Item: Google Trends
Rating: 10
Author: Robbin Block

Overall Satisfaction with Google Trends

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

I use it for my own consulting business, as well as for my clients' businesses to research seasonality by industry. It's also great for comparing general search terms' volume when doing keyword research.

Pros and Cons

Pros

Researching industry seasonality.
Researching product purchase intent by keyword search.

Cons

You can narrow your search by industry, but Google doesn't always have a category that applies. It would be nice to be able to drill down and even search for what may be a closer fit.
Perhaps some integration between Keyword Planner and Google Trends would be nice, so you don't have to bounce between them.

Return on Investment

It helps me refine my keywords, which is key for driving more traffic to my website.
It helps me refine keywords for my clients, which plays a role in me helping them get more website traffic.

Alternatives Considered

Google Ad Manager, Google Analytics and Google Search Console

It's not really an either/or thing — I use the complete "Google Marketing Stack" including Analytics, Trends, Keyword Planner, Search Console, etc. It's also essential to integrate some of their data, like making sure Google Search Console and Google Analytics are connected — this provides insights to impressions and click-throughs from the Search Engine Results Page (SERP) for further refining keywords and meta descriptions. I also use tools like "Answer the Public" for keyword research, and of course, there are many others.

Support Rating

It's really not applicable. I've never needed or requested support for Google Trends.

Key Insights

Do you think Google Trends delivers good value for the price?

Yes

Are you happy with Google Trends's feature set?

Yes

Did Google Trends live up to sales and marketing promises?

Yes

Did implementation of Google Trends go as expected?

Yes

Would you buy Google Trends again?

Yes

Other Software Used

Airtable, Weebly, Squarespace, Shopify, Screaming Frog SEO Spider

Likelihood to Recommend

Google Trends is a good fit for generalized keyword research and for getting some understanding of seasonality by industry. However, it's really just a start. It doesn't tell the whole story, so typically more research is required for decision making. I use it when teaching marketing classes to get people excited about doing their research because it provides an immediate, visual result. It also gives newbies insight into how Google "thinks".

Google Trends Feature Ratings

Comments

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Get Fast Results Comparing Keyword Phrases with Google Trends.