Google Trends, also called Google search trends, allows web professionals to know what users are searching for over a given period and location. How can you precisely meet users' expectations?
That is of course the crucial question to ask when building a marketing strategy genuinely centered on customer demand. This question is unavoidable for the modern business, given the major digital shift in consumption habits, a shift made even stronger by the health crisis and the e-commerce boom. And very often, any future purchase starts with the right match between the customer's query and the keywords of your own site...
How do you use this tool effectively and improve your SEO? Answers.
The Google Trends tool in brief
Google Trends calculates the number of searches performed by internet and mobile users on the search engine over a given period. This tool allows, among other things, to observe thetrend of the number of searches for a keyword over time and suggests related keywords.
Why is it so important to combine several keywords, and to do so in the most relevant way possible? Because rather than focusing on a single generic keyword, a "catch-all" term that will attract a lot of visitors but have a very low conversion rate precisely because it is too general, it is often more relevant to restrict yourself to long-tail queries, which will generate much less traffic, but highly qualified traffic that ultimately will boost your conversion rate.
Google Trends offers 4 search filters to refine results as much as possible:
- Category There are 25 of them and they allow you to obtain more reliable results by selecting thematic categories related to the searched keyword (news, games, health, travel, etc.).
- Geography You can limit results to a country or even to an administrative region (in France); you can even compare geographic regions. This feature is particularly interesting in two opposite cases: local business you want to know the keywords (possibly region-specific terms) used by your neighbors, or conversely you plan to expand to a foreign market and therefore need to know the differences in their search habits.
- Seasonality Choose the date or period you want to study. You can of course compare two periods. Indeed, an unsuspected number of Google queries are actually linked to seasons and the high points of our calendar (Christmas, Easter…). Taking seasonality into account is an integral part of your user experience improvement approach, since you show users that you understand (and even anticipate) their seasonal concerns.
- Google service Choose the section in which your keyword was entered: news, images, shopping or YouTube.
Here is a sample search on Google Trends:

We searched here for the term webmarketing in the commercial markets category and industrial, in Île-de-France, since 2004 and in web search.
A lot of information is provided:
- Search volume trend over time
- Related searches
- Rising searches, etc.

This notion of "rising searches" is particularly interesting. Indeed, Google Trends has taken care to distinguish the "most frequent searches" at a given moment from the "rising queries," i.e. those that have experienced the largest increase over the selected period. Thus, Google Trends establishes itself not only as the precision tool to know where you stand, but also where you should be heading.
An essential tool for your SEO strategy
You are a webmaster, SEO specialist, editorial manager or web writer, this powerful tool allows you to use useful information for your SEO and for choosing your online content.
The most frequently used keyword combinations by internet users allow you to optimize your titles and your URLs.
This is an essential point for two reasons. First, to propel you at the top of the search results and to stay there. Second, to catch the user's attention from the very first second, that is, when they scan the results page with their eyes. You can therefore see how good SEO health and click-through rate are actually linked.
Furthermore, taking an interest in rising searches allows you to anticipate upcoming trends and reorient your editorial content. Here, Google Trends therefore directly influences the core of your content marketing editorial strategy.
In addition, Google Trends will help you work on the substance of the semantics of your business. By comparing two seemingly identical keywords, you'll know which one performs better than the other, and can reorient your campaign based on those results.
Thus, one might at first think that "T-shirt" and "maillot" are strictly identical, and that comparing them under a microscope is a waste of time. Nothing could be further from the truth: users who spontaneously type "T-shirt" are statistically younger and more cosmopolitan than those who type "maillot" into the search bar.
Choosing an anglicism, or conversely asserting its French counterpart, says a lot about your prospects' worldview. In this respect, Google Trends is a powerful tool for analyzing the psychology of your target audience. Along the same lines, you will not choose the same keywords depending on whether you are a novice or an expert in the field in which you are searching for information.
More surprising: in some cases it can be useful to 'discreetly' use a misspelled keyword if that faulty spelling dominates queries, even if it contradicts the recommendations of the French Academy.
Another advantage of Google Trends for your business: being able to test and monitor the evolution of your popularity. Indeed, thanks to the "Compare" function, you have the possibility toanalyze your reputation on the web compare it to that of your competitors (up to five). It's ideal for objectively positioning yourself within your industry and for knowing which competitor to observe for best practices that work well with users.
You will thus be able to react more quickly if you notice a drop in trends or, conversely, an improvement in searches. In that case, try to find the event at its origin:
- Appearance on television
- Negative publicity
- New communications campaign
- Slow period (Sales, etc.)
Google Trends greatly increases your responsiveness, which has become an essential quality to survive in today’s web jungle! Indeed, consumption habits have changed, and prospects increasingly and systematically check not only customer reviews of your business but also how the company responds to negative comments and even its response time. So give prospects what they expect: near-immediacy!
As for slow periods, they deserve your full attention because you could well turn them to your advantage. Many businesses focus on high-sales periods (with Christmas at the top of the list, of course). But that’s a risky game and prepares for very uneven profits throughout the year.
Use Google Trends to be inventive and always present in Google searches and in the minds of your prospects during slow periods: you will build a solid reputation “outside sale periods,” far from the frenzied competition that reigns during peak sales, and ultimately customers will turn to you year-round. Thank you, Google Trends!

Web marketing, e-commerce and optimizing your AdWords campaign
If you are an e-commerce manager, web marketing manager, or Adwords campaign manager, comparative analysis of several keywords can help you.
You can thus assess your targets’ expectations and create an Adwords ad optimized for your prospects and focus your communication on popular products or services.
This can make you both more economical and more effective in the very costly area of advertising. Google Trends allows you to definitively turn the page on “old-fashioned” advertising — impersonal, blasted at everyone in every season across the country.
Make way for personalization, which effectively combats the growing indifference of internet users “immunized” against omnipresent, intrusive, and poorly targeted advertising. In addition, the interconnection of Google services bundle (Google Trends, Google Ads, Google Search Console) makes perfect sense here.
Finally, analysis of seasonal trends allows you to anticipate users’ and mobile users’ future queries.

Other uses of Google Trends
The Google Trends tool can also be used to get an accurate picture of theonline reputation of your brand and monitor queries that are on the rise. Moreover, one should not forget that with Google’s Author Rank, your e-reputation is increasingly taken into account for the referencing of your content.
Many e-commerce players use Google Trends to conduct market research by comparing queries made by internet users in different geographic areas.
Here is a short list of the different ways to use Google Trends:
- Find niches
- Find related product categories if you want to expand
- Research keywords to improve your SEO
- Sell based on seasonal trends
- Adapt your content to current trends
- Improve your reach on YouTube
- Find the right time for your Google Shopping ads
Discover these in more detail 7 ways to use Google Trends !

Now that you know the essentials of Google Trends, we invite you to try this particularly effective tool to optimize your SEO, your SEM campaigns, your online reputation, etc...
In fact, you will soon not be able to do without it, as Google Trends can prove to be a kind of "Swiss Army knife" for anyone working in SEO. As we've seen, one of its greatest strengths is that it creates a virtuous circle between content writing, trend research and ongoing SEO work, boosting your rankings in the SERPs, your qualified traffic and your conversion rate all at once!
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