Introduction to Using Google Trends

Introduction: The Basics

Introduction: The Basics

Like all things Google, the interface of Google Trends is simple and easy to grasp. You start off with a search box with two columns below it listing the "Hot Topics" and Hot Searches." Hot Topics are popular topics mentioned in the news or on messaging services like Twitter. Hot Searches are the fastest-rising searches (so instead of searches that will always be fairly popular like "YouTube," it tracks sudden surges in popularity, like "google logo september 7").

Google Trends looks at a portion of Google searches to come up with how many searches have been done for the terms you search, relative to the total number of searches done on Google. You can compare up to five terms by separating each one with a comma. So for example, if you wanted to see the search volumes of iPhone vs Droid, would just put "iPhone, Droid" in the search box. The results are shown on graphs, with a different color for each. This tools can be used to see how two companies in direct competition are doing, like Coke and Pepsi, or investigate up and coming sites like ArtFire. To see how many searches contained either term, just separate them with a vertical bar: |

If you see all zeros in the results graph, there might not be enough search volume generate a graph. After your search terms are entered, you can use the drop-down boxes at the top of the page to refine the results to a particular time frame or region. Make sure to note that the numbers you see on the y-axis do not reflect search traffic numbers, but rather the first term is averaged so that the traffic appears as 1.0. Other terms are scaled relative to the first term, and all numbers are relative to total traffic.

So How Do You Use This Information?

You can see the daily unique visitors of a website by entering the site into the search bar and switching from "searches" to "websites" at the top of the page in the light blue shaded bar. If you are logged in to Google you will be able to see the actual numbers, not just the trend. You can use this feature to observe what similar websites are doing in terms of traffic, or keep an eye on the competition. You can also see what time-frames have resulted in increased traffic, and try to investigate why.

Google Trends also lists ten sites visited and ten search terms used by those who visited the website you searched. So for example, people who checked CNN.com also visited IDG.com and searched "cnn money." If you switch the geography setting to "All Regions" you can also see what is going on internationally.

Remember, Google Trends does not extrapolate meaning from the data; that is a job left up to the user. There may be many factors that influence outcomes.

Introduction to Using Google Trends

By: Lily Evans

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