Google Trends: Where's The Beef?

By Amanda Collins
SEO Specialist

No, I’m not referring to Lady Gaga’s meat dress!  As I reviewed Google Trends  this week , I was not surprised to see Ms. Gaga ranked in the top 10 hottest searches and topics. Her “hotness” peaked to the level of volcanic  at 8:00pm on Sunday evening (see graph below) when she appeared at the 2010 MTV VMA Awards in a “meat dress”, which continues to deliver a steady stream  of tweets, blogs, and news discussions.  I’m hoping Ms. Gaga will consider a “fish dress”, preferably in a shade of purple,  for her 2011 VMA appearance.


Like myself, you may not appreciate this new bit of Hollywood trivia entering your consciousness and/or conversations.  However, I have no doubt that Ms. Gaga will continue to fill our news forums, discussions, tweets, and blog posts for years to come.  She is especially popular Mexico, Venezuela, and Chile, with the United States ranking #7 for Gaga related Internet traffic.

If you’d like to see what else is hot (or spicy or volcanic) at Google Trends, you will have to sort through the latest celebrity gossip.  However, with some patience, you can find the real meat if you plan what to search for and take time to sort and analyze your results. If you haven’t used Google Trends before, I would recommend starting off with a few simple searches that could easily reveal some trends about your business, products, and services.

• Compare your product/service vs. your competition during a specific time period.
  
  • (ie: Coke, Pepsi during the past 12 months).
  • You may notice spikes in interest based on a news story or time of year.
• Compare your product/service along with your competition in specific regions, or sub-regions.
  
  • (ie: Searches for Coke/Pepsi in India).
  • You may be surprised to see the popularity of your product or service in an international or local market where you never considered your product or services to be of value. 
• Discover what your customers are saying about you and your product/service in local blogs, tweets, and discussions.
  
  • (ie. Latest buzz about Coke and Pepsi)
  • Take your findings a step further by limiting your search to specific time frames and look for trends based on time of day, time of month, year, etc.

Good luck searching for trends and have fun!

(Note: Every Friday, Amanda will share thoughts, ideas and findings using Google Trends)