How to Use Google Trends for Your Online Business

By Thom Harrison - October 21, 2024

Ever wondered what the world (or, say, Basingstoke) has been searching for recently? Google Trends has the answer. By reading into popular search terms over time, online business owners can use the tool to better understand the needs and wants of customers. The idea is to spot patterns to inform smart decisions. It’s free and easy at google.com/trends/

What is Google Trends?

First launched in 2006, Google Trends is a tool to discover what people have been searching for on Google Search. You can use it to spot popular topics and fashions, giving insight into what’s catching attention and what’s not.

When we talk about “trends” here we’re referring to Keyword Search Volume — how often a specific word or phrase is searched for within a set timeframe.

Entering a keyword or phrase, you’ll be given graphs and charts showing how interest in that term has changed. A high keyword search volume shows that lots of people are actively seeking out that topic. You’re then able to dig deeper with different categories, regions, and more.

For online store owners, you might use these metrics to spot what products are “hot” right now. If an item shows a spike in searches, that’s a good sign it could be a big seller. Working on an ad campaign, you could use Trends to track how popular a product is and how that’s shifting. This can help you come up with ads likely to work with your audience.

If we seem Google-centric, as ever that’s only because the search giant holds a 93.6% share of the UK search engine market. For reference, Microsoft’s Bing is a distant second, at 3.9%!

Of course, Google Trends isn’t just for businesses — content creators, journalists, and just about anyone can use it to see what stories and topics are getting attention.

How do I use Google Trends?

First stop: open your web browser and type google.com/trends (or trends.google.com) in the address bar. You’ll be greeted with a homepage overview and the main Explore section at the top.

Simply type the keyword or phrase you want to explore into the search bar and hit enter. You’ll also see popular related suggestions as you type.

For our example, imagining we’re an online shop, we’ll search for “Sandals”.

Results will show for your home country and over the last 12 months by default. You can set the time frame from as low as ‘past hour’, to weeks or months, or customise your own range going back as far back as 2004.

We’ll select the Shopping category to focus on what people are searching to buy rather than general interest.

Here you go. Not surprisingly, UK interest in sandals over the course of the last 12 months saw a steady rise in spring and continuing through summer — albeit with a few interesting bumps along the way. Unexpected spikes in search interest might be down to changing consumer preferences, local and world events, or trending topics.

Comparing multiple keywords

Data doesn’t mean much without something to compare it to, so let’s compare different search terms.

Trends lets you compare up to five. As it’s mid-October right now, we’ll compare the last result with a new query: “Halloween Costumes”.

Let’s change the timeframe to 90 days to make things clearer, but keeping Shopping as our category.

Observe! We can see how the great British public begins to lose interest in sandals pretty quick from late August — only to be eclipsed by a burning desire for fancy dress from October.

While Trends can’t give projections, looking back to last year, interest in Halloween Costumes peaked in the week starting October 22nd.

Sure, we probably didn’t need Google Trends to tell us that fancy dress becomes more popular in the fortnight leading up to Halloween. This is just one easy example of what the tool is capable of. Use Google Trends to discover topics relevant for your own online business.

Exploring regional interest

Scroll down below the volume-over-time graph to find a map showcasing the popularity of your keyword(s).

The ‘Interest by Sub-region’ feature in Google Trends lets you focus on specific locations. Instead of looking at data for entire countries or regions, you can zoom in on interest in a particular city, town, or province.

This is useful to see how specific areas are more interested in certain products or other search keywords. You can also compare search interest levels between different areas to spot geographic variations.

By default, you’ll see the UK divided into its four sub-regions (constituent countries). Seeing what’s popular in Wales or Scotland might be useful. For more in-depth info, click ‘City’ to get a full list of towns and cities.

Sandals are incredibly popular with the residents of Beckenham, for some reason…

The interest by region value (or score) shows where a term was most popular during a certain time frame. These values range from 0 to 100, with 100 being a location with the highest popularity for that term relative to total searches there. A value of 50 means it’s half as popular, while 0 simply means there wasn’t enough data.

Note that Trends usually only shows the top dozen or so results. Click the download CSV button in the top right (downward arrow) to get a full spreadsheet.

If you’re interested: sandals are of least interest to the final and 203rd town on the list: Kirkintilloch, Scotland.

Keep in mind a high score might just mean a larger percentage of searches, even if the total number is smaller. That is to say, sandals might be very popular in Dewsbury, but there still likely would’ve been more searches in London overall…

Google Trends for YouTube

Trends isn’t just for standard search queries — you can also use it to see what’s big on YouTube.

You’ll gain similar insight into what’s hot to sell online right now. If you’re a content creator yourself, you might use this info to reach a wider audience and gain more views.

For fun, let’s take kimchi and sauerkraut as examples. (I had an inkling kimchi has got a lot more popular in the UK over the last decade)

Let’s set the time frame as far as we can go. Google acquired YouTube in 2006, but accurate regional data for YouTube content starts around 2017.

Well, just as I suspected — it looks like kimchi overtook sauerkraut in popularity in the UK at some point around 2020-21. (Note the sudden lack of data for one period. Gaps like this tend to be down to changes happening at Google.)

Looking at the comparison breakdown by sub-region, kimchi is a clear winner in England, and just ahead in Scotland and Wales. Northern Ireland still sides with sauerkraut for the time being.

Trending now

Going back to the main Google Trends homepage, you can visit Trending Now for a general overview of what people are searching for online, without narrowing anything down.

The list updates to show what’s being clicked the most right now. Filter by country or region to see what’s trending locally or globally. If something piques your interest, click for a deeper dive into charts, related topics, and news articles that expand on that trend.

Keep in mind you can’t choose search category here. The section also leans strongly towards world events topics… and the grim nature of the news cycle. While interesting, Trending Now isn’t always useful for small online business owners.

Google Trends for SEO

Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) is all about improving your website to make it more visible on search engines like Google. You can use Google Trends to attract more visitors by finding popular trending topics and making sure those keywords are found across your website.

If you’re targeting a specific area, Google Trends helps you understand what people are searching for locally. This helps you make sure your content reaches the right people. Keep an eye on what’s new and exciting so you can stay ahead of the game.

This will make your website content more appealing to search engines and the people who searching for what you’re offering. Google Trends can also inform organic content, like blogs.

What can’t Google Trends do?

While Google Trends is useful and free to use, it does have its limitations.

First and foremost, it only focuses on popular searches and more often than not simply lacks data for less popular search terms. This is especially true for more niche topics, and this can be a pain for businesses focused on a specific industry.

And while Trends does offer regional insights, the level of detail isn’t always enough for local businesses that need precise location data.

Neither can Trends give any context to the information it does provide. It can’t tell you why a term is trending — and it’s easy to draw the wrong conclusions if you without digging a bit deeper.

A sudden spike in searches doesn’t always mean something positive is happening. Trending topics might not be trending for the right reasons (think recalled cars, contaminated foods, naughty CEOs, and so on). As ever, it’s often the negative and unfortunate news that rises to the top.

So, it’s best to use Trends in a complementary way and with some intuition.

Explore more

But wait, there’s more! Check out the Made With Trends section if you’re after creative inspiration. This is a zone for interesting projects and visualisations, often with themed or seasonal focus. It shows how versatile Google Trends can be for anyone interested in storytelling through data.

If you want to go further, the Dive Deeper section offers tools for analysing trends in depth. You can compare different topics over time, explore related subjects, and even export the data for your own analysis. It’s perfect for those looking to get more “granular” with their trend research.

You can use Google Trends together with other tools, like Google Analytics, to get a more complete picture of your online performance.

Wrap Up

So there you have it! Google Trends is a powerful tool that can help you stay ahead of the curve and make data-driven decisions for your online business. Keep an eye on emerging trends and adapt your strategy accordingly. Don’t be afraid to experiment and explore with different search terms and settings to see what insights you can uncover.