Google Releases Documentation on Google Trends Guide

Google has just released documentation on Google Trends that thoroughly explores this feature, from monitoring processes to analysis. Google Trends can help you understand how users find information through Google Search.

As a result, through Google Trends, you can develop strategies for content creation and determine the best ways to “communicate” with your target audience. The documentation includes six main topics:

• About Google Trends.
• How to monitor rising trends.
• How to conduct keyword research.
• Creating a content calendar.
• Conducting competitor research.
• Analyzing brand awareness and sentiment.

Overview of Google Trends

Google Trends provides a random sample of aggregated, categorized, and anonymized searches from Google and YouTube. This allows you to analyze query preferences and topics from around the world, even down to the city level.

If you plan to use Google Trends for data acquisition and analysis, you can utilize two tools provided by Google:

• Explore: This tool allows you to explore personalized topics and terms, check preferences based on location, and see relevant topics over time.
• Trending: This feature shows what’s currently trending on Google, including search volume, trend timelines, and relevant news articles.

Additionally, you can use the Google Trending Search Queries in Real-Time feature in the latest version of Google Trends to see which search queries are currently rising in popularity among users, even though the hyperlink to access this feature is no longer available on Google Trends' Homepage.

What You Can Do with Google Trends?

Google Trends can help you identify trends, allowing you to formulate content and business strategies for the future. So, what can you do with Google Trends? Here are five key activities:

1. Monitor Rising Trends

You can visit the Trending Now page to see current rising trends and the Explore page to view popular terms based on location, category, time range, and Google properties.

This way, you can implement these insights into your business and target audience. To observe rising trends effectively, you should also consider both general and specific trends. This approach helps you determine when to launch products, manage inventory if you have a physical store, and plan appropriate content.

2. Conduct Keyword Research

Google Trends can also assist you in conducting keyword research by showing what terms your target audience uses to seek the information you offer.

To perform keyword research using Google Trends, visit Explore and enter your desired term in the search box. You will then find timelines and search preferences that allow you to see which keywords have high search interest.

You can also target specific countries to see where those keywords are trending. Additionally, you can check related topics and queries connected to the keywords you enter.

3. Planning Brand-Related Content

Next, Google Trends can also help you create content and prioritize which pieces to publish first.

To prioritize the right topics, you can search for seasonal trends and plan your content based on that data before users start searching for it. This way, when they eventually look for those queries, your content can appear for them.

However, you also need to pay attention to the location of your target audience to effectively target keywords that align with trends in that area.

4. Conducting Competitor Research

Google Trends can assist you in assessing how well your website performs compared to your competitors. By understanding the overall trends relevant to your website and those of your competitors, you can gain insights into what your audience is searching for and monitor the rise and fall of search interest within your industry.

If you want to gain a deeper understanding of your competitors' search interests, you can enter their names into Google Trends. Related topics and terms can help you understand what people frequently search for in connection with those brands.

5. Analyzing Brand Awareness and Sentiment

Finally, Google Trends can help you determine the best ways to communicate with your audience. As your business grows, customers may start discussing your brand on forums and websites.

For example, if your brand is in the packaged food industry and your business faces an issue related to preservatives that go viral, many people might search for news about this by typing your company name or the incident into a search engine.

In such cases, you can create a clarification statement and publish it so that users can read your clarification when searching for information about the preservative incident.

To see what users are saying about your business, enter your business name into the Explore tool and adjust the time range to the last 30–90 days. Then, check the Rising and Top lists to see what terms users are using when discussing your brand.

Other Updates in Google Trends

On August 14, 2024, Google updated the Trending Now feature in Google Trends and highlighted several changes, including:

1. Faster Trend Updates

Trending Now can now detect rising trends ten times more frequently and update them every ten minutes on average.
Additionally, Trending Now is designed to provide the most valuable context at the forefront and center of the results, including when trends are rising, how long they’ve been trending, related news articles, and graphs of search interest over time.

This tool is now accessible in 125 countries, with 40 of them able to delve deeper into specific areas within those countries.

2. Personalization of Trending Now View

You can now filter various metrics using the available drop-down menu, such as country metrics, time range, active trends, and sorting by relevance, title, search volume, or recency.

With this update, you can access fresher data, explore trends in over 100 countries and regions globally, and customize the results to obtain more useful information. You can find more information regarding the Trending Now update on the Google Blog.