Google Insights for Search: One Powerful Tool

While dinking around on the internet I found a tool from Google that is perhaps one of the most powerful and useful tools anyone involved in internet marketing or online business can use. It's Google Insights for Search and I can't believe I didn't know about this sooner. With this tool you can pull up information that Google has collected from the millions of searches. You choose the search parameters and dates that you want to cover and Google provides you with graphs and information that you can use to track marketing trends and hot topics.

According to the Google website the results include:

• a graph with the search volume, indicating interest over time (GMT) for your terms, plotted on a scale from 0 to 100; the totals are indicated next to bars by the search terms (read more about how we scale and normalize the data)
• a breakdown of how the categories are classified
• lists of the top searches and top rising searches
• a world heat map graphically displaying the search volume index with defined regions, cities, and metros

Google reminds you that the results are based on searches that have received a large amount of traffic so keep this in mind when you use the tool. Google can do this because they keep a record of each and every search ever done. After a specified amount of time the searches become anonymous, but until then Google keeps a record of each search you do on their search engine.

This has sparked some concern about privacy issues, but like I always say, if they've got nothing better to do than keep track of my mundane life, have at it. You may feel differently, but face it – are you that important that someone would care about your searches? But I digress on the subject of this post. That issue could fill an entire page of content...

Personally I love the Google website. Everything you need to get the most of their products is right there on their website. The transparency of the company amazes me. More large companies should be so free with their knowledge. Perhaps we all could take a page from Google's book and give away your knowledge top help our customers and site users. But there I go again, getting off topic...

Give Google's Insights for Search a test drive and see what you think. If you want someone else to do the leg work for you and perform your trend and marketing research, contact the professionals at The Cutting Edge Pros. If you use or have tried the Google Insights for Search, let us know how you like it and if it has helped your business.