Google Trends

Google Trends is a useful tool for market research. Trend analysis refers to the process of studying how the market's interest progressed and or changed over time as a means of predicting how that market interest is likely to proceed in the future. The various market research uses include the following.

• To compare trends across countries. Example: To compare level of interest between the US and the UK for a particular product.
• To get a visual idea of the trend. Example: To know if interest in a product is consistent, a fad or seasonal (1)  -- --
• To choose among various elements that complement the keyword. Example: To know which add-on products should be offered; to know which (communication / advertising, image, service, etc) element best complements your product.
• To find out which keywords are gaining momentum and at what rate. Example: While doing a trend analysis for product X, you may learn that that top searches involved "product X2" and "product A3". Additionally, there is an upward (or downward) increase in interest in "product Z321" as people are searching for it up to +600 times. In fact, another product, "product Z322" is breaking out, ie its growth is beyond 5,000. Ultimately, you know that Z322 is the not product that you might want to research further.
• To find a more popular keyword among synonyms. Example: Do people prefer the word "protein bar", "health bar" or "granola bar"? (5)
• To get clues for better defining the target market as it relates to geographical location. When researching keywords, a world map shows the countries with the top interest. You can get further detail regarding regions and even cities within each top country also. By extension, you might be able to make guesstimations about other characteristics of the market in terms of ethnicity, religion and so on.
• To decide on trending topics for blog or other content ideas. In fact, you can even understand these trends for specific kinds of web search.

Understanding the following 2 terms may help you to understand the software and this article. When typing in search keywords, Google Trends' predictive typing may complete the word. However, you will often see multiple options for the same keyword search. As in the image immediately below, this occurs because Google Trends often sees a single keyword within different contexts. In this example as a search term and topic.

• Topic: When you choose a topic, the language that you use does not matter. This is because Google Trends translates the word invisibly in the background. This is particularly useful for exploratory market research that concerns the entire world. In other words, your search transcends linguistic differences. For instance, you can use the English version of the topic 'fad' to compare Google trends for that subject matter among the US, France and Spain in a single search.
• Search term: Unlike 'topics', this element is language-specific. Furthermore, you can distinguish between search terms and topics by how they are visually displayed in results. Specifically, graphs drawn for search terms appear with solid lines while those for topics appear as a dotted line.

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1. Shape of the graph

The shape of the graph is very useful. Notice whether the graph repeats a consistent up-down  pattern predictably within specific time periods. In the example below, the high and low points consistently occur in Feb-April and December respectively. Consequently, the product is seasonal. However, also consider how drastic the changes vary between the high and low points. If you are making decisions about whether a product is suitable for sale, determine its suitability based on whether you can tolerate these seasonalities.

Look at each high and low point to see how much the demand has risen or fallen from one year to the next.

The image below displays a fad. Fad trends peak with a table top shaped plateau that falls away just as sharply like the edge of a cliff as they begin. Consider your goals. If they are long term, fad products are not ideal.

2. Compare the same term across up to 5 countries (or 5 time periods)

Perhaps I could use this information for deciding on where to do a product launch.

Next to the 'Compare' button, click the drop down menu and select the 2nd modifying variable, like 'location'. This will allow you to add up to 5 new locations.

3. Compare the same keyword (product) across several elements / modifying terms (like celebrities, brand names, etc)

Suppose you wanted to do advertising on product X but needed to determine which celebrity can provide the best market response. Google Trends allows you to compare the single keyword across up to 5 modifying keywords.

Be sure to investigate drastic spikes in the graph. They usually relate to some background information that may affect your marketing plans. Investigation into the spick for Rihanna relates to the fight she had with her then boyfriend, Chris Brown. Investigating these outstanding graph behaviors involves holding the cursor over the tip of the spike to see the date of the spike. From there, you can complete your investigation in Google Search. You may find significant trends like this useful for post event tentpole marketing.

4. Find additional keywords that are trending

The top searches were for 'hair products', 'natural hair products' and 'natural hair'. These terms suggest the market searching these terms is comprised of black people. The associated map confirms the strong possibility of this as the top 5 (of 7 countries) have a predominantly black population. TO further confirm this suspicion, the 'Rising' related searches shows 'curly hair products' as the top trending top at a +900% growth rate. When I clicked Trinidad and Tobago, the related topics was headed by 'afro-textured hair'. The 4th topic was 'black hair'.

Ultimately, this tool helps to define the target market.

In fact, you can even narrow the search if you are specifically interested in publishing content for a particular web search platform like YouTube and so on. This is therefore ideal for blogging, Google Shopping  advertisements and so on.

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5. Use Google trends to find which keyword among synonyms to use

Visually compare synonymous keywords. Use this information to change the wording of your topic, product and so on.

In fact, I also used this basic comparison for comparing between terms that were not synonyms. For instance, if I have been researching car tyres and kitchen cupboards, 2 unrelated products, I might be able to decide which between the 2 I will like to sell.

6. Visually compare interest in 2 or more topics / languages / synonyms, etc

To compare interest of the same topic across linguistic markets, do NOT enter different translations into the search terms at once. A better way will be to use the topic as a 'search topic' in the search window at the top of the page. Afterwards, you can choose different countries.

Above, Google Trends was used to look world wide, ie the default setting. Search only within the US. Below, I want to know the level of interest of coconut oil among Spanish and English speaking people only in the US.

Analysis: The results show me that US-based Spanish speakers show a significantly lower level of interest in the product. I can see that interest of Spanish-speaking people is greatest in Florida. The map information below is specifically for Florida. Notice that the blue color coded line (for Spanish) underlines the Spanish words over the map. If you want to see the same information for English, click the English text.

Not surprisingly, when the search was done for only Mexico, the converse occurred. Spanish-speaking market was significantly higher. The Mexico market was at the stage of the purchase funnel where they were still learning about the product. As you can see below, the top search terms enquired about the benefits of the product. Conversely, the US market had top search terms of different oils. One gets the impression that they have already moved further through the sales funnel. BTW, you can also narrow the location search to cities within a country.

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I wanted to know, 'What particular interest do English speaking Americans have for the product in the US'? So I further modified the search to look at 'Beauty' (one of the recommended categories) in the 'Categories' drop down menu and got the following. People are most interested in using the oil for the hair. When I clicked on 'Rising', there were breakout keywords for 'coconut hair masks' and 'coconut oil masks'. This provides more specific insight. The 'Body and face' category still referenced hair masks as the top searches. This is definitely a strong trending search term.

Interest in the oil for the skin and face is considerably lower. Initial suspicions were that the market is from the black demographic. However, this is unclear given the states with the strongest interest.

In the 'Hygiene & Toiletries' category, people might have been even further in the funnel. The top breakout search term was 'best coconut oil' and the top search term was 'organic coconut oil'. That is a far cry from the Spanish speaking market.

An even further modifier is time. I changed the search to the 'past 12 months'. To do this, use the drop down menu at the top of the page.

General Reminders  / Tips 

• If your focus is related to keyword searches for a geographical market, narrow the search by the country / ies in that market. You can later get the corresponding search volume figures in Google Adwords by narrowing the search to that market.

Promulgate your results 

You can share and or download your results. The buttons for these options are on the far right end of the top menu bar.

CONTENT RELATED TO GOOGLE TRENDS FOR MARKETING

• Significant Google trends can inform your tentpole marketing calender