bookmark the link and this article for future reference).
Google Trends allows you to see how many people are looking for specific topics and keywords over a specific period of time.
As soon as you land on the page, you can type in your own topic or keyword phrase to see it’s performance overtime.
Or you can scroll down to see current trending topics and recent trends. This includes keywords that are currently spiking in search results.
Scroll a bit further on the homepage and you’ll see Google Trends by year. These links lead to pages of trending data from previous years.
All of this info can help you to figure out what is popular and trending across the world. But if you want to get more specific data, just type any topic or keyword phrase into the search bar to see search results.
You can also use the search feature to determine if your blog niche is going to have interest over time.
Example: if I want to start a clean beauty blog, I need to know if this is a short-term trend or if people search for clean beauty info over time. Google Trends will help me figure it out!
HOW TO USE GOOGLE TRENDS FOR MARKET RESEARCH
For example, you can type ‘clean beauty’ into the search bar and then use the dropdown menu to choose the time frame.
You can see Google search results for the last:
- Past hour
- Past 4 hours
- Past day
- Past 7 days
- Past 30 days
- Past 90 days
- Past 12 months
- Past 5 years
- Custom time frame
You can also change the region to see which countries and locations get the most searches for those topics.
It will show you on a scale of 1 to 100 what kind of search results this topic is getting overtime. If you’re seeing consistent search results over several years time, this might be a great blog topic.
This is one of the best free ways to do market research in your niche!
Important Note: Make sure you stay in your lane and only write about topics that are useful to your target audience. Avoid broad lifestyle topics that aren’t relevant or helpful to them.
FINDING BLOG POST IDEAS
One of my favorite Google Trends features is the ‘related queries’ feature under your search results.
Choose the 1-year or 5-year search results and then scroll down past the chart. You’ll see a list of the top 25 related topics and related queries.
These trending topics are great potential blog post ideas, as long as they have some search volume and the competition isn’t too heavy.
It’s a great place to start when it comes to market research and blog topic research.
PUTTING IT ALL TOGETHER
The important takeaway for this topic is that Google Trends is a great free tool that gives you inside knowledge into search engine data.
The best way to figure out what your audience needs from you is to look at the search history in your niche: what are people searching for over time? And what related topics and queries can you write about that will help your target audience?
If you can get a little insight into trending topics and seasonal search results, you can create some great content that serves your audience, drives blog traffic, and builds authority.
For more information in search engine optimization, check out this article on SEO Basics.