Those geekus maximus Google engineers have done it again. With Google Trends you can see the history for different search terms over time. You can compare search terms alone or against other terms.
"So what?" you may be asking... Well, think about it this way. If you have a web site, wouldn't it be best to optimize it for the search terms people are using? I live in the Phoenix suburb of Gilbert. Like any large metroplolitan area, there are LOTS of suburbs around here. Which one of them gets the most search queries? Well, let's go to Google Trends and find out....
Hmmm... interesting. Looks like between these five Phoenix suburbs, maybe I should be focusing my efforts on Mesa and Scottsdale. And if I decide to go with either Chandler, Tempe, or Gilbert then it's pretty much a toss up.
Mesa clearly has more search results than Scottsdale. Or does it? The terms used above are very generic and encompass alot of different things. Let's look at Mesa and Scottsdale a little closer to home:
There's a longer history for Scottsdale, but looking at current history, not so much difference between the two as the first trend shows. So it's important to refine your trend queries. But if you refine them too much there won't be enough data for Google to plot. You just have to play around with it.
Google Trends is an interesting tool. I'm not saying you should blindly follow what it shows you, but it can be helpful in trying to determine where to focus your website efforts. It's also a heck of a lot of fun, in a techno-geek sort of way. Here's an interesting trend:
I see a couple of interesting things here. One is there is a distinct drop off in search volume in the fourth quarter of both 2004 and 2005. Most agents will tell you their business drops off toward the end of the year and peaks in the summer. This trend certainly supports that. The other thing to note is that KW seems well behind some of the other big boys. But wait! There's more! Google Trends also supplies some city data as well. Here's that city data for the brokerage trends:
C21 dominates in New York City, and KW is nowhere to be found there. But look at Oklahoma City... KW, C21 and Remax are in basically a dead heat. What does this tell us? Not a whole heck of a lot. But I bet it tells some KW exec they need to expand to the Northeast...
You can also use Google Trends for totally useless things. A couple of years ago my now 12 year old daughter was a big Britney Spears fan. That has since faded (thank goodness!). And apparently my daughter is not alone in her current opinion of Ms. Spears...
Note the news references for Brit are relatively steady over the years. Yet the search volume is steadily declining. Less tenny-boppers searching for Britney pics means less popularity for the (former) pop diva.
Again, I would not base my entire web optimization strategy on Google Trends, but it is another good tool in the Search Engine Optimization arsenal.
Give it a whirl. It's easy, it's free and you get that warm fuzzy geeky feeling when you use it! If anyone comes up with an interesting trend analysis, I'd be interested in seeing it.
Yeah, that is pretty cool. That Brittany Spears thing was funny, yes, I am sure you are grateful for that change :)
Separately, simply as a note. Just out of curiosity, I did a search between Prudential, Re/Max and Coldwell Banker. I noticed that while the line graphs on the top of the result remained consistent, making Re/Max the general leader, the stats on the bar graphs showed Prudential as the dominate brokerage (for the top 10 cities). However, when re-ordering the brokerages and doing the same search, the bar graphs changed cities and also, again showed Prudential being the dominate brokerage...so where is the "dominate" Re/Max high line graph stat coming from?
I mean, HEY, the tool is really cool and that is a great posting but I am now very weary about the accuracy of the data.
Thoughts? I am sure that you have played around with it much more than me (obviously since it's your post).
The city data is dependant on the FIRST search term you used. When you reorder the cities, the data will change. But so do the colors! So you have to watch the legend. It's tricky becasue if you put Prudential first, it's blue lines and bars. But switch the order and put Remax first, then IT'S blue lines/bars.
Google shows the top 10 cities for the first search term.
The upper trend graph is based on ALL of the regional data (US, world wide, or whatever country you pick). So the top chart reflects EVERYTHING. If 2,000 people are searching for Prudential in Charleston, but 2,000,000 are searching for ReMax in Greenbow, Alabama then ReMax will be higher on the top chart.
Make sense?
Go google, and now we are hosting an office in Oregon. I expect property values to go up as the open up shop in The Dalles.
The information is great though.
Oh Jay,
I just spent an hour tweaking my Google Adwords! Wow...I'm going to plug those suckers in and see if I'm making the right decision.
What a great geeky playtoy!
Wow, thanks for sharing this. I'm so glad its free too, I've been looking for something similar to optimize my website!
The pictures are very helpful, I doubt I would of understood it with just plain text :)
Yoana
This is fabulous, except our here in New Hampshire apparently our search terms "do not have enough search volume to show graphs"
Bummer!
I love these things. It helps you to know that sometimes there are things going on in the market beyond your control.
When we were doing cattle, I made up an excel list of a package of nice bulls for the management. Then, I charted it. It showed some encouraging trends in their livestock management that they KNEW, but hadn't really seen on paper.
This tool can steer us to the better key words, can show us what won't work at all if the fish aren't biting, and make us feel so SMART.
Thanks for presenting that information in such a keen manner.!
Goog info. Thanks. I'm going to check it out more.
Steve
How utterly cool! I've been playing with this for a while and sent the info off to my sales manager - this is just the kind of toy we both enjoy a lot!
Thanks for letting us know about it!
This is terrific! Thanks for sharing such a great find. What next??
Jeff
Awesome. I will be spending many hours researching keywords.
So along the lines of what you said, it is important to know which keywords are used most. People don't realize that your website has to focus on a few main keywords. You can't just put every word in the universe on your page and expect to get equal ranking. But you also might consider the COMPETITION with certain keywords. If you find that "Virginia MLS" and "Buy in Virginia" have the same search volume, but "Virginia MLS" has 50% fewer results, that means that if you focus your search engine placement on the less competitive one, you will have a better chance at getting in the top 10.
For example: Virginia MLS on google, my site is the first free site. and Free VA MLS
Would you mind posting this in my new group: http://activerain.com/groups/greatproducts
Frank Borges LL0SA- Virginia Broker/ Owner FranklyRealty.com
Blog.FranklyRealty.com Featured in BusinessWeek, CNBC, WSJ etc.
So much to learn so little time. I am always looking for ways to evaluate my online expierience. Thanks so much the report.
Thanks for finding that and reporting it. I will definitely go and check that out as soon as I'm done typing this. I just posted a Google-related post if you are interested: http://activerain.com/blogs/AZmortgageLady
By the way Jay and Francy, I'm right here in the valley also. I am a mortgage broker and I also do search engine optimization for Realtors I work with. Let me know if you'd like to work together!
Totally facinating. Got to check this out. Thanks!!
Ozarks Joan
Wow, great information. Certainly valuable when determining how to strcuture links to make best use of search engine rankings.
I'll surely be looking at this when I go through my next site design.
Thanks for sharing. :)
-B
I bookmarked this entry for good reason.....I will be doing reaserch into keywords for my local area.....I am #7 right now BUT is the keyword a good term to be using???
I know now how to find out....
THANKS!!
=-D =-D