The Best Free Keyword Research Tool I've Ever Used!
May 02, 2019
The Best Free Keyword Research Tool I've Ever Used!
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Overall Satisfaction with Google Trends
I have used Google Trends within the marketing team at my organization to support sales. The platform enables us to incorporate SEO into our content creation process by understanding how our audience discovers content that is relevant to our products. In addition to giving us insight into the needs of our customers, it has definitely helped us increase web traffic and generate leads for the sales team.
- I love how Google Trends presents the popularity of a specific query by location. For example, my product may be more popular or more "searched" in a specific state or city. This helps a lot for direct mail campaigns or any sort of in-person marketing efforts like events or pop-ups. You could use the information from Google Trends to decide what locations will be more receptive of your product/industry or you could see where people have little to no interest and build a brand awareness campaign focusing on those areas.
- Another great feature within Google Trends is that it shows "Related Queries", which are basically suggestions of better keywords or phrases to incorporate into your content. If you search for data on a keyword you're using that's too broad (your content won't stand out among other web pages) or too narrow (not many potential customers are searching that keyword or phrase), Google Trends will suggest a related keyword or phrase that is more appropriate or trending at the moment. You could go back and incorporate these phrases into your content so that it's more likely to be found on search engines.
- Within the Google Trends "Related Topics" section, you can choose whether you want to see topics that are "Top" or "Rising". I like this feature because looking at a "Rising" topic can help you create content that's more likely to be seen - especially if you're a beginner. Most topics that are in the "Top" category can have thousands of web pages that you're competing against and you can feel like your content is drowning. But the topics in the "rising" category can be great for newer sites that haven't developed authority online yet. You can write on one of these topics and be one of the first sites to create content on that topic, which gives you a head start over other sites.
- Google Trends "Categories" is also a great feature. If you don't have any content ideas for your website, you can easily find inspiration by selecting a category that's relevant to your industry. The top keywords or topics will come up and you can create content on those topics to increase your number of web visitors. For example, if you work in the fashion industry and you don't have content ideas, you can have Google Trends generate data for the "Beauty & Fitness" or "Shopping" categories to see what's trending. Google will tell you if a specific brand, person, or event is trending and you could write an article based on one of those trends. Since people are searching for that topic, your content will be seen. This is a great way to create timely content even if you're new to an industry or simply haven't kept up with it.
- I think that Google Trends needs a tutorial mode or some sort of instructional pop-ups. The only reason why I understand how or why the information on Google Trends is useful is that I took a course on it prior to using it professionally. For a beginner, it's very possible that you could look at all of the graphs and information available and have no idea how you can apply it in your role. It would be helpful if each feature gave examples on how it could be used. However, Google Trends is free and this is the only con I see within the platform.
- Google Trends has helped with sales in general at every organization I've used it with. We have been able to increase sales by creating content that is more relevant and focuses on the pain points our customers face that we had no idea about. Being able to build a marketing campaign or go into a sales call knowing exactly why a potential customer needs your product or what their concerns are is empowering and beneficial for both parties. Google trends can give you that insight. The annual sales goals have increased by the millions each year and we always meet these goals - starting off with data from Google Trends.
- Google Trends is also great for new or non-profit companies because the platform is free so, there's always a return on the investment. You don't have to break the bank to get useful data and I think people often think they need to hire a professional or spend thousands to get the insights available on Google trends for free.
- Google Trends has also helped us save thousands on campaigning. There are often a lot of wasted marketing dollars when the marketing team has no direction. Seeing trends and keywords can give your team direction and ensure that you're targeting the right people, the right way, with the right information.
- SEMRush, Buzzsumo, Google Search Console, Google Ads (formerly AdWords), Google Correlate, WordTracker and Suggestion Keyword Finder
One of the most obvious reasons why I chose Google trends over other keyword research platforms is because it's free. At the same time, it also has the most relevant and easy-to-use features out of the bunch. Google Trends does not have as many features as SEMRush or Buzzsumo, but those platforms come with a hefty price tag. Google Trends, to me, is the best free keyword research platform that exists and it would only be worth checking out the alternatives I mentioned if you're an established company with a large marketing budget.