Business owners often think that they have a solid understanding of what their potential customers will be looking for online. As digital marketing specialists, we have come to realize that regardless of how well you know your business, industry and clients, there are trends across the World Wide Web that you should be tapping into if you really want a robust and engaging digital strategy.

Google Trends allows you to pick up on things like underlying trends, needs, attitudes and feelings that could be relevant to your industry. In 2014, for example, an article in the New York Times found that Parents are two and a half times more likely to ask “Is my son gifted?” than “Is my daughter gifted?”

In November 2017, Google announced that the Google Trends service has expanded its focus to include information such as videos, pictures, news and products. The change means that users can now explore search results in different ways than before as well as in real-time.

Many people use Keyword Planner to determine which keywords they want to include in their SEO strategy, but Google Trends can also suggest new keywords based on the criteria that you are using. Besides including the keyword suggestions into your SEO campaigns, it can also spark a range of topics and unexpected ideas for future blog posts or social media posts.

One of the major benefits of Google Trends is that it can show you trending queries before they peak and become mainstream news. This can help you create timely, relevant and keyword rich content that has the ability to go viral and significantly boost traffic to your website.