“Is Google insights for Search the best free SEO tool available for small business SEO?”
This SEO tutorial shows how to combine SEO (Search Engine Optimization) keyword research with Google insights for Search to drive targeted Google search traffic to your website or blog.
Organic search traffic generated by SEO is vital for small business and with the recent release of paid Google product searches, small business SEO is going to need to adapt to survive.
About Google insights for Search
In a nutshell, Google insights for Search provides comprehensive historical and geographical SEO data to help improve your SEO and Internet marketing strategy.
While Google insights for Search can be equally useful for both Internet marketing and SEO, I’ll focus on the SEO aspect for now because Google insights for Search is integrated with the Google keywords tool discussed in a recent, related article of mine entitled “How to research SEO keywords: Five SEO tips from top SEO experts“.
To access Google insights for Search from the Google Adwords’ Keyword tool, simply click the little arrow icon next to the “Keyword idea” result and select the “Google insights for Search” option.
Why use Google insights for Search for SEO?
Google insights for Search provides an excellent overview of global “popularity” or “interest” in a certain SEO keyword or phrase. Using Google insights for Search you can:
- Compare SEO keyphrase popularity
- Filter results by Web, News, Image or Product searches
- Filter results by region
- Filter results by timeline
- Filter results by category – i.e. business, arts, books, etc
- View impactful content for those keyphrases
- View related searches
- View “Rising searches“
A rising search is any keyword or phrase that is experiencing a large growth in popularity. This is often related to specific events or timelines. For example, the SEO keyphrase “Internet marketing” is pretty popular worldwide, all year round, but recently the phrase “Internet marketing 2012” has increased its search volumes by 2900%.
Free SEO tip: If you’re going to write an Internet marketing article, consider using the phrase “Internet marketing 2012“. Use rising search terms wherever they are relevant and meaningful.
From an SEO perspective, the fact that “Internet marketing 2012” is spiking is an extremely powerful piece of analytical marketing data that Google insights for Search provides freely.
Google insights for Search as an SEO tool
One of the most important features of SEO or SEM (Search Engine Marketing) is the ability to focus on a few target keywords that will drive qualified organic search traffic. The SEO techniques for doing this are outlined in the SEO tutorial entitled “Small business SEO tutorial: How to attract higher quality Google traffic“.
Google insights for Search, from an SEO perspective, is primarily useful as a keyword research tool that facilitates accurate audience targeting.
If you’re unsure about the concept of SEO keyword research, then I recommend you read the following, excellent SEO resource entitled “What is SEO? Here’s the ultimate small business SEO guide“.
How to use Google insights for Search
To find the SEO keywords that will drive the highest quality traffic to your small business or blog:
- Go to Google insights for Search
- Enter an SEO keyword you want to research (because you intend to write an article about that topic) and click “Search“
- Analyze the results to see if that particular term is:
- popular in your industry niche (i.e. software, business, arts, economics, etc)
- popular in the region you want to target (i.e. India, U.S, UK, etc)
- has recently dropped or increased in popularity (via the “Interest over time” graph)
- has related terms or synonyms
- Repeat the previous steps but include any relevant or rising search terms
- Use filters (top right of the page) to provide more fine-grained analysis of searches by country or category
One you know that the keywords selected are the optimal ones necessary to best meet the business objectives of your content, you are free to write a properly SEO’d piece of content that is guaranteed to drive high qualified traffic.
The net result is that your content is far more likely to drive and convert traffic to increase revenue and ROI (Return on Investment).
What do you think of Google insights for Search? Are you using it already? Give it a go and share your experiences in the comments, or join the conversation on Twitter or LinkedIn. I’d be delighted to share any great ideas or suggestions you have to improve Insights for Search as an SEO keyword research tool.
I use this tool and find it useful for use next to rankranger.
Two thumbs up for the post David.
Interesting read, I learn something new everyday, thanks for sharing.
I am new to this stuff so thanks for sharing.