How to use Google Trends to strengthen your content strategy
To strengthen your content strategy, it’s helpful to know what topics are trending and in what capacity. Gaining a deeper understanding of when, where and how people access your content allows you to tailor your strategy towards trending keywords – Google Trends does just that.
With the help of Google Trends, you can create a content strategy that produces relevant, high-quality and topical content. We all know content marketing goes a long way in growing your site, but tools like Google Trends can take it that one step further. Let’s get right into what it is and how it can strengthen your content strategy!
What is Google Trends?
Google Trends is a tool that analyses how popular a search query is (ie. how much it’s trending) based on different factors, such as time period. It depicts search trends over the years via a graph. Google Trends also gives you the option of refining the data to location, search surface and topic.
The tool allows you to differentiate data between ‘search queries’ (the specific seed keyword or keyword phrase) and ‘topics’ (keywords that can be categorised together). It also allows the time frame to span anywhere from the past hour to 2004. This makes for an extremely useful tool due to how specific its results can be for what you want to look at- there are plenty of options to look at that vary the data.
6 ways to use Google Trends to improve your content strategy
Google Trends can be utilised in several effective ways to strengthen your content strategy. Here are 6 key ways to use it that are sure to enhance your strategy:
1. Use for keyword research
The most simple way to benefit from Google Trends is to use it to look for more keywords. Keyword research is an essential part of SEO practice if you really want to rank, so having a tool that can take it that extra step further is extremely beneficial.
If you’re really stuck for content, you can find related keywords or keywords that you should be including within your content. It’ll also help you to find keywords in your industry or niche that you can target.
2. Create topic clusters
By being able to explore the related topics attached to the specific search query, you can then create topic clusters that inform your strategy. This greatly strengthens your content strategy as you broaden your ranking opportunities and target topics that you know users are searching for in relation.
3. Discover time-specific trends
With Google Trends allowing you to refine the data to specific time periods, you can take advantage of this to craft an organised content calendar. Whatever topics you focus on seasonally can be determined by how popular they are.
Or, if something is emerging as a current trend, it gives you the opportunity to jump on it as soon as you can. Short-term trends can generate lots of traffic, especially if you target the days of the week or time frame that they’re most commonly being searched for.
You can even see which trends are sustainable long-term so you know if it’s worthy of investing the content in that area. Trends starting to decrease in searches can signal that user’s demands are changing, and it’s probably not worth your time to create content around it- it’s less likely to receive engagement.
Embryo’s Senior Content Manager, Shona Worsman, adds:
We often explore Google Trends for insight into keyword volatility, seasonality and popularity to name a few.
We can base our content strategy on the popularity of a topic over time.
For example, if Google Trends reveals that people often search for ‘air conditioners’ in June, we’ll begin to create content just before this time to allow the content time to climb the ranks before the searches come in.
4. Look at search intent based on search surface
Have a look at what people are looking to find out, and on which search surface. Whether it be image search, shopping, or news search, you can improve a user’s experience. What content you put out onto these surfaces should align with the most common words that are being searched on them in order to target the user’s needs and rank highly.
5. Improve local SEO
As there’s an option to refine search by geographical location, this allows you to see what searches are like in your local area. This helps local SEO practice as you’re targeting the trends that will help you rank higher for your specific region. If you want local customers, then it’s important to stay relevant to local search and localise your content.
6. Compare competitors
The world of marketing is a competitive realm, so looking at your competition helps you stay on top of your game. Have a look at search terms associated with your competitor’s keywords to inspire your own content. You can even see if your competitor is gaining in popularity in comparison to your own brand. If so, you can make the necessary changes to your content strategy to stay ahead.
Get the most out of Google Trends Today
So there you have it! What’s not to love? Get started with Google Trends today and watch your content strategy grow stronger and stronger. At Embryo, our SEO experts believe in detailed strategies that take a holistic approach. If you’d like to know more, feel free to get in touch today!
FAQs
Answered by Charlotte Fallon
What are the pros and cons of using short-term trends in my content?
The pros: it shows that your content is up-to-date and relevant, as well as adding to your brand’s expertise.
The cons: This content quickly ages and would need to be re-visited for updates. Your website should have a good mix of evergreen content which is low maintenance and doesn’t need to be changed very often or at all.
How far back in time should I be looking at keyword data trends?
This depends on the industry. For keyword-consistent industries such as clothing, looking at annual data trends for key searches can be useful to look at the best times to start pushing certain summer products for example. This can be backtracked by many years and is likely to stay consistent in terms of keywords. On the other hand, for industries like technology and cars which are consistently evolving with new models each year, it wouldn’t be useful to backtrack more than a few years before data trends become irrelevant.
How late is too late to jump on a trend?
From a search perspective, If there is still a relatively high search volume for a keyword, then trying to rank won’t do your brand any harm. Specific events like Black Friday are very time-limited so don’t waste resources on things like this if the time has come and gone. From a social perspective, most trends are very time-limited and jumping on a trend too late may make your brand look silly and out of the loop.
Can Google Trends be used for anything other than content?
Google Trends can be very useful for checking up on your brand searches. This can be done to look at the impact of PR campaigns, TV adverts, sponsorships, etc. Google trends should be used alongside the Google search console.
