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AUGUST 2008 BEACON This Tool is Too Cool for School…You Gotta Try It!<August 6, 2008>Google today has launched a tool that opens new horizons for industry marketers called Google Insight for Search. With this tool you can enter search terms either singly, or lists for comparisons, and Google will show you the incidence of occurrence of that search term.
This opens the Google database of search requests in a way that has not been available up until now and it promises to become an extremely valuable arrow in every marketers quiver. But it’s not just for marketers…really anyone can use it to search and learn the words or phrases people enter into Google.
Similar to Google Trends, but with much more flexibility, you can now filter results based on category (Apple the fruit vs. Apple the company) or time frame (back to 2004) and even geographic location.
WHY DO WE CARE? Search terms are, as the New York Times put it, a “database of intentions.” Simply put, what people search for on Google many times are the goods and services that they intend to purchase. Not only that, but phrases that people search on represent to marketers just what concepts or topics that people are interested in. This can be very useful for companies trying to figure our what people’s “hot buttons” are.
For example, if you sold cars you can see if people in your geographic area are searching for “sports car” or “fuel efficiency.” Depending on the volume of searches, this knowledge could help you determine what inventory to stock and how to market it.
Not only does the service bring a wealth of information to your computer screen, but you can even export the information to a CSV file for further analysis in your spreadsheet.
Figure 1 - For a quick demonstration refer to Figure 1 where you see the main page for Google Insight for Search. In the upper central portion of the page you can see the main box titled “Search Terms” where you enter your main query. If you enter more than one term, you can select in the box at left how you want to compare them…either by search terms, locations, or time range.
In the right center section of the page you can select whether to filter your search by location, date, or category. Here, I have entered a singular phrase, “home theater installation” into the main search box.
Figure 2 – In this figure, in section A, you can see the main entry section is repeated…below are your results. In section B, you have the history showing the relative index of times the term was searched since 2004. You can modify the time frame in the filter section to drill down on more specific time frames.
Sections C and D show the geographic breakdown of the search results in both text and graphics. Note that you can hover your mouse over any country and the specific results for that country will pop up.
In sections E and F you get details on both related search terms that make up “home theater installation” and “Rising Searches” or rather, terms that are picking up in popularity.
All of these items are clickable, allowing you to drill down to dizzying levels of details. And, of course, change any one parameter…and all others change as well.
 Figure 3 – Here I clicked on the United States to drill down to more geographic detail and you see the results page. You can quickly see that Texas, Georgia, Florida, New Jersey, and California have the most incidences of searches on the term “home theater installation.
If you look on the map, you’ll see that Illinois is highlighted in a gold color with a box next to it that says “Illinois-Search Volume Index 69.0.” I put the cursor on Illinois and this highlight popped up to quickly show you the Illinois rating.
Notice also that “Top Searches” and “Rising Searches” both changed based on the fact that we have focused on the U.S. market only…excluding search terms from other countries.
I highly recommend that you take advantage of this incredible tool. It is provided totally free of charge to be used in any way you like. Considering adding a new vendor? Can’t decide between two or more vendors? Enter them into Google Insight for Searches and see which ones are being sought by customers in your area. You wouldn’t use this as your only selection criteria…but it is another data point for your consideration process. |
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