Forget diamonds and dogs. Google is your best friend. This is particularly true if you’re an entrepreneur. I’ve mentioned before how Google has various tools that will essentially do the job of increasing your website’s visibility for you. The way to best accomplish that is the Google Search Console. Honestly, though, if you think that this is the only trick that Google has up its sleeve for you, think again. There are so many other ways that Google plans to help you grow your business, but the one I’m going to address this time is Google Trends.

In case you were unaware, Google Trends is, basically, a great tool to determine what terms are trending on Google. Specifically, this tool lets you know what terms have been entered into the Google search engine and how often they have been entered within a certain amount of time. This is a great tool for conducting market research and trying to determine which terms are something you should focus on.

Say, for instance, you want to gather data on platypuses because, for some odd reason, you believe that to be the next big thing, or maybe even the next relatively popular thing. (Listen, in a world where unicorns and mermaids tickle everyone’s fancy, this is totally plausible). In such a scenario, you could go to the Google Trends website, type in the term, and it’ll populate the resultsㅡis the term popular, how often was it searched, and where it’s popular.

This task may seem frivolous and unnecessary to some, but others might find it life-saving. While it’s not mandatory to have this tool, it could be crucial to growing your business. So, let’s take a look at other ways Google Trends can be helpful to you.

1. Create and Optimize Content for Seasonal Trends

“Here today, gone tomorrow” is probably one of the most accurate phrases to describe our society. Something can be a hit one day, and the next it’s almost forgotten. That’s why using Google Trends could come in handy. Certain trends, one could argue most trends, are only going to be trends for a brief amount of time, so it’s great to capitalize on that brief popularity.

Think about sweaters and bathing suits. Overall, the general populace rarely searches these terms year-round. Using the Google Trends tool, you can determine exactly at what point those terms become popular and capitalize on that by having your products ready at just the right time.

2. Find Trending Topics to Utilize

Remember the platypus. If you want to release a plethora of platypus products, you’d do well to determine whether or not the term is even relevant. The last thing you want to do is waste time, energy, and resources on something that isn’t even worth the time. Google Trends has something called a “trending search tool” on its site. Using this tool can help you determine what topics have been recently trending over a certain period of time. So, if you happen to look this up and don’t see a platypus anywhere, you might want to try something else.

3. Gauge Demand in Specific Regional Areas

This tool is interesting because different things can be trending in different areas. Not everyone will like the same thing. Platypuses could be popular in Florida, but pandas could be all the rage in Connecticut. As an ecommerce store owner, you’ll want to know how to best cater to your entire audience. Utilizing these functions could feed you some insight on what works best in a given area. You could even do something as crafty as releasing limited edition products by area if it suited you. If you’re looking to be more localized with your catalog, however, this tool will be essential in helping you determine your target audience.

4. Compare Different Topics

Compare apples to oranges, mermaids to unicorns, DC to Marvel using Google Trends. If you’re debating what direction to go with your next set of stock, using this tool might be helpful. You’ll be able to determine what products or keywords are waxing and waning in comparison to other products or keywords and then go from there. For some people, this could just be a fun tool, but for others it could be critical in determining if you use patterns or prints in your next collection.

5. Brand Monitoring

This might easily be one of the most important functions from Google Trends. Using the tool, you would be able to determine where you stand in relation to your competitors as well as where you stand in general with your target audience. As mentioned before, you can use Trends to compare different things. Yes, it can be a fun tool to use just to see what silly things are more popular than others, but it could also be critical in determining your site’s popularity. If you find that your site is lagging in comparison to your competitors, then it may be time to kick it up a notch.

Also, if you wanted to view your brands trendiness over a certain period of time, this would still be a useful tool. By viewing your brand’s history, you could determine what worked in the past and what isn’t working now, or vice versa. Google Trends is great in the sense that it will help you determine what you need to change or fix in order to keep the gravy train coming along.

Conclusion

While Google Trends is awesome in many ways, there are a few drawbacks. For one, a topic that is trending might not necessarily be trending for a good reason. It could be infamous. You don’t really want to just go off of the spike of a trending topic’s popularity, you'll want to dig into the why of it as well. There could also be extenuating circumstances, or outliers. Say for instance, you search platypuses and your results determine that, on average, the term is searched 50 times per month on a scale of 0 to 100. This may seem like good news, but that may not be the case. If the term was being searched 10 to 15 times and then it had a good month due to some occurrence at a zoo, this could skew the results to seem like it’s always popular when, in fact, it’s just a flash in the pan.

Conversely, you also don’t want to jump on the bandwagon of a topic. Why, you ask? Because everybody and their mother will be jumping on too. You don’t want to get lost in the sauce―you’ll want to stand out. But fear not, Google Trends will be able to assist in determining which approach to take (remember, compare apples to oranges). All in all, the pros outweigh the cons, so Google Trends is the crafty little best friend that every ecommerce store owner should utilize.