How to Use Google Trends to Create the Exact Content Your Readers are Searching For
Building content is one of the most critical and hardest parts of an effective inbound SEO strategy. How do you build content readers want, when they want it? Sounds lovely, right?
Google Trends can help. In this article, we will help you understand how powerful Google Trends can be for your inbound strategy and why it is important to use it.
We at times need a helping hand when it comes to adding more knowledge and other insights to our content.
Google Trends can help you get more ideas on what topics are hot and trending so that you may not be left behind. It can help you with so many things from finding new keywords to analyzing your competitors! Plus, it’s free… So, we have that going for us too!
Here’s how to use Google Trends to the fullest to create content your readers are searching for.
- Identify your niche
- Monitor search trends
- Find new keywords
- Compare keywords
- Optimize for video
- Target local audiences
- Analyze your competitors
- Plan your yearly calendar
Let’s break them down!
1. Identify Your Niche
The first thing to do when you create content is to identify your topic. Many times this is simply decided by the niche of your website. Most people often omit this crucial fact but for you to know what to write about or who are the ideal target you need to know what topic you want to write about. A no-brainer… right?
Identifying a particular topic or niche helps you narrow down and have specific people or groups who require your content.
After identifying a niche, you need to know your targeted audience preferences. This will enable you to meet their needs since you already know what your audience’s questions are and how you can solve their curiosity using your content.
For beginners who are also clueless about what niche to dive into, you need to use Google Trends. This will help you broaden your ideas in which niche is favorable to you.
Google Trends is an important tool since you can check which niche has more demand or how many people are asking about a particular niche. It is also important since you just need to key in a specific title and all topics that are related to your search are listed. This will enable you to know what is my audience looking for and what can I write about within this niche to have a strong base audience.
It is also important since you just need to key in a specific title and all topics that are related to your search are listed.
When searching for the most profitable niches you also need to be updated. For example, if you are searching for the best chairs you shouldn’t search for the year 2000 chairs instead it is advisable to search for the most recent chairs. By searching for the current year’s chairs you will be up to date with what most customers are searching for recently for you to know what type of chairs to write about.
You will also be in a position to know whether the search volume of the topic is declining. You can also check the graph and see if it has a stable search volume over time. With such graphs, you can opt to give them a specific time to see where they lie.
If the charts are constant, even though there is no considerable increase, it’s still a good sign. It means that your topic has a loyal community of readers.
2. Monitor Search Trends
It is important to always check search patterns. This is important since you will be equipped on how to react and what to write during which seasons. It is also important to check whether there is seasonal content.
This will help you know how to go about it if by any chance you don’t want to create content that won’t be read. As you monitor search trends, Google Trends is also important for your business since you can also check how your brand is performing.
The Search Volume Index can also help you discover in what periods your brand or ‘keyword’ is most often looked up. This will help you in proper planning and also know the right way to put your content. The Search Volume Index in Google Trends is great because it helps you:
This feature is so important it helps you-
- Easily check popular keywords that are popular.
- Enables you to filter searches that aren’t popular over a period. Some topics may look interesting and you may want to use them to create content. This helps you know which topics aren’t popular and are easily fading away.
- As you monitor search Trends you are also able to get new ideas that you may have been clueless about that do exist and are doing so well.
3. Find New Keywords
Finding new keywords may be a bit daunting. This is because you may have exhausted all your previous ideas. So what is your audience is searching for right now? Google Trends can help you generate fresh ideas with the timely information you need.
Google Trends tool comes in handy exactly for this reason. Keywords matter when it comes to driving traffic or sales. Rank for the right keywords your audience is searching for and you get free organic traffic.
The best part is you don’t have to be familiar with Google Trends.
When you enter a search, check on its popularity. For example, if a topic is close to a hundred it means it has a higher search volume. What this implies is that more people are searching for the keyword and you should take the opportunity to write about those topics.
…if a topic is close to a hundred it means it has a higher search volume.
Also, it is important to note that as you are searching for new keywords you can search for a topic. When you select ‘topic’ it means you are analyzing a broad range of relevant search terms. When you decide to choose ‘search term’ this means that you are searching for terms that users use as they search for a particular thing.
If you don’t have any idea about the topic you can just enter a topic in trending searches. You will be able to see what topics have a rising search in 24 hours. Be wary though, topics can come and go as news breaks.
In this case, you can opt to use the “category” drop-down menu. This will give you an idea of what is trending and eliminate short trending keywords.
4. Compare Keywords
It is important as you search for a keyword that you have a few topics in mind to compare. Google Trends comes in handy for this. You can have a variety of topics that you can choose from. All you need is just to search for a specific topic in Google Trends. Google normally has a table next to “related queries” it calls “related topics”.
Sounds simple, but this is a huge feature to help you build out topic clusters around what people are searching for. By looking at search volume and related keywords you can build an inbound content strategy around your pillar content to drive organic traffic over time.
5. Optimize for Video
If you are creating videos, especially YouTube content, you need to know what viewers want, right? Of course. Many people who want to venture into videos always think that one needs to be equipped with all the knowledge to know what content to put.
Google Trends has a great feature whereby you can create relevant content that people want to watch. What you need to do is key a specific keyword that you normally use when optimizing your video. After you have used the specific keyword, use the drop-down menu to swap from web search to YouTube search. By switching to this you are now able to see whether whatever topic you are using is relevant and can bring traffic to your site.
This will save you a lot of time. Pro tip: always be specific while searching for how to optimize your video instead of wasting time creating content that most people won’t bother watching or even searching for.
6. Target Local Audiences
Another key feature of Google Trends is that it shows you which regions are searching for specific content. The best part of how to use Google Trends is that you get to identify your audience and learn what they want.
As you search for a particular query, Google Trends shows you which regions have more search volume. This will enable you to channel the specific content to these regions and focus on how to optimize the said topics for them to gain views.
This will enable you to channel the specific content to these regions and focus on how to optimize the said topics for them to gain views.
How do you search for which region in Google that is viewing your content? Google Trends has this awesome feature known as interest by sub-region. This tool will give you the search volume of the specific keyword. By this, you will know what topics are of interest to people in your area and also notice how often your keyword pops up.
7. Analyze Your Competitors
As you aim to drive traffic to your site, you will be curious to see how their competition is doing which can help you stay one step ahead of or behind them.
So how do you harness Google Trends for this? All you need to do is key in your competitor’s name. This will enable you to have a sneak peek of what topic their customers are searching for.
It is also important to know what your competitor’s secret ingredient is. You can get a hint of this by checking what good reviews and topics your competitors’ audience are searching for. In addition, there are pain points that their audience has. Who doesn’t want to know that?
8. Plan Your Yearly Calendar
A calendar is a vital thing when it comes to content marketing. But how do you know if you’re posting things at the right time? Google Trends can once again help.
For example, you may have a great post about clothes lined up. When you key in such topics or keywords Google Trends will be able to tell you when such topics are usually searched for. This means that as more searches are generated the most likely period your ideal audience will be interested in your topic!
Frankly, it makes your work easier. You don’t have to tire researching or interviewing people on what they prefer since all the questions are answered. It helps you find the right season for your content. It’s all about putting the right content in front of the right people at the right time.
Plan your calendar wisely, don’t take chances if Google Trends shows that some topics may not drive traffic at a certain time. Be careful not to lose your audience and know what and when to feed your audience with content.
Plan your calendar wisely, don’t take chances if Google Trends shows that some topics may not drive traffic at a certain time.
Final Thoughts
Google Trends is an important tool when it comes to giving your readers the content they want. While there are many other tools out there, Google Trends is a powerful, free tool to have in your SEO arsenal that can help you as you get started with your inbound content strategy.
Your business is your priority and you don’t want to create content that no one will read. With Google Trends, you will be able to save a lot of time creating quality content that readers actually want.
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