9 Smart Ways to Use Google Trends for Blogging

Looking for a fresh, lucrative blogging niche?

Need something trendy to write about?

If you want to discover trendy ideas, Google Trends is the tool for you.

Let me tell you more about it.

What is Google Trends?

As the name suggests, Google Trends is a website designed to search for trends. More accurately, it measures the popularity of Google search queries over time. 

Looking at Google Trends can give you an idea of what people around the world are searching for.

Unlike simple keyword research tools, Google Trends can provide you with context behind popular search queries. 

This is extremely useful if you want to write content that people actually want to read.

For example, on the “Latest Stories and Insights” section, you can explore search queries related to current events. 

As of writing this post, people in the United States can investigate queries related to three main topics:

You can dig deeper to discover popular search queries related to each topic. More importantly, you can determine why people search for certain information.

This allows you to tailor your content according to the audience’s needs and expectations.

Let’s say you’re a food blogger. 

With information from Google Trends, you’ll know that it’s about time you publish your mother’s turkey recipe. 

Since you know that this is related to the upcoming holiday, you can also tweak your strategy to captivate readers. You can feature a holiday-themed image, start with a holiday greeting in your intro, or even offer special holiday discounts.

That’s just one way to use Google Trends for profitable blogging.

Would you like to know more?

If you answered yes, read on to learn how bloggers and marketers, in general, should use it:

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9 Google Trends Use cases for Bloggers

1. Avoid fad niches

Here’s a tip:

Set Google Trends’ time range to at least ‘12 months’ – longer if you value long-term viability. 

In doing so, you can avoid fad niches that will disappear just as quickly as they rose. A good example would be fidget spinners, which disappeared into obscurity after peaking mid-2017:

Imagine investing a lot of money on a blog about fidget spinners in 2017. 

That can’t be fun. 

With Google Trends, you can avoid wasting money on these fad niches. 

Take every trend with a grain of salt and don’t cash in unless there are 12 months of consistent growth.

This leads us to my next point.

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2. Find growing niches

With fad niches out of the way, let’s now focus on the bright side.

Google Trends can help you predict whether or not a niche will only get bigger in the future. 

Houseplants, for example, have been undergoing steady growth over the past five years. 

As you can see, there’s noticeable growth – slow, but steady.

Of course, there’s no guarantee that you’ll make a killing in this niche. 

But based on the search terms’ interest over time, there’s a good chance it’ll stay relevant for a while.

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3. Discover breakout ideas

After finding a potential niche with Google Trends, you can immediately look for trending topics to blog about.

If you scroll down to the “Related topics” and “Related queries” sections, you may notice topics labeled with “Breakout.” 

This happens if the topic or query received a 5000% increase in search interest within the specified time period.

That’s what I call growth. 

Of course, there’s always a possibility that these trends will disappear soon – just like fidget spinners. 

As a precaution, you should individually inspect each topic or search query before committing. Just click on them to view their own “Interest over time” chart. 

In the example above, we can see that the search term “monstera plant” rose around June 21, 2020. 

You can adjust Google Trends’ time range to ‘12 months’ to take a closer look at this spurt. 

As you can see, it’s possible that the interest for monstera plants may stagnate in the next coming months. Still, past performance indicates that it will stay relevant. 

Besides, you can always utilize breakout topics simply as content ideas rather than full-on blog niches. 

For example, if you already made a blog about houseplants, you could create a category about monstera plants. Better yet, look at Google Trends’ “Related queries” section to look for specific topic ideas to write about. 

A word of advice when targeting breakout ideas: do it quick. 

You want your content to go live while the trend is still hot. 

I’m not saying that all trends have an expiration date. In fact, some of them continue to grow until they’re no longer trends – they just become stable, profitable niches. 

But by blogging about them now, you capitalize on their popularity to get quality traffic. And you may not get the same opportunity again if you’re slow to act.

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4. Look for seasonal topics

Google Trends can also help you identify seasonal topics, which you can cover during specific times of the year.

I already gave you an example above with Thanksgiving turkeys. 

But for the sake of clarity, let me show you another one.

“Beach destinations” is, obviously, a seasonal topic that loses popularity as each year progresses. 

That means you have no business promoting content on beach destinations before or in the middle of these months. 

If you want to make the most out of your seasonal content, publish them just before the season’s peak. 

For example, the query “beach destinations” peaks at the beginning of each year. If I’m a travel blogger, I’d publish relevant content as soon as January 1^st.

To make this possible, I’d already prepared the actual content days or weeks before this deadline. This way, my blog is first in line once people start thinking about their next beach getaway. 

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5. Look for profitable product categories

Let’s take a break from content for a little bit and talk about monetization. 

A lot of bloggers make money through eCommerce or affiliate marketing. 

Either way, they get paid by selling products. 

Google Trends can help you look for profitable products related to a search query. 

Suppose you created a blog in the posture correction niche.  

In the “Related topics” and “Related queries” sections, you should be able to find lucrative product ideas for your blog:

From an eCommerce perspective, the potential product keywords are staring us right in the eyes. 

I’m referring to the following:

• Posture correction braces
• Posture correction devices
• Suspenders for posture correction
• Posture correction strap 

If I’d rather make money through affiliate marketing, I’d look into the keyword “physical therapy.” 

What I’d do is fire up Google and enter the following query:

Sure enough, Google presented me with a handful of feasible programs. 

All that’s left to do is look for an affiliate program that suits my needs. 

The Natural Posture, for example, has a lot of things going on for its affiliate program. And we found it with a little help from Google Trends.

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6. Do basic keyword research

First and foremost, I don’t recommend using Google Trends as your primary keyword research tool. 

There are several free and paid keyword research tools that outperform Google Trends in this department. 

However, that doesn’t mean Google Trends is useless as far as keyword research goes. 

It can actually help you identify high-demand long-tail keywords from broad terms. 

For instance, let’s say you’re running a pet blog. 

Using the keyword “dog care,” Google Trends can present you with the following long-tail keywords: 

In most cases, Google Trends can provide dozens of related queries. 

This allows you to quickly increase your base keyword pool, which you can refine with a proper tool. 

That reminds me. 

While Google Trends can give you long-tail keyword ideas, it leaves out crucial metrics like traffic and keyword difficulty. 

As such, the best course of action is to use Google Trends in conjunction with a more powerful platform. 

SEMrush, for one, has a pretty powerful keyword research tool baked in. 

Let’s go ahead and plug in one of the long-tail keywords we found. 

With SEMrush’s Keyword Magic Tool, we can reveal metrics that aren’t visible with just Google Trends.

Remember, these values are important in determining if a keyword idea is right for you. 

You can refer to my SEMrush tutorial to learn more and you can experience SEMrush for 30 days with this free trial. 

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7. Understand what users from your region want to see

Well, this is awkward. 

I told you a bunch of cool things Google Trends can do for you, but I forgot one important thing: 

You can set Google Trends to analyze search data for your specific country. 

It’s actually something you can configure right off the bat. Just select your country from the drop-down menu in the upper-right corner of the screen to get started. 

Already began your search before setting your location?

Don’t worry – you can easily switch to a different location using the drop-down menu just below your query. 

Remember, there can be drastic differences in search interest between different regions. 

“Kidney care dog food,” for example, is clearly a popular topic in the United States. 

But once you switch your location to India, well – I’ll just let the screenshot below do the talking.

See the difference?

The takeaway here is simple. 

If you’re targeting a local audience, you always set the right location on Google Trends.

Otherwise, you may be fed information that can doom your strategy before you even begin.

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8. Compare your popularity with competitors

Want to hear something cool?

Google Trends also allows you to analyze the popularity of brands.

All you have to do is enter the brand’s name and let the tool do its work. 

For example, take a look at Moz’s popularity over the years:

You can also click ‘Compare’ to monitor the popularity of another brand in one place.

This will allow you to compare the gauge of brands relative to its competitors.

Check out the new “Interest over time” chart with both Moz and SEMrush in the picture:

The best part is, you can keep adding as many competitors as you can by clicking ‘Add comparison.’

Just be informed that it will turn into a “plus” button if you’re comparing more than three brands.

Looks neat, right?

Take note that you can also compare keywords and topics to determine which will be more popular moving forward.

Suppose you’re torn between two or more topic ideas for your blog. 

Using Google Trends’ comparison feature, you can let the numbers speak for themselves.  

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9. Look for trending YouTube video ideas

If you run a YouTube channel, Google Trends can help you come up with fresh video ideas. 

All it takes is just a few clicks to make this happen. 

On the results page, simply switch from ‘Web Search’ to ‘YouTube Search’ from the right-most drop-down menu. 

Google Trends will instantly update the results to show search query and topic data from the YouTube platform. 

Again, this feature is only useful if your blog also has its own official YouTube channel. 

Keep in mind that keyword performance on YouTube is entirely different from Google’s search engine. So, don’t forget to switch back to the web search mode if you want to focus on your blog content. 

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Additional Tips for Using Google Trends

Google Trends is a simple but powerful tool for content research. 

It essentially lets you tap into the minds of internet users to determine what’s in and what’s out. 

Before I end this post, here are a few quick tips to make the most out of Google Trends:

• NEVER forget to do keyword research – Always perform additional keyword research right after using Google Trends. Doing so ensures you’re targeting low-difficulty keywords that you actually have a chance of ranking for. 
• Filter your results according to category – Use filters if you’re having difficulties looking for suitable topics in your blog niche. This will narrow down your search to a specific industry in an instant. 
• Go levels deeper when checking out related topics and queries – You can keep checking the related topics and queries sections to unravel more and more ideas. Do this as many times as you can to keep your content ideas tank topped up. 
• Promote content at the right time – Apart from seasonal topics, certain keywords also fluctuate in popularity throughout each year. Use Google Trends to determine the best times to promote your content, including evergreen ones.
• Optimize your content for specific cities – Google Trends can pinpoint the exact subregions or cities where a topic is blowing up. Use this to create hyper-targeted content that local readers can truly appreciate. 

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Conclusion

In blogging, everything starts with an idea.

It doesn’t matter if you’re still choosing a niche, doing keyword research, or looking for content topics to write about. Your success is based on how viable and lucrative your idea is.

Google Trends holds the key to unlocking in-demand, trendy ideas for blogging. 

Use it well with the strategies above and you’re on your way to carving a name for your brand. 

Don’t forget to leave a comment below if you have questions or feedback.

I hope to hear from you soon!

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