Understanding what people are searching for is essential when operating a website. Google Trends is highly important for understanding what users are looking for when entering a term, and where and when this interest is at its highest. Google Trends will take the search terms that you enter into the box, and produce a wealth of information about those terms.

In order to understand how this tool works we’ll start with an example. Let’s say that you enter the term, “baseball”, into the Google Trends page. Immediately, the page will return a graph which shows you the interest in this term over time, with 100 representing peak search volume. In this case the graph spans from 2004 to the present. On the left side of the screen you will notice a list of search terms, where the term you just entered is visible. Google Trends allows you to search four additional terms for comparison. Each term is color coded for easy tracking on the graph.

If you scroll down you will notice a map, which displays regional interest, as well as list of related terms. The map starts on a global basis, where the countries that are the darkest contain the highest search volume for your term. You can also choose to see the countries with the most searches in list form. For our example, the United States is the most searched country. Click on the U.S. for a more detailed view. You will notice that each state is broken down in the same way as the global map, where the darkest states represent the highest search volume. This is the subregion view, which breaks down a country by states, or provinces. You can also toggle between a metro or city view.

Next to regional interest, on the right side of the screen is a list of related terms. That list displays which other terms that users might be searching for when looking for the term you entered. Each of these terms is clickable for a more detailed description. You may also toggle between rising terms in order to see which terms are seeing the highest increase in searches. Now that you know how to use the Google Trends tool you can put your skills to use, and find out what else users are searching for when looking for your business.