One of the cornerstones of digital marketing nowadays is search engine optimization or SEO. Essentially, SEO is a process for optimizing and driving organic or unpaid traffic from the search engine results page to your website or online store.
While it might seem confusing or difficult, all it really is managing the content and design of your website to be more appealing for the search engines. Ultimately what you’re trying to do is impress the search engine so that it will display your website as a top result in the results page.
What is Google Trends?
Google Trends is a tool for conducting keyword research, helping improve your content marketing strategy and SEO. How it works is you search a term or compare two keywords, and Trends gives you all kinds of information on the most popular times when and where the terms were most used over a selected period of time. In addition, you also get to see the related queries and topics that people also searched for in addition to your chosen keyword.
In short, Google Trends shows you the relative popularity of a search query instead of the query’s overall search volume (which the Google Keyword Planner tool shows you). The numbers get scaled on a range of 0 to 100 - hundred being the peak popularity for the term, fifty meaning the term is half as popular, and a score of 0 meaning there was not enough data for this term.
You also get a better picture of the term's popularity due to the fact that Trends eliminates repeated searches from the same user over a short period of time.
Promote content at the right time
It probably doesn’t come as a surprise that certain keywords or search terms are affected by seasonality. By keeping track of seasonal trends, you can optimize your marketing efforts, use certain search terms when they’re most used, and reach your audience more efficiently. Analyzing the popularity of a search term over the years helps understand during which months the term gets especially popular.
Tool Rental trends
From 2013 to 2019, in the US the search term’s popularity spikes during the summer months every year. Whether it’s home renovations, patio building, or equipment fixing, people are getting more handy during summer - meaning it would be the ideal time for you to start promoting your tools rental business and publishing relevant blog and social media posts.
Ski Rental trends
Some trends might come as a surprise. If you look at the graph, the search term ‘’Ski Rental’’ clearly spikes up twice a year - during the obvious winter months and during June/July. The fact that ski rental searches peak the most during summer months clearly shows the different types of audiences and their behavioral patterns.
One is more spontaneous and doesn’t necessarily plan much in advance, while the others tend to be more organized and plan their trips more meticulously well in advance. This is something to consider while planning your content and communications. The difference between the audience might also show in the channels they use and the content they prefer to see.
Then again, ‘’ski rental’’ might also refer to ‘’jet ski rental’’ as seen in the related queries. Being the summertime, it also makes sense that water sports rentals are in peak season.
This is something that you should keep in mind while creating content and analyzing Trend results - you want to make sure you’re using relevant and accurate keywords so you reach the right target audience.
Bike rental trends
While the ''bike rental'' search term has, over the past years, been consistently peaking during the summer months, there's something interesting that should be noted. In the course of a few years, the search term's score has gone up from 80 to 99 during its peak months. Additionally, the lowest points during the winter months have also increased from an average score of 20 to 34.
It shows a clear increase in the popularity of bike renting and the rising demand for this service. This can be explained by the growing popularity of renting instead of purchasing equipment. So, Google Trends doesn't only show the most popular areas and periods for a term. It can always show you the overall development of a keyword.
Camera Rental trends
Camera rental, unlike the other equipment rentals, clearly doesn’t depend on trends and isn’t as seasonal, meaning as a business, it’s much more stable all year round. Of course, the drop in the beginning and in the middle of 2020 just shows the effects of COVID-19 when film productions and the need for professional equipment suddenly experienced a halt.
Also, looking at the related queries, people tend to search for rental shops near their own location as opposed to a specific location. With other equipment rentals, such as skis, people tend to be more tied to locations where they can partake in the activities, like specific ski resorts.
