Blog

This week Google launched their new 'insight' tool - and amazingly insightful it is too. I am absolutely hooked. Okay, I am a bit of a stato at heart so these sorts of tools really interest me.

You will see in the following screenshot that I’ve run some SEO agency-related search phrases. Within seconds you can get some insight:

• the search phrase PPC is on the up
• search engine marketing has been on a downward trend since 2004
• the Christmas period is not popular for search engine optimisation

You can play with the following filters:

• worldwide or country specific - so you can change your request to tell you the volume of SEO agencies in the United Kingdom versus running the query SEO agency UK.
• date range - you can run queries all the way from the beginning of 2004 to-date, and any date range in between.
• category - you can compare the general growth trend for a category (i.e. internet) versus a selection of search phrases.

Things Insight tells you:

• search volume by keyword, by market
• geographical distribution on a graphical heatmap
• top searches related to your initial search queries
• rising searches - fast growing, searches related to your initial queries
• the seasonality of search trends
• whether a keyword's search volume is increasing or decreasing (annual growth trends)

Other search things you can play with:

• you can use broad-match and phrase-match searches - e.g. Search engine marketing versus "search engine marketing" (see the above screen shot)

• you can toggle the news headline feature off and on - great if you suspect a news headline triggered a surge in search queries

• you can type in brand names - gives you a good idea of search market share. I have a quick sample of some UK high street banks (see below)

How insightful is the Google Insight data?

I have also been playing with some paid search numbers to see how well the Google Insight data maps onto the PPC phrases we are bidding for.

The keywords I have worked on so far are commercially sensitive. But, I can tell you, that with a little bit of effort in Excel you can check the accuracy of Google Insight versus the 'real' search volumes for a keyword.

Result, Google Insight is giving you genuine, non-skewed search volumes. (Google has used a factoring model to modify the Y-axis of their charts.)

About the author

As our Head of Consultancy, Robin helps Coast Digital clients develop and grow their business through expert consultancy, digital marketing advice and guidance. He joined the team at Coast Digital in 2006 and works with the majority of our clients.

Robin has worked in digital since 2000 - seeing in the last days of the .com boom, sticking with digital through the bang and since then, helping to advise companies on their digital developments and strategy.

He has held positions both client-side and agency-side, working with a number of FTSE/NASDAQ-listed companies and international NGOs.

He has worked on all aspects of web – from developing business cases to specifying requirements, designing and marketing websites to running a web management team. Robin contributes to a number of blogs in his spare time.

Comments