30-second summary:
- Keywords are still important for SEO, but what’s increasingly important is their relevance, uniqueness, and popularity over time.
- Google Trends is a powerful tool that lets you gauge this and more.
- With Google Trends, you can get a view of what keywords to include, what to avoid, and what to plan for.
- You also get deeper dives into related topics, predictions, and how to overcome blind spots.
As an SEO professional, we’re sure that there’s one word you’ve heard and used often, and that is, “keywords”. After all, if you know what people are searching for, you can create content that guides them to your site. A great way to identify effective keywords is by using Google Trends, one of the world’s largest real-time datasets. It can give you an insight into what people are searching for, interested in, and curious about.
With more than 3.5 billion Google searches conducted every day[1], this is a powerful tool you can’t ignore. In the words of the Google Trends team[2], “you can now explore minute-by-minute, real-time data behind the more than 100 billion searches that take place on Google every month, getting deeper into the topics you care about.”
Now, you may be thinking that this sounds great — but where do I begin? Take a deep breath and pay attention because we’re going to outline the 11 best ways you can use Google Trends to come up with apt keywords.
Ready? Let’s go.
1. Understand keyword search volume
Keyword search volume refers to how many times specific words were searched for during a given time frame. If sites contain words with a high volume, it’s clear that they’re going to get more traffic.
If you enter any keywords into