Google Trends API

Most of my readers should be familiar with Google Trends and the SEO benefits of using the service as a keyword research tool. For those of you new to the concept, Google Trends shows you terms that a lot of people are currently searching for on Google. Place those terms on your website and you might be able to generate a lot of traffic quickly by ranking for the trendy term.

This is one of those items I always recommend clients doing but which they rarely do. It requires effort and thinking about programming (not code programming, content programming). Apparently there is a Google Trends API coming soon which should make things easier.

While we’re waiting for Google to hand us the keys to the car I thought you all might be interested to see how this stuff really works.

If you caught my riveting post on how every word on your site is an ad (not to mention 69 News!), you may have noticed that I dropped the term “trojan.win32.linkreplacer” into the post which was a popular term on Google Trends yesterday.

Within an hour of posting I was ranked on page one of Google for the term and I was there for most of the day although today I got bumped down to page 3.

Over the last 24 hours I received 33 referrals from Google for that term. Now that may not seem like a big number but consider this – My link on Google looks like a SEO-related link , so most searchers looking for help with the trojan thing won’t be interested in it.
Trojan.w32.linkreplacer

Now imagine if one of those trojan seekers (get your mind out the gutter please) decides to become a regular reader of my blog or subscribe to my feed. For about one minute’s work I’d say that’s a pretty good return. And if one of them becomes a client that is some serious ROI.

Let’s see if I can keep it rolling. Here are two Google trends words for today that I think could be somehow related to someone who at some point might want SEO services:

geothermal pump

electronics journal

Maybe I’ll put one of these up per day over the next couple of weeks and report back the results.

*******

On another note my good friend Roelof Botha was just named an expert judge at the Techcrunch 50 Conference.

Also check out Mark Kvamme’s presentation on The Future of Advertising Agencies.

So what are you waiting for. Get trendy baby!

Share This Story!

About Author

26 Response Comments

  • SEO Specialist - Terry Reeves  December 14, 2007 at 3:35 pm

    Get your geothermal pumps and your geothermal pump supplies at the best geothermal pump place on the net.

    Searching for electronics journals? I know where you can get new and used electronics journals and electronics journal accessories at the point and click of your mouse.

    Remember, whenever you need geothermal pumps and electronics journals, come to https://www.localseoguide.com

    Thought I would help a brother out.

    Good luck with all that traffic.

  • Andrew Shotland  December 14, 2007 at 3:44 pm

    Thanks Terry,

    I am thinking we should start a little contest among all of the SEO blogs to see who can milk the most traffic out of Google Trends for a single term in a day.

    Any takers?

  • SEO Bozo Box  December 15, 2007 at 3:09 pm

    Google will develop an algorithm to kick people like you in the head, in other words, those who mirror “trends” with spammy posts will blow out their blogs relevancy real quick.

    Don’t be stupid Andrew…

  • Andrew Shotland  December 15, 2007 at 3:23 pm

    The Bozo has a point. But if I am putting up real content that mirrors trends sounds like a Access Hollywood to me. Then the only question is how do you define “real content”?

  • Gab from SEO ROI  December 16, 2007 at 3:25 pm

    Lol, sounds like you’re applying blackhat strategy on a whitehat site, Andrew. Next up, longtail gibberish combos? Hehe ;P

  • Andrew Shotland  December 16, 2007 at 3:30 pm

    Gab,

    The only hat I wear is a ski hat!

  • Brian Turner  December 17, 2007 at 1:16 am

    What’s even more useful with trends IMO is if you want out for celebrity developments and new product launches. Look away from the biggest and most popular and you can suddenly hit a longtail, one that actually carries a big stream of traffic. 2c.

  • Dan Perry  December 17, 2007 at 3:07 pm

    Interesting find. Thanks for sharing, and I’ll be interested in the result of the next 2.

  • Local SEO Specialist - Terry Reeves  December 18, 2007 at 7:33 am

    Actually, I was laying in bed last night when an idea struck me. I don’t know when I will implement it but the notion of trying to ride the Google Trends coattail is one that I have considered for quite some time.

    I don’t expect any converters in that traffic. Just a little experiment to see what happens.

  • Andrew Shotland  December 18, 2007 at 2:56 pm

    Terry,

    I think the best way to turn this into conversions is if you are a news site – matter of fact a news site that focuses solely on Google Trends subjects might be pretty successful.

    The other way I can think of is only go for terms that you think might have some relevance to your business like “popcorn lung”.

    Of course popcornlunglawsuit.com and popcornlunglawyer are already taken!

  • Local SEO Specialist - Terry Reeves  December 19, 2007 at 7:34 am

    Isn’t that always the case! The good domains are already taken so we are forced to come up with trendy “non-names” that sound cute and can be branded into an industry.

    The internet use to be so much easier before the 20 year olds jumped into business.

  • Vacation Rentals By Owner  January 9, 2008 at 2:26 pm

    What’s the prize? 🙂

    “I am thinking we should start a little contest among all of the SEO blogs to see who can milk the most traffic out of Google Trends for a single term in a day. Any takers?”

  • seoalligator  January 9, 2008 at 9:28 pm

    Interesting conversation initiated)

  • Andrew Shotland  January 9, 2008 at 10:10 pm

    Craig the prize is free used baby toys from Freecycle 🙂

  • betty  March 3, 2008 at 3:47 pm

    I am sure you know why your site ranked for that word, an unrelated word for your site…
    I am pretty sure not all the sites out there have that kind of trust and rank for a keyword, no matter how competitive or not it may be. So to build pages or posts just because are popular for a day or two doesn’t seem like a great idea to me.
    Did you make those experiments in the end?
    Thanks,

  • Andrew Shotland  March 3, 2008 at 4:01 pm

    betty,

    you are correct that your site needs to have a lot of things going for it to use this technique. But I do think you should use Google Trends as one of your research tools when you are writing a post.

  • Mark  April 24, 2008 at 5:24 am

    Any idea why it dropped from the first page after a few days?

  • Andrew Shotland  April 24, 2008 at 5:31 am

    Most likely because I have not continued to get backlinks to this page, particularly links with the keyword in the anchor text. I am still in the top 100 on Google, Yahoo & Live/MSN.

  • Ali  June 17, 2008 at 8:14 am

    Thanks for a great article on Google trends. I admit that I actually forgot this tool existed, and I’m on my way back to it right now. Thanks again!

  • Andy Home  June 29, 2008 at 2:48 pm

    Very useful tool for seo.
    Hope that’s accurate.

  • Utah Search Engine Optimization  June 29, 2008 at 3:02 pm

    Google Trends is an excellent SEO and overall marketing tool. I’ve changed many company’s minds by showing them trend data first through Google Trends.

  • eminem superman  September 23, 2009 at 12:44 am

    Informative post here, better to try Google trend right now

  • rj45 crimper  September 23, 2009 at 12:46 am

    That’s right Google provides everything!