Google Trends is a fascinating service that has fast become indispensable to online marketers, bloggers, data enthusiasts and curious individuals.
As the world's most popular search engine and one of the driving forces behind the continued growth of the internet, Google's position in the online world is undoubtedly that of a trend-setter. However, while Google may strongly influence the direction in which the internet proceeds, its self-professed dedication to making information more accessible for people around the world means it also pays close attention to global trends in search.
In recent years, the huge amounts of data it collects on search frequencies has been collated into the daily-updated Google Trends, a pioneering service that has fast become indispensable to online marketers, bloggers, data enthusiasts and curious individuals.
Google Trends is a simple but incredibly useful tool that displays the search volume for a specified keyword from the beginning of 2004 on a dual axis chart. This is titled the Search Volume Index graph. Alongside this is the News Reference Volume graph, which is particularly useful when analysing how the search volume attributed to a particular term aligns with its popularity on news websites.
The value of this set-up is neatly demonstrated by the results for the search term "flights". Across time, the search volume for "flights" follows largely the same pattern, spiking in January after the Christmas and New Year break before dipping and rising once again in the summer months. In 2010, however, this pattern changes significantly. While the January rise in "flights" search volume is mapped on Google Trends' graph, there is another much higher rise in April. This spike is mirrored in the News Reference Volume graph, which displays a huge increase in news stories containing the word "flights" in April 2010 thanks to the eruption of the Eyjafjallajokull volcano in Iceland and the ensuing travel chaos it caused.
The News Reference Volume graph, then, is vital to help search engine optimisation experts that are using Google Trends distinguish between natural spikes in search volume and those that are created by a popular news story.
These two graphs aren't the only tools provided by Google Trends. Its homepage hosts an hourly-updated list of the top 10 "Hot Searches" in the USA, which is invariably dominated by sports fixtures and entertainment stories as well as keywords from news headlines. Moreover, displayed alongside graphical information are the regional variations in search volume for a given term, as well as the languages in which it is most popularly searched.
Perhaps most interestingly for search marketing professionals - particularly those who are new to the field - Google Trends lets you compare search volume for several terms at the same time, representing the results side-by-side on the same graph. For example, a search for "Justin Bieber, flights" displays the data results for these two popular search terms simultaneously, showing that "Justin Bieber" consistently eclipsed the search volume for "flights" throughout 2010 but that both were roughly equal at the end of the year.
As the world's most popular search engine and one of the driving forces behind the continued growth of the internet, Google's position in the online world is undoubtedly that of a trend-setter. However, while Google may strongly influence the direction in which the internet proceeds, its self-professed dedication to making information more accessible for people around the world means it also pays close attention to global trends in search.
In recent years, the huge amounts of data it collects on search frequencies has been collated into the daily-updated Google Trends, a pioneering service that has fast become indispensable to online marketers, bloggers, data enthusiasts and curious individuals.
Google Trends is a simple but incredibly useful tool that displays the search volume for a specified keyword from the beginning of 2004 on a dual axis chart. This is titled the Search Volume Index graph. Alongside this is the News Reference Volume graph, which is particularly useful when analysing how the search volume attributed to a particular term aligns with its popularity on news websites.
The value of this set-up is neatly demonstrated by the results for the search term "flights". Across time, the search volume for "flights" follows largely the same pattern, spiking in January after the Christmas and New Year break before dipping and rising once again in the summer months. In 2010, however, this pattern changes significantly. While the January rise in "flights" search volume is mapped on Google Trends' graph, there is another much higher rise in April. This spike is mirrored in the News Reference Volume graph, which displays a huge increase in news stories containing the word "flights" in April 2010 thanks to the eruption of the Eyjafjallajokull volcano in Iceland and the ensuing travel chaos it caused.
The News Reference Volume graph, then, is vital to help search engine optimisation experts that are using Google Trends distinguish between natural spikes in search volume and those that are created by a popular news story.
These two graphs aren't the only tools provided by Google Trends. Its homepage hosts an hourly-updated list of the top 10 "Hot Searches" in the USA, which is invariably dominated by sports fixtures and entertainment stories as well as keywords from news headlines. Moreover, displayed alongside graphical information are the regional variations in search volume for a given term, as well as the languages in which it is most popularly searched.
Perhaps most interestingly for search marketing professionals - particularly those who are new to the field - Google Trends lets you compare search volume for several terms at the same time, representing the results side-by-side on the same graph. For example, a search for "Justin Bieber, flights" displays the data results for these two popular search terms simultaneously, showing that "Justin Bieber" consistently eclipsed the search volume for "flights" throughout 2010 but that both were roughly equal at the end of the year.
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