How Google Trends Can Help Steer Your SEO Strategy
If you’re looking to get the most out of your SEO strategy, a good place to start is to find out how people search and what words they use. Google Trends is a great free tool that allows you to type in words and compare the search volume. Google Trends (although not a substitute for a comprehensive SEO strategy) can be a valuable tool for enhancing your SEO strategy in several ways:
- Keyword Research: Google Trends can help you identify trending and popular search terms related to your niche or industry. By analyzing search volume trends over time, you can discover which keywords are gaining or losing popularity. This information can guide your keyword research efforts and help you target keywords that are currently in demand.
- Seasonal Trends: Google Trends can show you the seasonality of specific keywords or topics. Understanding when certain keywords are more or less popular can help you plan your content and SEO efforts accordingly. For example, if you run an e-commerce website, you can prepare for seasonal trends like holiday shopping or back-to-school sales.
- Geographic Insights: Google Trends provides geographic data, showing you where specific search terms are most popular. This information can be particularly useful for local businesses looking to optimize their content and target specific regions or cities.
- Content Ideas: By exploring trending topics and related queries on Google Trends, you can uncover new content ideas. Creating content around trending topics can attract more visitors to your website, as people are actively searching for information on those subjects.
- Content Optimization: Google Trends can assist in optimizing existing content. If you have content that’s related to a trending topic, you can update and expand it to provide the most current and relevant information to your audience.
- Identifying Evergreen Content: On the flip side, Google Trends can also help you identify evergreen topics that maintain consistent interest over time. This can guide your content creation strategy for long-lasting and valuable content.
How to Leverage Google Trends
To leverage Google Trends effectively for your SEO strategy, regularly monitor the platform, experiment with different keywords and topics, and use the insights you gain to inform your content creation and optimization efforts. Remember that while trending topics can provide short-term gains, a well-rounded SEO strategy should also include evergreen content and long-term planning.
For instance, if you were a florist, would you want to know if people search most using the words “florist” or “flowers”? If you knew that, your website content could be properly positioned for visibility using the best possible search terms. You can repeat the process shown in the screenshot below: 1) Go to Google Trends 2) Type “lawyer” into the trends search bar, 3) After seeing the results click “add term” and type “attorney” then “law firm”. (Scroll down for interpretation notes).
Given the trend from 2018 – 2023, if you were a law firm you might think it would be a good idea to pay most attention to integrating “attorney” into your website titles & content because you’d probably garner the most visibility for that term, and in-turn traffic. However, you can see the gap narrowing over time so you’d have to make sure your site was relevant for both terms in this scenario.
Although Google understands synonyms, (like attorney and lawyer), it’s always best practice to integrate both words into your copy writing with the right density. Too much and it looks & reads “spammy”, too little and search engines will deliver “more relevant”results to users. Google Trends is only 1 tool of many available to help strategize and diagnose for proper search engine optimization.
President & Founder – Everest Legal Marketing, LLC
Doug Bradley is the Founder and CEO of Everest Legal Marketing. Doug has over a decade of experience specifically in legal marketing, and foremost with expertise in Search Engine Optimization for law firms. Doug has been quoted on numerous websites, co-hosted many MCLE sessions, and has advised law firms of all sizes on the topic of effective marketing and ethical SEO strategies.
