Jul1

Written by:
2010/07/01 08:10 AM 

How to get traffic to your blog is a very widely used search term. There are so many different pieces of advice that no one of them can be the golden rule.

The most important aspect of securing good consistent traffic is to write quality content. But there is another important aspect to writing quality content. That is the chosen topic for your content.

It matters not that your content is from the top drawer, when no one is interested in what you’re writing about.

So then how do you find out what people are interested in.

By using Google trends.

What is Google Trends?

Google Trends is a keyword research tool that can help you see at a glance how many people are searching on Google for the keywords you're considering. But it’s more than just a keyword research tool. It’s main function is to show trends.

It not only reflects what people are searching for on a daily basis, but can also show what they search for over a period of time.

You can also compare how certain topics are viewed or search for around the world, as well as see how those topics appear in popular news items over time.

Think of Google trends as a topical research tool. Digging through Google’s search volume data can put your searches into historical context and give you a lot of insight into human behaviour and reactions. The results of the Trend is a great measure of how interested people are in a particular topic over any given time period as it relates to search volume data (How people search over a period of time)

How to use Google Trends

The key to using Google Trends is to search for the right keywords and then interpret the results.

The first thing you would need to do is a proper keyword and niche analysis. So that you can come up with the right terms to analyse.

Check out my blog post on Free Keyword Research Tools for SEO. This will help you get started.

Once you have your terms, go to Google trends website and enter the search terms separated by commas. Analyse the results.

I’m going to show you two examples of using Google trends. A Popularity Compare and a Normal trend.

Popularity Compare

Lets say we want to compare how popular Facebook, Twitter, and MySpace are. Enter the search term into Google Trends, separated by a comma.

Here we can see how popular Facebook is in the search arena. But Twitter and Facebook share the spoils when it comes to newsworthy items. This will tell us that blog posts that are concentrated on Facebook will draw greater traffic through Google’s organic search.

Popular Trends

Not only can we see what is popular in a straight comparison, but Google trends is a nice tool to see seasons and repetitive trends.

Lets do another search. Lets say we want to sell flowers, flags, and perfume,. Which would be the best time to blog about each item to get the most exposure and greatest possibility for traffic.

Well enter the three terms into Google Trends and lets see what we come up with.

 

Here we see some interesting trends. Flowers peak Twice every year, February and May. February for Valentines day and May for possible May Day and or the beginning of the Northern hemisphere spring/summer. Good time for weddings, etc.

Flags has a steady rise every middle of the year. Probably due to 4 July celebrations.

Perfume peaks in December. Perfect gifts for Christmas. Do a Trend on gifts and this will be confirmed.

Using the Data

Now you can use this data to write some great posts that will encourage organic traffic.  The most popular Social network to write about would be Facebook.

If you’re going to write about flowers best to do that in February and May. Reserve December for all your gift ideas.

The point is that this can really help you plan and schedule your posts and get the best return in terms of tons of traffic.

Conclusion

If we use our brains that God gave us, we can really make this blogging and traffic work. With just a little bit of thought and effort we can reap great rewards.

Have you used Google trends yet? How has it helped in terms of topics to write about and traffic?

Homework:

Do some of your own trends and share the results with us.

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