A couple of weeks ago I wrote an article about how to do basic keyword research for your website and blog. I mentioned how using the keyword tool by Google is a very good way to see global and local traffic for all your desired keywords. However, there’s one clear drawback to the keyword tool: local business have no way of knowing how popular searches are in their state, metro or city…
Well, Google has a new tool in Beta called Google Insights for Search. With this tool you can enter a keyword and filter by several components:
Type of search: web search, image search, news search, product search- Geography: county, state, metropolitan
- Date range: any specific year in the past decade, this past year, this past month, or even this past week
- Category: narrows down the general category of the search
Once you’ve filtered your results you’ll find a graph with a scale of 0 to 100. This graph represents the interest level for this topic over a period of time. Keep in mind that the numbers on the graph do not reflect how many searches have been done for this term, they reflect how many searches have been done for this term relative to the total number of searches done on Google over time. They do not represent any absolute numbers.
Let’s say the term “laser hair removal” peaked during May in Los Angeles. The system would designate that peak as 100. Let’s suppose that interest decreased significantly in November, where the next highest peak was about half of what it was in May. This peak would be considered a 50.
Google Insights also allows you to break down a state into regions to gauge interest. You can also see your term vs. other similar terms and how popular they are, based on the 0 to 100 scale described above. In addition to this there is a section for “rising searches.” These rising searches are terms that have experienced significant growth in a recent period of time (when compared to its growth in the previous time period).
Google Insights is a very cool, new tool to use. It definitely expands upon what you can do with just the keyword tool, providing much more valuable data for specific regions of the county. It would be nice to see some raw data for states and metropolitans (rather than scaled data), but I envision that will come soon.
I don’t recommend ditching the keyword tool altogether though. It still has some valuable Adwords estimates, national search data and other features that Google Insights does not. By combining the two, you can get very good data for any keyword research you plan on doing.
If you’re looking to improve the search engine optimization (SEO) of your medical practice, whether you’re a plastic surgeon, medi spa, ophthalmologist, dermatologist or cosmetic dentist, we can help. Also, if you’re simply looking to learn more about keyword research we’d love to hear from you. Contact us today or give us a call at 877-673-7096 x2.
