Google Trends - Using Google Search Trends For Insights Online

Of the various online applications that are available for public use, Google trends is one of the more popular - Google Earth Live notwithstanding.

Famous for its ability to track, quantify and deliver popular and not so popular search trends, it's a well used tool in any marketers tool box.

The software isn't limited by demographics - searches are collated on a global scale, then filtered down into regions, countries, continents and so forth. That's an awful lot of data crunching - and not a job to be sniffed at.

Google, in all its glory, really is a phenomenal online beast. From its inception back in the 1980's, the search engine has come along way.

Google trends is but one of its software applications - and its creation spawned that of another - Google Insights.

Both apps can be used in conjunction with the other. Trends was originally an overview, which experienced a few hiccups in the early days. Insights became its data loving partner, developed more with an eye on web marketers.

Both are worthy of using, whether you're a hobby surfer or one that uses the internet as a means of paying the bills.

Google Trends

Despite Google Trends shaky beginnings, it has gone on to become a useful application for web marketers and advertisers. The interface is uncluttered and easy to navigate and the overall user experience is (now) a relatively streamlined one.

From a data gathering perspective, it's straightforward, considering the amount of data that's utilized. The search page itself is a breeze to navigate. A simple task of typing in your search term and hitting enter - as demonstrated on Fig1.

The search return page will show a graph of relating to your search term^Fig2 as well as the demographics and language used. From the data, you can surmise that 'large dog breeds' is commonly searched for.

You can then delve deeper into the data by clicking on the countries and regional data. If you require a more in-depth look at what's underneath, what may or may not be useful from a marketing perspective, you can hot-foot it over to Google Insights For Search - a far more in-depth application.

Some marketers like to make use of Google hot trends, which indicates the fastest rising searches over the previous 24 hour period.

This is a useful tool for those looking to coast along on a hot topic wave. That makes it good for those that write consumer interest blogs, or run latest news style web sites.

Hot trends are not known for their longevity but they can be a useful tool when it comes to a quick traffic return - more so if the finished content is of the highest quality and contains the more pertinent information relating to the current hot topic.

The Google search trends relate to the latest typed search strings, the terms that global users are using as a means of locating a product, a piece of information - whatever it is that they need or are looking for.

Similar to the more widely used Google search, the trends simply delivers the top ten most used keywords. Unfortunately, just because they're the most used doesn't mean they're the most user friendly,

Many of todays global users really are just surfing the net, following current affairs or hunting for information relevant to them and them only. That said, if you use Google Trends in conjunction with Insights for Search, you may well unearth a few gems.

It's sometimes quite surprising what a quick shuffle around the trends will bring back - more so when you dig a little deeper.

So far as I'm aware, there has yet to be a release of a Google Trends API. All that API stands for is application programming interface.

The point of it was to interlace different software so that they could work together. Presumably, Google Insights became the better idea for more in-depth research.

You can locate unofficial Trends API's around the web, though none were designed by Google itself. For my part, I'm far happier using insights so have never bothered with an alternative API, and generally I'll take a look at Google Trends before hopping into the Insights application.

One of the best partner software apps for Trends is Google Insights Api. It's another surprisingly good free software app that allows the user to dive ever deeper into the minds of online users and to discover the what, why and how of their search behaviours.

There are four main categories that offer you a start from where to begin:

• Categories
• Seasonality
• Geographic Distribution
• Properties

Beyond that you can compare via search terms, locations and time ranges. You can search for one term per run, or several different ones. You can then filter the results, either before you hit enter or after. This allows you a variety of search results and autonomy as to what it is you're attempting to pinpoint.

You can narrow down your analytical efforts further again using the filter in a number of different ways:

• you can be country specific - or not
• take advantage of the stored data that goes back to 2004
  
• use categories to rule out data you won't/don't need
  

For any business, large or small, for an independent user, even academic purposes, Google Insights is an awesome partner application that perfectly compliments Trends and what it does.

The difference between the two is this:

• Trends is based upon popularity over a given time span
• Insights allows you to take what you've found in Trends and drill down the data to the point that you have a well defined overview of search patterns

One without the other works well enough. Partnered up, the results are streamlined and comprehensive. They offer far more scope and understanding for those that need data and accurate information, whether they're looking to run an ad campaign or just want some academic insight into search patterns and online behavior/s.