How to Utilize Google Trends Data to Predict SEO & Content Performance

There’s a lot of noise on which is the best tool for SEO and content marketing. Many businesses claim to have the best data, the most features, and the deepest insights. However, when it comes to understanding how your content is going to perform, Google Trends is still the best free tool out there.

Other tools like Google Analytics and Search Console show you what’s happening on your website, but they don’t necessarily tell you what to do next. Google Trends data, on the other hand, can be a valuable predictor of content performance.

Google Trends is a public web facility provided by Google. It allows you to see how often particular terms are being searched for on the internet. The data is anonymized and aggregated, so you can’t see what any individual is searching for.

In short, it is the only keyword research tool that offers insights based on actual Google search data.

12 Tips On How to Use Google Trends for SEO And Content Marketing

Google Trends might not show you the absolute number of searches for a certain keyword. But it will show you how often that keyword is being searched for relative to other keywords.

This is extremely valuable data that can be used to predict the future performance of your content.

Here are 13 tips on how you can use Google Trends data to improve your SEO and content marketing:

1. Conduct Keyword Research

Find the most searched keywords using Google Trends and incorporate them into your content to improve your SEO and content. Simply enter the keyword into the search box on the homepage and see how it performs relative to other keywords.

It runs a search of the most searched keywords by default, but you can also change it to look at different kinds of search data like YouTube search. It generally returns a graph of the keyword’s popularity over the selected time frame. You can easily expand the date range to get a longer-term view.

Compare the keywords data over the past year with the data from two or three years ago to help you understand if it’s a fad or a true trend. This will give you a better idea of whether to incorporate the keyword into your content strategy.

For instance, if you’re an SEO agency, you might want to target keywords like “link building” or “local SEO.” You can use Google Trends to check the popularity of these keywords over time and adjust your content strategy accordingly.

2. Find Related Keywords

Its ability to recommend related keywords that are currently growing in popularity is powerful. Simply type a search term into the homepage, and the site returns a list of keywords it considers as closely related to your search.

This is a great way to quickly generate a list of relevant keywords to target in your content. And since you can see the exact % search volume increase for each keyword, you can prioritize which ones to target first.

Let’s circle back to our SEO agency example. If you want to target the keyword “link building,” you can use Google Trends to find related keywords that are currently growing in popularity. You might want to target keywords like “link building SEO” or “link building services.”

In our experience, the related keywords feature is more accurate for larger, more general terms. So it’s worth doing a few searches to see which related keywords are most relevant to your business.

3. Explore Related Topics

Not all related topics will be relevant to your business. But it’s worth exploring the list to see if any jump out as being a good fit.

To find related topics, type a keyword into Google Trends and scroll down to the section titled “related topics.” This will return a list of broader topics that are related to your keyword.

Going back to our previous example, here’s what the related appears:

There are a few different ways you can use this data. First, you can use it to get an idea of what else people are searching for when they’re looking for information on your topic.

This can give you some ideas for other blog posts or pieces of content you can create. For example, if you see that people are also searching for “Hyperlinks,” you might want to write a blog post on the best ways to use hyperlinks in your content.

Second, you can use this data to better understand the context in which people are searching for your keyword. This can help you better position your content so that it appears in the search results when people are looking for information on your topic. We’ll discuss this in detail in the next section.

4. Find Most Relevant Information

The easiest way to use Google Trends is to start with a big-time keyword and then drill down to find the most relevant information. Let’s take a quick look at how this can be done:

Let’s say you search for ‘White Label SEO,’ and the location is set to worldwide. This is how the search will appear on the site:

Filter by location: Now, let’s say that you want to focus on the United States specifically. You can do this by clicking on the ‘worldwide’ button and then selecting “United States” from the list of countries.

This will show you how popular the keyword is in the United States specifically. This can be helpful if you’re trying to target a local audience.

Filter by time period: Use the date range filter to see how the popularity of a keyword has changed over time. This can be helpful to see if a keyword is on the rise or decline.

To do this, click on the ‘Past 12 months’ button and then select a specific date range from the drop-down menu. For example, you might want to see how a keyword has changed in popularity over the past 3 months or 90 days.

Filter by category: You can also use the category filter to see how popular a keyword is in specific industries. This can be helpful if you’re trying to target a particular niche.

For instance, if you run an SEO agency that specializes in the healthcare industry, you might want to see how popular the keyword is in the ‘Health’ category. To do this, click on the ‘All categories’ button and then select ‘Health’ from the list. You can further narrow it down by selecting the category that best suits your needs.

Filter by search type: If you’re looking for more specific data, you can use the search type filter. This allows you to see how popular a keyword is in different types of searches.

For example, you might want to see how popular the keyword is in ‘Web search’, ‘Image search’, or ‘YouTube search.’

It is suggested that you use multiple filters to find the most relevant and useful information for your business.

5. Discover Context

Google Trends can also be used to discover the context in which people are searching for a particular keyword. This can be helpful to better understand how people are using a keyword and what they’re looking for when they search for it.

Use different filter options in Google Trends to find the context. For instance, if you’ll look at the above graphs, you’ll see how the popularity is changing at each step. Use this data to add context to your keyword research.

You can also other filters like compare, country, category, or web searches to refine your results.

6. Get More Specific With Advanced Search Options

We’ve already discussed the related topics and queries, but there are several other ways to narrow down your keyword research. These include:

• Web search (Default).
• Image Search.
• News Search.
• Google Shopping.
• YouTube Search.

Most people don’t realize that you can use Google Trends for more than just web searches. By default, the keyword research tool is set to ‘Web search,’ but you can change this by clicking on the ‘Web search’ drop-down menu and selecting a different option.

In addition, you can also use the sorting feature to narrow down related topics and queries. Google Trends offer two filters for this: rising and top. Usually, rising is a better option because it’s a rising topic/query which will give you better chances to rank your content.

Here’s how the queries change when you toggle between these two views:

Rising:

Top:

7. Target by Location

Google Trends also offers the ability to target by location. This means that you can see how popular a keyword is in specific regions or countries. This can be helpful if you’re trying to target a local audience.

Using local keyword trends, you can narrow down the regions and subregions where your products or services are in demand. It will also allow you to geo-target your SEO efforts for better results.

8. Predict Trends

The additional information available on Google Trends can also be used to make predictions about future trends.

The ‘Interest over time’ graph shows you how popular a keyword is and how this popularity is changing over time. This is very helpful in predicting when a keyword is going to become popular.

Here are a few ways to use this information to make predictions:

• If you see a keyword that is slowly gaining popularity over time, you can predict that it will continue to rise in popularity.
• If you see a keyword that is rapidly gaining popularity, you can predict that it will soon peak and start to decline.
• If you see a keyword that is declining in popularity, you can predict that it will continue to decline.

9. Find Long-Tail Keyword Ideas

Google Trends can also be used to find long-tail keyword ideas.

A long-tail keyword is a keyword that is very specific and usually has a low search volume. While these keywords may not get a lot of searches, they can be very useful because they are much easier to rank for.

To find long-tail keyword ideas, simply enter a broad keyword into Google Trends and then click on the ‘Interest by region’ tab. This will show you a list of all the countries where people are searching for that keyword.

10. Use Data for Video Optimization

YouTube is the second-largest search engine, so it’s important to optimize your videos for YouTube as well as Google. Luckily, you can use Google Trends to find keywords that people are searching for on YouTube.

Simply enter a keyword into Google Trends and then click on the ‘YouTube search’ tab. This will show you how popular that keyword is on YouTube and how this popularity is changing over time.

Going back to our white label SEO example, we can see that the keyword ‘white label SEO’ is much more popular on YouTube than it is on Google.

This means that if we want to target this keyword, we should optimize our videos for YouTube rather than just relying on web articles.

11. Use Seasonal Trends for Branding

Seasonal trends can be very helpful for branding. If you know when people are searching for your products or services, you can plan your marketing and advertising around these times.

For example, let’s take a look at the past 5 years’ trend for white label SEO.

From here, you can see that the popularity of this keyword slipped in mid-2019 but has been steadily rising since then. It is also clear that the trend is seasonal, with the keyword being more popular in the first and fourth quarters than in the second and third quarters.

This information can be very useful for planning your marketing and advertising efforts. For example, you could run ads during the first and fourth quarters when people are more likely to be searching for your keyword.

12. Compare Keywords

You can compare up to 5 keywords at a time. This is very helpful for finding new keyword ideas or for comparing the popularity of different keywords.

To compare keywords, simply enter the keywords into the ‘Compare’ tab and click on the ‘Compare’ button.

13. Find Blind Spots

Go a step beyond whatever you think your current insight is to see if you have blind spots.

For example:

Never rely on a single snapshot – always get a broader view of the timeline to see how the trend has changed over time.

Always look for context – an increasing trend in one key phrase may be dwarfed by more important ones.

As mentioned earlier, when we were researching white label SEO, we discovered a drastic increase in web search trends for the keyword. However, further research revealed that this increase was only a fraction of the total search volume for the keyword.

This is an important example of how Google Trends can help you find blind spots in your research. If we had only looked at the web search results, we would have assumed that the keyword was much more popular than it actually is.

There’s a lot more to Google Trends than meets the eye. With a little bit of creativity, you can use it for all sorts of things, from keyword research to video optimization to branding. So don’t be afraid to experiment and see what you can come up with!