GOOGLE INSIGHTS

Google Insights is a sophisticated tool to help people gauge interest in relevant search terms. For example, Google Insights can help you figure out which messages go over best. Suppose you make high-end espresso machines. You can use Google Insights to determine whether your advertising should highlight money savings over coffee shop coffee, taste test results, or performance and features. Google Insights can also be used to determine seasonal variations in search behavior and to help advertisers and marketing professionals create more effective brand associations.

As just a quick example, typing the search terms “espresso,” “home espresso machine,” and “gourmet coffee” in the category “Food & Drink” for 2009 yields the data you can see in the first screen shot. when you look at the graph of “Growth Relative to the Food & Drink Category” you can see that it takes a big jump in December that is most likely due to Christmas shopping. Looking at the terms by region, you can see that Greece, Netherlands, and Germany are the regions that searched most on “espresso.” The only blip at all for the term “gourmet coffee” comes from the United States, and it’s very small.

But you can also learn that the top three searches of related terms are “coffee espresso,” “espresso machine,” and “cafe espresso.” The top three rising searches are “espresso on line” (popular in Italy), “espresso apparaten” (tops in Netherlands), and “cowgirl espresso” (the most popular in the U.S.). With this information I could zero in on Greece, Italy, and Netherlands and try to get to the heart of the popularity of the search terms there.

Google Insights is a flexible enough tool that users can think of countless ways to use it. Beyond just expanding your keyword lists or looking at economic trends, you can use it for things like satisfying your curiosity about why some other site ranks higher in the search engines than yours. Even historians of the post-2004 era will find a wealth of information about how search queries evolve over time and across world regions.

Small business owners, ad agencies, and marketing specialists can use Google Insights to compare brands in real time over real markets. If there is a clear indication that a particular ad campaign is working well in a particular region or city, they can more accurately target offline advertising and even promotional events. Research using Google Keyword Tool has shown that search volume estimates are reasonably accurate, particularly in terms of relative value. That means that you can have a healthy amount of trust in the results you get from using Google Insights.