Google Insights

Google Insights is really natty new tool from Google.  Choosing which keywords to optimise for is fundamental to promoting your site and this tool is helpful addition to the keyword research armoury.

Choose the UK filter to get results for the UK only and then type in one or more search terms into the search bar.  You won’t get numbers of searches back but where Google Insights really wins is that you can compare different search phrases in terms of search volume and as to whether a particular phrase is on the up or in decline.

For example, Atracks offers products and services related to search engine optimisation and web analytics. Typing each of these terms into the search bar, separated by a comma, shows that although SEO is still the more popular search phrase, it is on the decline whereas web analytics is steadily gaining ground and is now getting something like 60% of the searches that SEO does.

Try it out with two different products you offer and use the information to plan your marketing activity next year!  On and offline.

Using Google Insights to compare ‘plasma tv’s’ and ‘digital radio’ shows how powerful this tool can be.  The seasonal behaviour in tv sales is really evident, whereas it seems that people are looking for digital radios all the year around.

A further useful function of Google Insights is the top searches and rising searches information below the fold.  This offers real gems of suggestions for related terms and again helps you focus on what is in the ascendancy – and keeping ahead of the game is what it is all about.

Part of the purpose of Insights is to give demographic data about searches but as with so many of these tools works much better in the US than the UK.

Google Insights is a development of Google Trends, already a useful tool itself.  There is already more than enough internet related information out in the ether but we think this is going to prove a really benefitical addition.