How To Use Google Trends For SEO & Content Research

Some trends come and go, while others become mainstays.

Google Trends is one of the latter – a free online tool that has been around for a long time and continues to provide users with insights and data to help them build a robust search engine optimization (SEO) and content marketing strategy.

However, not many people widely use Google Trends as part of their marketing stack, which is a shame because they’re missing out on a lot of information to help increase their website’s visibility over time.

This guide helps them understand how to utilize Google Trends correctly by discussing how it can accomplish tasks as part of your SEO and content research initiatives, from finding the right keywords to optimize to creating content leveraging these trendy keywords. 

Let’s begin!

Keyword research

Google Trends has an advantage over other keyword research tools: it spots trending keywords before they take off.

These trending searches don’t have any search volume when you analyze them using these tools just yet. That’s because they have to gather keyword data first to properly show their search volume and keyword difficult weeks – if not months – after they’ve trended.

By the time they appear on keyword tools, the buzz surrounding the topic will have increased significantly, and ranking for that keyword will no longer be possible due to the competition.

Google Trends lets you strike while the iron’s hot so you can take the wave of the keyword’s popularity and become one of the first to create content about it.

After all, just as much as Google rewards freshness, it also prioritizes first-mover advantage!

To do this, go to Google Trends and type your topic on the search bar.

keyword research type topic

You will see a graph of the keyword’s trend over time on the results pages.

keyword research trend over time

But the important part is at the bottom of the page, where you can check the trending topic and search queries relevant to your topic.

keyword research your topic

The topics and queries are organized according to the highest increase in search frequency. The higher the percentage, the greater the interest is for the topic.

You’ll also see the word “Breakout” instead of the percentage. This means that the topic or query is experiencing an immense boost in search interest.

Using this information, you want to focus on “breakout” queries for your topic. Start by comparing the queries in graph view to see which have been trending the most over a period. Click on the three-dot icon beside the query and select “Add to compare.”

keyword research add to comparison

Do this to as many keywords as you want to compare. From there, decide which ones to prioritize in your SEO campaign.

keyword research seo campaign

You can also check Google search results to see the top and latest pages ranking on SERPs for the keyword.

Going back to the graph section, Google Trends uses and shows data from web search by default. But if you click on the web search drop-down button, you’ll see that you can search other databases depending on your needs.

keyword research web search

Here’s a breakdown of the other databases and ways how you can use them as part of your keyword research:

  • Image Search – Check how many people are searching for the keyword on Google Image Search.
  • News Search – Find how the search term or topic is gaining steam on Google News. The higher the graph is trending, the more news pieces are published about the topic right now.
  • Google Shopping – Are lots of people buying the product on Google Shopping? You’ll find the answer here.
  • Youtube Search – Aside from website content, consider finding trending topics on YouTube on Google Trends and riding their popularity by creating videos about them.

Finally, the Trending Now tab lets you check the top trending keywords over a period. It shows you the search volume trends of the query, the time it started trending, a quick breakdown of each, and its trending graph for the past 24 hours.

keyword research past 24 hrs

You can filter the results to show trending queries in different locations, time ranges, trends, and relevance.

Content marketing

Google Trends is also a great way to help build topical maps for your niche.

As a quick refresher, topical maps are a collection of web pages consisting of a pillar post and interlinked supporting articles. Each map covers a subtopic of your website’s niche.

They aim to help establish your site as an authority about the topic in Google’s eyes. The more high-quality maps you create for your site, the greater your site’s topical authority will be, and the higher your site pages will rank on Google search results!

Let’s say you want to create a topical map for your site. Type in your niche or industry in the search bar – for this example, let’s say you sell running shoes on your site. Scroll down the page to see the topics on the left side, serving as your map’s pillar page.

content marketing pillar pages

Choose from any one of the topics that your site hasn’t covered yet. For this example, let’s say you’re selling Converse footwear in your online store but don’t have a dedicated topical map for the brand.

If that’s the case, click on it to explore its subtopics and subqueries on the next page. In particular, choose as many queries you want to use as supporting articles for your Converse topical map.

content marketing supporting article

However, not all queries (and topics, for that matter) that appear in this section are relevant to your topic. For instance, among the five queries, only the last one (“how long are converse high top laces”) is related to the shoe brand – the rest are related to mathematics. This shows that you must be wary of the queries you’ll choose for your map.

Once you’ve exhausted the queries for the Converse topical map, you can develop another map covering a different topic (another brand, perhaps) found in your Google Trends search. Or, from the existing topical map, you can build a sub-topical map covering a subtopic (like a Converse model topical map inside the brand’s topical map)! The possibilities are endless!

Content optimization

When creating brand-new pages, most use a tool like Frase or Surfer SEO to extract natural language processing (NLP) keywords to include in the content. This helps them create content optimized for their target keyword right out of the gate, giving these pages a much higher chance of ranking on top of SERPs.

The same goes for updating old content on your site due to a drop in organic traffic. You’ll want to replace outdated information with the latest one and include NLP keywords that weren’t there before. Doing so should help you restore the page’s previous organic traffic and, if not, generate even more!

But the truth of the matter is that these content optimization platforms cost money, maybe more than you use at the time being. In this case, you want to explore cost-effective ways to produce content that search engines will love.

For starters, use Google Trends data to search for trending topics and queries in your content at no cost. However, it’s not the perfect tool for this purpose, and I’ll explain why as we proceed.

Search the page’s target keyword on Google Trends and scroll to the bottom of the results page, showing you the topics and queries you should consider mentioning in the content.

On the downside, Google Trends may not share topics and queries in the results, especially if the keyword you entered hasn’t trended for a long time, if at all!

content optimization explore

You may not find queries and topics to include and discuss in your content.

The Trending Now tab is another source of trending topics and queries that you can extract from about your keyword.

By clicking on any of the trending topics in the results, Google Trends will show a slide-in window from the right side of the screen that contains the following information:

content optimization trending now
  • Line graph showing how much the query has been trending within the past 24 hours.
  • Trend breakdown that shows you relevant keywords and topics.
  • The “In the news” section shows you articles published online about the topic.

Using this information, you can determine which topics to create content depending on their ongoing popularity. For instance, the higher the line graph keeps going, the more reason you should create a page about this topic on your site.

Also, incorporate the related topics in the Trend breakdown section into the content. Doing so creates a strong correlation between your content and these topics in the eyes of Google search engines, potentially enabling your page to rank higher.

Finally, use the related articles as reference guides for creating your content. However, do not link to the articles so you don’t pass off link juice to these sources and devalue your page.

However, the Trending Tab is only helpful to outlets covering various topics and publishing news daily. Also, unless your website is about entertainment, sports, and media, there’s a slight possibility you’ll see anything related to your topic here soon.

Regardless of these shortcomings, using Google Trends as one of the free tools for your content optimization process is still a good idea.

Local SEO

Local businesses need their fingers to be on the pulse to provide their audience with sought-after products and services. A way of doing this is by leveraging Google Trends and looking at current popular topics in your location.

I mentioned earlier Google Trends has filtering options to help you narrow down the topics and trends to your liking. One of those filters is the geographic location.

In fact, you can toggle the location before conducting your search.

local seo conduct your search

Once you’re on the results page, scroll down the page until you reach the Interest by subregion section to see which regions are most interested in the topic.

local seo subregion

Click on any of the locations to see its results page. Then go to the same place on the page to see the Interest by Metro section.

local seo metro

If you want to see the interest according to city, click on the dropdown icon that shows “Metro” and choose “City” instead.

local seo city

As you can see, Google Trends shows the topic’s popularity not only by country but also by specific regions and cities of that country.

As a local business with a bakeshop, for example, you can use Google Trends to confirm the interest level of people in the area in bread or other pastries you plan on making. If the pastry isn’t as popular in your location, consider discontinuing it, especially if it’s not selling well in your bakeshop.

Ecommerce SEO

Online stores are all the rage now due to the convenience they bring to customers. However, its popularity also means it’s much harder to penetrate the market because of the competition.

But if you’re hell-bent on getting your ecommerce business to the top, you must get ahead of everyone else. The valuable insights provided by Google Trends will help you do exactly that!

In fact, the real power of Google Trends for ecommerce SEO is its ability to uncover seasonal trends.

Type in a generic product your store is selling. For example, let’s type in “smartwatch.”

On the next page, filter the results to show you data on the line graph for the past five years.

ecommerce seo interest over time

The graph above shows predictable spikes in the popularity of smartwatches within the period.

Upon checking, it shows that people search for the topic more between the start of November and the end of December, when Black Friday/Cyber Monday and the holiday season occur.

With this insight, we can deduce that you should focus on heavily promoting your smartphone products before November to get a head start over the competition. When November comes, people should be more aware of the smartphones in your store so they can purchase them from there.

Utilizing Google Trends data about your product, you can find patterns within five years (or more) and generate insights on how and when to market your product.

From here, use the same process above to build topical maps for your various products and create search-optimized content for each.

Conclusion

Google Trends has its use cases and limitations, but one thing is clear: if you want a free tool to help you determine what’s hot and what’s not in your niche or industry, it won’t get any better than this tool. Use it wisely, using the tips above to aid in your keyword and content research while beefing up your SEO strategy.

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