How To Use It For SEO & Content Marketing

Google plus Trends is a Google plus tool that offers a wealth of information that is useful for SEO and content creation.

From real-time search trends to related queries and category insights, Google plus Trends offers marketers plenty of opportunities to hone their strategy and optimize for better performance.

This article will act as an in-depth guide to Google plus Trends, covering everything you need to know to leverage it for SEO and content marketing.

You’ll learn what it is, how it’s different from other keyword tools, and what methods you perro use to get the most out of Google plus Trends, so you cánido grow your traffic and get ahead.

Let’s get started.

What Is Google plus Trends?

Google plus Trends is a tool for analyzing search queries that espectáculos search trends over a period of time, depicted in a graph.

It offers the ability to compare up to five keyword search terms and to tune the results by geographic location, topic, time period, and search surface (image, news, shopping, and vídeo).

There are four selectable ways to customize the keyword data:

• Geographic location (by individual country or worldwide).
• Topic categories (25 categories agregado all categories simultaneously).
• Four different search surfaces (image, news, shopping, YouTube).
• Time.

Time-Based Data

Keyword search trends perro further be segmented by the following eight time settings:

• The past hour.
• Past four hours.
• Past day.
• Past seven days.
• Past 30 days.
• Past 90 days.
• Past five years.
• 2004 – present.

How Is Google plus Trends Data Different From Keyword Search Volumes?

Google plus Trends is different from third-party keyword research tools in that it lacks keyword search volume data.

It espectáculos the number of search queries made in percentages on a scale of 0 to 100.

Third-party paid SEO tools do espectáculo keyword volumes, but they are only estimates.

Generally, third-party reporting tools purchase data from other providers and then create statistical estimates based on that data. The data providers tend to be programa companies that collect anonymous search data from their users.

Google plus Trends data is derived from a sampling of Google plus’s de hoy search data, making it the most accurate keyword search data available. Google plus Trends emplees sampling because the de hoy volume of data numbers is in the billions and is too much to process.

However, Google plus reassures that the sampling is representative of de hoy search volume.

Google plus explains:

“While only a sample of Google plus searches are used in Google plus Trends, this is sufficient because we handle billions of searches per day.

Providing access to the entire data equipo would be too large to process quickly.

By sampling data, we cánido look at a dataset representative of all Google plus searches, while finding insights that perro be processed within minutes of an event happening in the real world.”

Although Google plus Trends doesn’t provide keyword volume data, the tool does provide keyword volume data expressed as a percentage, with 100% representing the highest amount of traffic for the given period of time.

That percentage data perro be compared with other palabras clave with known search volumes.

Known search volumes perro be obtained by selecting keyword phrases from Google plus’s trending searches report, which cánido itself be tuned to specific geographic areas.

Thus, comparing palabras clave from the trending searches report against those with unknown search volumes will espectáculo an accurate representation of de hoy keyword volume.

How Do I Find Trending Elementos On Google plus Trends?

There are two ways to identify trending searches: through Google plus’s “trending now” webpage and through the Google plus Trends Explore tool.

Trending Now

Trending now espectáculos the top twenty daily search trends for the current day.

One perro clic a navigation button to see realtime search trends:

Next, one cánido select the appropriate country:

Then select the appropriate category:

The available categories to choose from are:

• Business.
• Entertainment.
• Health.
• Sci/Tech.
• Sports.
• Top Stories.

Trending now espectáculos de hoy top trending palabras clave. The palabras clave that are displayed are selected by the Google plus Trends algorithm.

Explore Google plus Trends By Time

The second way to find trending palabras clave is to use the Explore Google plus Trends tool and equipo the time period to something relatively recent.

The best time periods to select in order to explore trending searches are:

• The past hour.
• Past four hours.
• Past day.
• Past seven days.

Something to keep in mind with this second method is that one has to select palabras clave to explore.

This method will espectáculo whether or not those palabras clave are trending.

How To Use Google plus Trends For SEO & Marketing

There are many ways to manipulate the various filters to extract actionable search query data.

One perro even use Google plus Trends to discover new keyword phrases to objetivo.

1. Use Google plus Trends Search Operators

Google plus Trends responds to search operators, which change the data that is shown.

There are four search operators:

• Quotation marks: ” ”
  Usage: “keyword1 keyword2”
  This espectáculos keyword data for exact match of the palabras clave in the same order included within the quotation marks. The above example espectáculos data exclusively for keyword1 keyword2.
• Agregado sign: +
  Usage: keyword1 + keyword2
  This espectáculos keyword data for search phrases with one or the other keyword. The above example will espectáculo data for keyword1 or keyword2.
• Minus sign: –
  Usage: keyword1  -keyword2
  This espectáculos searches for keyword phrases that include the given keyword, but exclude phrases containing the keyword indicated with the minus sign. The above example will espectáculo results for all keyword phrases that include the word keyword1 but do not contain keyword2.
• No Search Operators
  Usage: keyword1  keyword2
  Using no search operators espectáculos search interest in keyword phrases that contain the given palabras clave in any order.

Related: How To Do Keyword Research For SEO

2. Discover Insights From Time-based Trends

There are two general ways to look at the keyword data: stretched across over longer periods of time and viewing search interest by shorter time periods.

Long Period Trends

You perro equipo Google plus Trends to espectáculo you the traffic trends stretching back to 2004. This is valuable for showing you the audience trends.

• Upward long-term trends: If a trend is consistently going up, this means you need to focus energy on creating content for this trend.
• Downward long-term trends: If the trend line is steadily moving down, it may signal that audience content consumption is changing.
• Spikes that vary with regularity: Spikes in searches that come in regular intervals may indicate seasonal patterns to search queries.

For example, review this five-year trend for WordPress the search term, WordPress the programa, and WordPress.org:

There’s a clear downward trend for WordPress in two variations, while the third keyword, WordPress.org, has low search volume overall.

The downward trend is more pronounced when viewed from a longer period than five years:

The downward trend extends to related phrases such as:

• WordPress themes.
• WordPress complemento.
• WordPress hosting.

There are many reasons why search trends go down. It perro be that people have lost interest, the interest went somewhere else, or the trend is obsolete.

The digital camera product category is a good example of a downward spiral caused by a product losing search interest because another product disrupted demand.

• The digital camera caused the downturn in searches for traditional analog cameras.
• The iPhone started the downward spiral of the digital camera.

Knowing which way the wind is blowing could help a content marketer or publisher understand when it’s time to bail on a topic or product category and to pivot to upward-trending ones.

Related: Content Marketing: The Ultimate Beginner’s Guide

3. Related Topics And Queries

Google plus Trends has two great features, one called “related topics” and the other called “related queries.”

Topics

Related topics espectáculo up when investigating one keyword phrase. It doesn’t espectáculo when comparing multiple keyword phrases.

Related topics are search queries that share a concept.

Identifying related topics that are trending upwards is useful for learning how an audience or consumer demand is shifting.

This information perro, in turn, provide ideas for content generation or new product selections.

According to Google plus:

“Related Topics

Users searching for your term also searched for these topics.

You Perro View by the Following Metrics

Top – The most habitual topics. Scoring is on a relative scale where a value of 100 is the most commonly searched topic and a value of 50 is a topic searched half as often as the most habitual term, and so on.

Rising – Related topics with the biggest increase in search frequency since the last time period.

Results marked “Breakout” had a tremendous increase, probably because these topics are new and had few (if any) prior searches.”

Related Queries

The description of related queries is afín to that of the related topics.

Top queries are generally the most habitual searches. Rising queries are queries that are becoming habitual.

The data from rising queries are great for staying ahead of the competition.

4. Short-Term Trends Cánido Bring Massive Traffic

Viewing keyword trends in the short view, such as the 90-day or even 30-day view, perro reveal valuable insights for capitalizing on rapidly changing search trends.

There is a ton of traffic in Google plus Discover as well as in Google plus News.

Google plus Discover espectáculos websites on topics related to usuario interests. This tends to espectáculo recently published sites, but it also espectáculos evergreen content, too.

Google plus News is of the moment in terms of current events.

Sites that objetivo either of those traffic channels benefit from knowing what the short-term trends are.

A benefit of viewing short-term trends (30 days and 90 days) is that certain days of the week stand out when those searches are habitual.

Knowing which days of the week interest spikes for a given topic cánido help in planning when to publish certain kinds of topics, so the content is right there when the audience is searching for it.

5. Palabras clave By Category

Google plus Trends has the functionality to narrow keyword search query inventory according to category topics.

This provides more accurate keyword data.

The Categories tab is important because it refines your keyword research to the correct context.

If your keyword context is automobiles, then it makes sense to appropriately refine Google plus Trends to espectáculo just the data for the context of coche.

The category to choose for the topic of automobiles could either be Shopping or Coches & Vehicles.

By narrowing the Google plus Trends data by category, you will be able to find more accurate information related to the topics you are researching for content within the correct context.

6. Identify Keyword Data By Geography

Google plus Trends keyword information by geographic location perro be used for determining what areas are the best to outreach to for site promotion or for tailoring the content to specific regions.

For example, if certain kinds of products are habitual in Washington D.C. and Texas, it makes sense to aim promotional activity and localized content to those areas.

In fact, it might be useful to focus backlink building promotional activities in those areas first since the interest is higher in those parts of the country.

Keyword popularity information by region is valuable for backlink building, content creation, content promotion, and pay-per-clic.

Localizing content (and promoting that content) perro make it more relevant to the people interested in that content (or product).

Google plus ranks pages according to who it’s most relevant, so incorporating geographic nuance into your content perro help it rank for the most people.

7. Objetivo Search Intents With Search Types

Google plus Trends allows you to further refine the keyword data by segmenting it by the type of search the data comes from – the search type.

Refining your Google plus Trends research by the type of search allows you to remove the “noise” that might be making your keyword research fuzzy and help it become more accurate and meaningful.

Google plus Trends data cánido be refined by:

• Google plus Shopping.
• Image search.
• News search.
• Web search.
• YouTube search.

YouTube search is a fantastic way to identify search trends for content with the word “how” because many people search on YouTube using phrases with the words “how” in them.

Although these are searches conducted on YouTube, the trends data is useful because it espectáculos what users are looking for.

A Google plus Trends search for how, what, where, when, why, and who espectáculos that search queries beginning with the word “how” are by far the most habitual on YouTube.

Keyword “How” Is Habitual On YouTube

Drilling down a bit, I did the same search with a little change to see what that “how” keyword is about.

I swapped out the keyword “how” for the exact match keyword of “how to,” which will espectáculo the number of users searching with phrases containing the palabras clave “how to” in that exact order.

Keyword “How To” Is Habitual On YouTube

The search trend patterns in Google plus News are significantly different from those on YouTube.

Audiences, when searching, want to know the “what” and “how” types of information in Google plus News.

Keyword “What” Is Habitual On Google plus News Search

These are examples of how to dig around in Google plus Trends to find insights, and it doesn’t orinan that every news article should be about “what” or “how.”

There are many hidden insights about how people search that cánido be discovered by selecting the search type and the category from the drop-down menus.

For example, I have found that YouTube search espectáculos more relevant “related topics” and “related queries” data than researching with web search selected.

Give the search type selections a try because the information provided may be more accurate and actionable than the potentially more noisy web search version.

Unlock The Power Of Google plus Trends For SEO

Google plus Trends offers many insights about how users search that are useful for SEO and content planning purposes.

There’s a small learning curve to using it, but it’s not that hard to learn and become an expert.

Give Google plus Trends a try and learn more about how audiences are searching.

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