For any business, knowing your audience is vital when creating, implementing and reviewing a marketing strategy. In today’s digital world, being savvy on the vast number of tools at your disposable is also key. One such tool, and a free one at that, is Google Trends.
If you are already using the platform, then hats off to you, but if not, this month’s blog will share just why it’s an important tool to feed into your monthly – perhaps weekly or even daily (if you have the time) to crunch the data and become more knowledgeable on what people are searching for online.
So, what is Google Trends? Straight from the horse’s mouth, Google explains: “Google Trends tells us what people are searching for, in real time. We can use this data to measure search interest in a particular topic, in a particular place, and at a particular time.
“Google Trends provides access to a largely unfiltered sample of actual search requests made to Google. It’s anonymised (no one is personally identified), categorised (determining the topic for a search query) and aggregated (grouped together).”
Got it? Google Trends is basically a rather handy free tool used to analyse searches, topics and queries, which in turn helps the user (being you and your business) understand consumer behaviour and market trends, as well as identifying trending searches and related queries to then implement into your own strategy.
Let’s break this down a bit more into key areas Google Trends will help.
Market research – Businesses can use Google Trends to identify popular products, understand consumer demand, and make informed decisions about marketing and potential promotions.
Keywords – Google Trends is a great source to identify trending keywords and search terms people are actually using. Researched over a specific time period, you can identify what keywords or terms directly relate to your business. Using this knowledge, it provides a powerful insight to review and optimise your content to boost and improve search engine ranking.
Trends – Google Trends delivers a great insight into current trending searches, popular interests and related queries, meaning you can better understand what is being searched for over time or in real-time.
Analysis – Google Trends allows you to search for specific one-word terms or longer form keywords, and even compare terms against each other. It will throw up related search terms too, highlight spikes in dates, the percentage in volume and other analysis benefits like searching by location, date range, image search and a number of filtering categories.
By this point, you’re either itching to jump onto Google Trends and search away. Before you go though, let’s look at some examples of searches I’ve done recently. Take note, Google index’s its search data to 100. This means where 100 is the maximum search interest for the term selected, it is the highest value and indicates a high internet search. At the time of writing, I conducted several searches using the term ‘furniture’. Here’s the results:
Last 30 days – there were nine days with searches above a score of 90. Garden furniture terms were high with the likes of ‘dunelm outdoor furniture’ seeing an increase of 450% in searches. Other notable searches included ‘cushions for outdoor furniture’, up 300%, ‘2 seater garden furniture’, up 250% and ‘garden sofa set’, up 200%.
Last 7 days – there were five key times with searches above a score of 90. Searching in this way was able to break down the search queries by hour per day. For example, on 30 March at 2pm, the spike in searches was at its highest point. Popular terms noted were ‘martin hughes furniture’, up by 3,700% – yes you read that right, ‘joseph james furniture outlet’, up 250% and ‘habitat garden furniture’, up 60%.
Last day – there were two key times with searches above a score of 90, with 2 April at 4:12pm receiving the largest spike in searches. A breakout search was ‘lease to own furniture near me’, while ‘rent to own furniture’ searches jumped 1,150%. Other searches of note included ‘cfs furniture’, up 160% and ‘next furniture sale’, up 80%.
This is just the tip of the Google Trends iceberg. It is worth making a term strategy that relates to your business before diving in fully, as many an hour can be absorbed when exploring the search data on offer. If you’re a bed business, look for beds and mattresses to kick things off, then branch out further depending on what your results highlight. Same with sofas and upholstery, as well as dining furniture and living room.
How can these stats help?
As a recap, the data from Google indicates popular searches from multiple categories. Knowing what consumers are searching online can play an advantage into future promotions and general search behaviour. Tight on time? No problem. Big Furniture Group produces a monthly search data article with the next one set to go live very soon, so watch this space!
If you can’t wait, make your first search Google Trends and see what you can discover.