2008 Google Insights for Search – Great new keyword research tool!

Google recently launched a cool new tool called Insights for Search which allows you to compare search patterns and trends across regions, categories, and time frames. With this tool, you can gain a lot of useful insight into what people are searching for, where they’re searching for it, when they are searching for it, and what related keywords are also popular.

If you have used Google Trends before, then you are already aware of the value of knowing how the traffic for a keyword fluctuates over time. Some keywords are seasonal, for example, and we see that the traffic drops off at certain times each year. A client can match this up to a drop that they see in their site traffic and know that it’s a trend, rather than a fault in their marketing program. Knowing the seasonality of a keyword before you embark on a marketing campaign can also help you plan your strategies and budget for the upcoming months or years.

The Google Insights tool takes this even further by allowing the user to dig deep into those trends and traffic patterns. Often, a client wants to rank for a keyword that has meaning in multiple categories. The classic example is the word “apple”. Are you talking about a computer or a piece of fruit? Filter the data by Computers and Electronics, or Food and Drink, and the data becomes much more meaningful.

And if you’re playing in a local market, the geographic filter is a great way to see where the traffic for your key phrases is focused. You can see which countries globally are most interested in your products or services. You may find a new global market to tap into. You can filter this data down to an individual state to determine what regions search more for which keywords. This is a great tool to find out where your potential customers are, and what keywords they use most.

Another great feature is the related searches which shows the top related keyword phrases as well as rising searches, which shows keywords that have seen a recent increase in traffic. Not only can you use this tool to find additional keywords to target, but you may discover new keywords in your industry that might not have been popular before.

Something notable about this tool’s data is that it measures the interest in search volume on a scale of 1-100 rather than by number of searches. We feel that this is a great move by Google because there is no keyword tool out there that can give us an accurate estimate of how many searches are being done for a certain keyword. It’s more important to know the relative importance of a term – who’s searching more for what keyword – rather than trying to guess which of the vastly different numbers each of the keyword tools reports is closest to being correct.

So go in and take a little time to play around with the tool. You may be surprised at what you find!