Understanding everything you need to improve your website’s SEO and the various tools involved in doing this can feel overwhelming. There are many different methods of finding keywords and content topics that your business can rank for, and some can be more advanced and complicated than others. However, there’s one easy and free way to get some of this information you shouldn’t overlook. Google Trends is a great way of doing this and can be a great addition to your SEO and content strategies.

Anyone can use Google Trends to find search term trends and learning to navigate it is simple. Here are a few ways you can use Google Trends for SEO.

Understand Keyword Trends

There are many tools you can use to find out what search volumes your target keywords have. However, you shouldn’t only be basing what keywords you use on how many searches they’re currently getting. What can be just as important in some cases is the search trends for keywords.

Not all keywords get searched consistently throughout the year. Rather, many keywords are seasonal and only get significant search volumes during certain times of the year. If you’re targeting these keywords year-round, there could be long periods where you don’t bring in any traffic from them, which is something you need to know beforehand. Additionally, some keywords are bound to get less popular over time. Your keyword might have an okay search volume right now, but if it’s had a consistent decline, it might be better to avoid it if it’s obviously going to continue to decline.

Find Similar Keywords

You don’t only want to have one keyword in mind. You should use multiple keywords to help give your content better context to search engines and increase your chances of ranking for more searches. However, you might not always know what other keywords to go after. Using Google trends can help you find keywords related to yours that other people are searching for at the moment. These are more opportunities to include keywords that you can rank for in your content.

Capitalize on Breakout Keywords

It can be difficult to rank for keywords with a high search volume for most businesses due to the competition. While you should typically be wary of going after high-search volume keywords, there are some times when you might be able to rank well for them.

Keywords that are only just starting to attract a lot of attention might not have as much competition as keywords that have consistently had a high search volume. When trends change incredibly quickly, not everyone has the time to adjust and go after them. They might not even be aware of this shift.

Google Trends shows you rising and breakout keywords related to the term you’re researching. Rising keywords show you the percentage of growth the term has had. Breakout keywords are especially important to look out for. Terms listed as “breakout” have grown by more than 5000%. While there’s no telling how consistent the search volume for these terms will be, they can help bring in more traffic as they’re trending.

Discover New Topic Ideas

Consistently creating new topics can become difficult after a while, and you might feel like there’s nothing else you can do. This is why understanding how to do topic research is so important. While Google Trends can be beneficial for finding keywords, they also provide trending topics related to your target keywords. If you know that you have to go after a certain keyword, this is a great way of finding the best topics to go along with it.

Optimize for Local Searches

Local businesses need to be careful about the keywords they target because their audience is limited to specific locations. Maybe a keyword is trending, which can make it seem like something you should target, but people in your specific area aren’t looking for it. You want to know that the people in your target audience are the ones searching for your keywords, otherwise, these search terms won’t bring any new business.

Google Trends allows you to look at how search trends vary based on location. You can narrow searches down to certain states, metro areas, and individual cities.

Let ENX2 Do the Work for You

While there are some ways to take SEO into your own hands, what you can do with simple, free tools is limited. You can gain a lot of valuable knowledge this way, but to have a significant impact, you need a team of SEO experts to handle the more complicated tasks. At ENX2 Marketing, we have everything you need to beat your competitors in the SERPs.

How to Use Google Trends for SEO