Google Trends Can Help You Find Blog Content

In my previous post about Search Engines and Blogs, I mentioned an article on Grokdotcom about search engines.  The author, Juan Tornoe, also discusses Google Trends, one of Google's myriad tools for analyzing the content on the Web.

On the Google Trends home page, there are links to the top 10 current, or HOT trends.

With Hot Trends, you can see a snapshot of what's on the public's collective mind by viewing the fastest-rising searches for different points of time. You can see a list of today's top 100 fastest-rising search queries in the U.S. You can also select a recent date in history to see what the top rising searches were and what the search activity looked like over the course of that day.

Hot trends are updated hourly.  You can also do your own search for trends related to your niche. Click on any of the trend links and you'll get a snapshot of how "spicy" the topic is, links to websites, blog posts, and google search results.

Here's a screenshot for the trend "time person of the year":

Now, how can this help you with blog content?

Think about it. First, you can do your own custom trend searches to find links to what other people are talking about in your niche. This is a great content starter.

You may also get some good data to form the basis of a longer article. You could even write about the trend in general.

Second, if you're stuck for content, check out the Hot Trends. What are people writing about? If something is a good fit for your audience, you can piggyback on the trend by writing your own post on the topic. Hey, your post might even get picked up and displayed by Google when others are checking out the trend.

If you're using Google Trends, share with us how you use it and if it does or does not help with your blog content.

Comments

[Justin Dupre]

I know a lot of people use this for all their blogs. It is a great way to build traffic, but a lot of the content is just duplicated, taking the information from news sites, and linking back to them as to not break copyright laws. Sometimes Google picks up on this, other times they don't.

If you can use it for your good though, why not. I will look into using it more often.

Justin Dupre
www.moneyandblog.com