Keyword Research with Google Trends
I took a brief look at Google Trends in a previous post. A recent blog comment over at SEOmoz has me thinking more about its potential utility.
Stemming
The comment points out how Google Trends is a great stemming research tool using this example. While the trends tool doesn’t provide absolute traffic statistics, their is substantial value in knowing the most common variants so that we can incorporate them into SEO efforts. For instance, if you’re selling digital cameras, this graph strongly suggests sticking to the singular form. Here is one more interesting example.
De-obfuscation
Many keywords have more than one meaning or use, and we are only interested in the one that is most pertinent to our business. With Google Trends we can test whether or not a general term correlates stronlgly or weakly with a more specific term. As an example, suppose we want to know the relative popularity of cable versus DSL. Unfortunately “cable” has so many meanings that we don’t really know if search statistics accurately represent demand for cable Internet service or if there is substantial demand for cable tv, cable ties, undersea cable, etc. We can tease out more information with a more specific query. If we compare the first query and this new one, you’ll see many similarities among the peaks and valleys, indicating a pretty good correlation between the word “cable” and our intended meaning, thus we can cast a less critical eye on the cable versus DSL data.
Correlation Testing
Suppose your are considering extending your advertising to reach people who are looking for products and services that might complement your own. You might be selling patio furniture and looking for a way to reach homeowners in the late spring and early summer; perhaps there is an opportunity with families that send kids to summer camp. You can test the timing like this. Since the timing is nearly perfect, it might be worth advertising to parents of camp-age kids.
Pick a feed
