Google published a video tutorial with seven tips for using Google Trends to research and share keyword and topic data. The tutorial shows how to find hidden filters and search tools in the Trends interface and explains how they help identify actionable data.
The seven ways to explore and share are:
Punctuation
By Language
Comparison Functions
Seasonality Discovery
Year Over Year Trends
Interest By Country
3 Ways To Export Or Share
1. Punctuation For Finding Hidden Insights
Omri Weisman, Google Trends Engineering Manager, shared how to use advanced search operators to dig deeper into the data and extract actionable user query insights.
He presented an overview of three advanced search operators:
A. Quotation marks
B. Plus operator (the + sign)
C. Minus operator (the – sign)
He started with the example of search a two-word keyword term without punctuation, explaining that the keyword query volume data is for both words in any order. He also pointed out that no misspellings, variations, or plural versions are included in the search volume data.
A. Quotation Marks
The first search operator he discussed was the quotation mark. The quotation marks shows data for the exact match phrase, including when embedded as part of a larger phrase, with words before or after the exact match search query.
B. Minus Sign
Adding a minus sign to a search phrase filters out the word that’s modified with the minus sign, like this:
Keyword -Phrase
In the above example the word ‘phrase” will not be included in the search query data. This is a great way to manipulate the data and extract more precise variations.
C. Plus Sign – Good Way To Research Topics
Searching with a plus sign and two keywords shows query volume for one or other keyword. As such, this way of searching provides the broadest keyword query amounts and represents an excellent way to research a topic. With a plus sign you can add in all the related phrases for a topic and then see all of them lumped together.
2. Segment By Language
…if you’re interested in a specific language, you might want to look only for that language. They use the example of identifying how many searches for cat are done in Japanese in the United States, which allows you to segment searches with greater granularity.
You can also combine two languages using the plus sign search operator to see the combined query volume.
They said:
“For example, if you enter the Japanese character for cat… You might miss the overall trends, since many people in the US, for example, search for cat in English.
To get the full picture. Compare searches for the Japanese character for Cat and English searches for cat using the plus operator.”
3. Use Filters To Identify More Actionable Data
Daniel Waisberg said that comparing keywords helps identify more meaningful trends. In order to do
He said:
“Getting the data you need is essential, but to understand what it means, you need a comparison point. For example, is the growth localized or global? Is the growth seasonal, and if so, how does this season compare to the previous one?
To create a meaningful comparison, you can use the filter capability inside the search term.”
The following screenshot shows where a three dot menu in a drop down to access the filters.
4. Seasonality Discovery
He next showed how to use the filters to discover seasonality.
He explained:
“First enter the term in the trends explore section and change the time frame to five years.
This will create an interesting chart showing that this term is highly seasonal. People search for boat trips significantly more in the UK summer than in the winter. “
5. How To Remove Seasonality Trends
Next he explained how to use the built-in filters to analyze year over year trends.