First lets look at the trend data for "satellite navigation" by typing it in to Google suggest:
Looks like it has a good search volume -- meaning that lots of people are typing this word into the Google search engine everyday (the fact that data shows up on Google Trends at all indicates this). Also notice that the trend is going down though.
If we were to use some keyword suggestion tools such as the Google Adwords keyword tool or Keyword Discovery, we would find that there are related terms that people appear to be searching for more often than "satellite navigation". One of them is the term "satnav". This means exactly the same thing as "satellite navigation", it is just an abbreviation.
Let's now plot "satnav" against "satellite navigation" in Google Trends to see what the difference in serach volume is:
You can see that at some point in 2005 people began using the term "satnav" to refer to satellite navigation products and over time this term has surpassed "satellite navigation" in the amount of times it is searched.
But can we do any better? What about trying "sat nav" -- the only thing different being the space. Let's plot all 3 against each other and see what we come up with:
The difference is huge. And just think, you may have never thought to use these other terms on your own. If you were to dig a bit deeper you would find that "satnav" and "sat nav" are primarily used in the UK which is also very useful information to have.
Google Trends is great for experimenting with different keyoword combinations. Check it out for yourself at www.google.com/trends and let me know if you find anything interesting.
11 comments:
Interesting. I certainly wouldn't have though of those alternate words. I'll definitely have to play around with Google trends.
I have been using Google Trends since your presentation a few months back. It's so simple and I have been putting it to use regularly!
Great example of the difference those tiny changes make in the search volume.
This is such a great tool. Thanks so much for sharing this and providing such a clear example of how this really does make a difference.
Thanks for this tip, Scott. Such a creative use of Google tools. Will really help me spin up on new target market language. Mind if I share these tips on my blog? www.theb2blead.com?
I never even knew Google could be used in such a way. After reading your blog it's easy to see how such little changes can and do affect how people search and find things on the net. Companies should pay close attention when dealing with how they use PPC and other forms of web advertising. Talking on the internet is fast becoming a trend of shortened words and abbreviations that companies need to keep up with if they want to maximize their profits.
the google trends is a great website to reference your point. however, the problem that i run into is that for google trends to work you must have use a word or phrase that gets a substantial amount of unsolicited searches.
If you are trying to do the same research on a little smaller, lets say, mom and pop size scale than the goolge trends doesn't work.
I understand that the audience capacity on the net is enormous, but for businesses in small towns trying to determine what phrase will get more hits: san marcos restaurant or san marcos restaurants, Google trends will simply be a waste of time because it won't downsize its comparative graphs.
But thanks for showing me the site, I will use it when I think of bigger audiences.
I think Shane brings up a good point. Local and smaller businesses also want to have access to similar data. I wonder if there is any way for Google to begin to cater to these smaller businesses. Also, this may sound like kind of a dumb question, but if you search satellite navigation and then search satnav, are the results vastly different? As a consumer, would it behoove me to vary my search terms as much as possible?
That feature is awesome! I was actually at work doing a search for recent media coverage of nursing homes. Amazing what this can do, its my first time and I am already a fan. One more way Google tries to stay ahead of its competitors. Thanks!
Thanks for the comments guys. Shane and Kerri make a great point that Google Trends only shows information for high traffic searches which doesn't help much for looking at smaller searched terms.
The Google Keyword tool https://adwords.google.com/select/KeywordToolExternal is the answer to this problem. It shows information for lower searched terms. It doesn't give actual numbers, but you can see trending data. I will briefly cover this in my next post. Alternatively you can use tools like Keyword Discovery or Wordtracker to get actual number estimates, but I tend to find that they are usually pretty far off target.
Kerri - In response to your other question:
"if you search satellite navigation and then search satnav, are the results vastly different? As a consumer, would it behoove me to vary my search terms as much as possible?"
The idea is not to look at it from the perspective of which term to use when searching -- instead this is information that can be used by Marketers or webmasters to look at how consumers are searching and optimize their website to show up in a search results page for the term that more people are searching for. Hope that answers your question
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