Use Google Trends to Finalize Keyword Picks
Mark Twain said, “The difference between the right word and almost right word is the difference between lightning and a lightning bug.” How could he predict so well the truth about finding the right keywords to optimize for.
One of the most important decisions you make about each of your web pages is what keyword or keyword phrase you are targeting. Sure, in the end your page will get indexed for lots of keyword combinations. This is the long-tail effect, but in reality you are have only two or three key opportunities to tell the search engines what you would most like your page to be indexed for, so you need to choose wisely. Google Trends can help you do this.
In the example above drug rehab (the upper trend line) shows a great deal more search volume. However, make one small change and your search engine traffic could completely disappear, which is what the next example shows.
Simply by adding an “s†to the word addiction you go from having search volume for your keyword to not having enough volume for Googleä to even register the search. This doesn’t mean no one is finding you with your search term, but the damage is unmistakable.
There are many more tools that you could use for keyword research. Keyword Discovery and Keyword Tracker both offer paid tools with extensive databases and the ability to look at more subtleties. However, for the vast majority of your keyword research the Google Keyword Tool plus Google Trends will work very well.
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