What is Google Trends?

Even many digital marketers aren't too familiar with Google Trends. Google Trends, formerly "Google Insights for Search," allows users to see the latest and hottest topics that people are currently searching for. Additionally, and more importantly for the advertiser, Google provides access to historical search data collected since 2004!

Google Trends is a free tool for any user available at http://www.google.com/trends/.

At the moment of writing this article, the Google Trends homepage shows me that the Galaxy S5 and The Voice are "Trending Now" and what states search for LeBron James the most. While that may be interesting to some, how does this help the advertiser?

In a recent Google Partner discussion from February 12, 2014, Google showcased some of Google Trends' "cool little features," with more forthcoming. We can see that information presented by Google Trends may be amusing or "cool," but does Google Trends have any use for the advertiser or real estate digital marketing analyst? It certainly does!

Application for The Real Estate Agent

The most beneficial feature for the advertiser is the Search Term Comparison Tool, in which one can see the interest over time in a search term. Let's explore how this is useful for the real estate agent and digital marketing analyst using a sample search term of "Atlanta Homes for Sale."

Home Interest over Time

Looking at the all-time data for the search term of "Atlanta Homes for Sale," we are able to find the interest of searchers through the ups and downs of the housing marketing in Atlanta over the last 10 years. We can even see significant News Headlines!

From here, an analyst can consider if this user interest correlates with assumptions they have about the regional housing market, articles they have read, and maybe even newsworthy events. Likely, the most worthwhile use of this information is to use it to predict the future interest in this real estate market.

But, if we narrow the focus down to a more recent period, we have much more actionable data.

Seasonal Home Interest

If we change date range of data from "All-Time" to the 2013 year, we can see the recent seasonal interest in Atlanta Homes. From here we can quite clearly see that the summer months of 2013 experienced the highest and most consistent interest in Atlanta Homes. We also find a steady decrease afterwards as we enter the winter months, until we hit a low at the beginning of December. And from here, we find a sharp increase during the Holidays, from December 22nd into the new year.

So if you were a real estate agent in Atlanta, which months of the year would you spend your digital marketing dollars?

To view the original article, visit the Quantum Leads blog.