Internet marketers are always looking for the next big thing. Having a firm understanding of what the public is searching for online can make or break any Internet business, and now Google is giving marketers a chance to “look behind the veil” and see what’s actually going on in the search engine’s giant database.
This Wednesday, Google introduced Insights for Search, a new free Google tool intended for Internet marketers, or anyone who is interested in keeping up with search engines trends around the world. Insights for Search is actually an expansion of Google Trends, the search results tracking tool introduced in 2006, which allows anyone to explore the most popular keywords and categories searched on Google.
But unlike Google Trends, Insights for Search allows Internet marketers to delve deeper into Google’s database and track the popularity of keywords and key phrases by region, country or globally. Overall, Insights allows for a much greater degree of detail in its search analysis than the “old” Google Trends tool. To begin with, you can parse data into smaller geographic areas, and then view results on a map. You can also download information in standard spreadsheet format in order to create your own keyword databases, compile graphs, pie charts or other useful visual indicators.
For Internet marketers, Insights for Search could potentially be a godsend, helping create and track online advertising campaigns. In fact, many marketers have already been using Google Trends for this very purpose, but the new service goes much further, and allows the user access to demographic and regional trends previously unavailable online.
While there are practically an endless number of uses for such in-depth search engine analysis, marketers in the real estate business could especially benefit from Insights. For example, the service would allow marketers to analyze which regions of the country are receiving the most search engine queries regarding home inspections or mortgage rates — both of these terms are known to signal increased home buying in an area.
Overall, Insights for Search may just be the definitive keyword analysis tool Internet marketers have been praying for, especially those who target local regions of the country or specific nations abroad. Besides the in-depth keyword analysis, the service also offers the most popular related keywords for any search, as well as hot “up-and-coming” searches. This kind of knowledge could potentially help marketers stay one step ahead of the game, and better understand the needs of their customers.
While Google Trends was a good first step, Insights is taking things to a whole other level. It’s about time online marketers had access to quality information about what the world is searching for today, and what they are likely to be searching for tomorrow.
