Chris Burres·00:14

Welcome to the Best SEO podcast.  I known secrets of internet marketing. My name is Chris Burres, one of the owners of EWR digital. 

Matt Bertram·00:20

And my name is Matt Bertram. I’m the lead strategist at EWR digital. 

Chris Burres·00:25

Welcome back to another fun filled edition of this podcast.  This is podcast number 531.  Were having a little bit cheekiness happening right before we got on.  So, you know, if you experienced any. 

Matt Bertram·00:38

News, whose end was that on? 

Chris Burres·00:41

Possibly, possibly on my end.  I mean, there’s a, there’s the post.  I mean, the numbers were smaller on my end, so it was possible.  I still don’t know exactly how your glitchy on my end, if I’ve got kind of equivalent to download like that. 

Matt Bertram·00:56

Double sided coin, Chris, it’s always your fault. 

Chris Burres·01:02

Heads.  I win tails.  You lose. All right, let’s jump right in here.  We are broadcasting live from Houston, Texas, Matt and I.  What are we?  Why?  Like where your SEO gurus, where your enterprise SEO guys, we do have a review.  Let me jump into that. This review is from AJ and it says, and it’s up on Trustpilot it says, wow, just, wow. This review is from AJ and it says, and it’s up on Trustpilot it says, wow, just, wow.  He took the time to look at my website, be supportive and give me practical tips based on my budget.  I’m a small business medical in Canada, and he was super helpful, man.  Well done.  Like that’s all you, it is a little older. 

Chris Burres·01:49

So I don’t know if that sounds familiar to you or if you knew that was floating out there, but that’s, 

Matt Bertram·01:54

I actually didn’t know.  We need to do a better job of. 

Chris Burres·01:59

Accumulating. 

Matt Bertram·02:00

Track tracking everything.  There’s really a lot, a lot going on right now.  So, you know, I’m just trying to hold on. 

Chris Burres·02:11

Well, if out there you listened to our podcast and you get some value from this podcast.  Do please make sure you go review us.  It’s really easy to do.  Just go to AWR digital.com forward slash review.  A little screen will pop up.  You can leave us a review there.  Hopefully you’ll make that review five star it’s hard to think of. 

Matt Bertram·02:33

Yeah, Chris, on a positive note, we have quite, almost finished the podcast studio, so, 

Chris Burres·02:41

Oh yes. 

Matt Bertram·02:43

Yeah.  So we’ve converted our office since a lot of us are just stay in remote, right?  So people can go back in the office and work.  I know, you know, COVID is up and down, but basically we got finished office cause we had to kind of move a little bit.  So that kind of worked out, but we still, and then we’ve converted that office and repainting new furniture, everything, everything.  And we have this baller podcast studio that we’re going to start doing a podcast out of and videography and photography and a green room.  It’s going to be awesome. 

Chris Burres·03:16

So I think if people are interested and they’re in the Houston area, or if they just want to fly in, that would be cool.  This space might be available to you.  Just reach out to us.  And we’ll work. 

Matt Bertram·03:26

Doing a lot.  We’re doing a lot of custom content as far as like graphics, video commercials, you know, infographics, whatever.  Right.  So just like create, we’re doing a lot of creative work.  And so we needed a place to do a lot of that kind of stuff.  And I think it will be fun to get back together and let me turn my volume down it for getting the feedback. 

Chris Burres·03:52

No, no feedback.  You’re good. 

Matt Bertram·03:53

I’m hearing it though on my end. 

Chris Burres·03:55

Well ignore it.  Cause it’s not coming through on my end.  Okay. 

Matt Bertram·04:00

It’s still your fault. 

Chris Burres·04:03

I win tails.  You lose.  Oh, by the way, if you are checking us out on YouTube, do make sure that you subscribe, follow and click that notification bell.  Are you ready to jump into this article? 

Matt Bertram·04:13

Let’s get in there. 

Chris Burres·04:14

All right.  How to use Google trends for SEO, right?  And we’re, there’s 12 ways that you can use Google trends for SEO.  We’re going to cover six in this particular podcast.  And there is, I’m going to throw up a massive disclaimer that Google trends has information that’s interesting and potentially unrelated to the work that you are currently doing.  And so they’re far potentially distracting.  So as I was confer, preparing for this podcast, I was on Google trends, confirming all the stuff that they’ve done.  I found an article that I knew would be interesting to my brother.  I said to him, found an article for my wife, her. 

Matt Bertram·04:58

So, so the thing that’s most hilarious for everybody that’s watching or listening is you said, Hey, what article are we going to do?  And I said, go use Google trends.  And then literally you go find an article about using Google. 

Chris Burres·05:16

Ironically, 

Matt Bertram·05:17

I was like, find something on Google trends, but you found the article about Google trends, which is perfect and awesome at all the same time, but very literal. 

Chris Burres·05:30

And also I did find lots of stuff on Google trends that was useful and I passed it on to family.  So that is the warning.  This has the potential of being distracted.  Maybe put on your undestructible glasses before you head into Google trends.  You can of course find [email protected].  Actually I think it’s trends.google.com.  And let’s jump into this in this article.  You’re going to learn everything you need to know.  By the way we did find this on search engine journal, everything you need to know about Google trends, plus 12 ways to use Google twin trends for SEO.  Who’s first, you might, oh, look, it’s Matt.  He’s a he’s in another world. 

Matt Bertram·06:13

We’re on my, you said put on my glasses, My in. 

Chris Burres·06:17

Distractible glasses so that you can no longer be distracted. 

Matt Bertram·06:21

I’m like in another world, 

Chris Burres·06:23

What is Google trends?  Google trends is a free tool that provides data and graphs on the popularity of specific search terms used on Google and YouTube.  It was originally introduced in 2006 latest version came out in 2018 and you can use Google trends to find out what’s recently trending, surprise, identify trending topics or subtopics within an industry or overarching theme, discover geographic search trends local to your area.  And I love this example, for example, things that you could learn from Google trends.  The first us presidential debate between Joe Biden, Donald Trump started at 9:00 PM Eastern on September 29th, coincidentally in the United States, the seven-day Google trend for moving to Canada peaked at 10:00 PM that same day. 

Matt Bertram·07:18

So, so this is an article by Chuck price.  So we want to give a shout out to Chuck price. 

Chris Burres·07:24

Yeah.  Jeff Price.  Well done.  And we’re going to cover you two times, cause we’re going to do your first six points on this one.  All right.  So here are the six tips on this one.  Number one keyword research.  You can conduct free keyword research on Google trends by entering a specific search term and the search box on the home page.  By default, this runs a search for Google’s most popular keywords, but you can also change it to scour YouTube search data instead, right?  A lot of value in YouTube, looking at the past two or three years of data versus only the most recent year of data can help you distinguish between fads and true 10 trends. 

Chris Burres·08:05

You want to avoid keywords that are becoming less popular over time and focus on things that are coming more popular over time.  And this allows you to kind of focus on those. 

Matt Bertram·08:15

No, I think a SEO news SEO is something we could talk about later.  I also think, you know, keyword research, man, I’ll just tell you there’s so many tribal views on like how to do certain things.  That’s really quite interesting.  So were having a debate.  We brought on some new people.  There’s a lot of different of viewpoints on how to do keyword research and what it’s meant for.  And yeah, I think that’s a whole nother podcast as well, but I think that really keyword research and what you’re going after, whether it’s long tail key phrases, where’s the broad terms. 

Matt Bertram·08:53

Like what the intent is incredibly important when you’re using keyword research and knowing that like whatever 75% of all searches are new to Google, there’s really some opportunities to really zero in and pinpoint somebody at the right decision point to show them the right piece of information on the customer journey.  And I think keyword research absolutely helps you do that.  So he would research number one, for sure. 

Chris Burres·09:22

Yeah.  And it’s, it’s something that you do have to do have like a broad thing, Matic overview on and also get granular, right?  Because just the addition of one word, you know, from buy to sell right in a search phrase, changes your interest in that customer entirely.  I mean, I know that’s a big switch, but it’s subtle things that can cause a really good keywords to, you know, no has any value. 

Matt Bertram·09:51

The intent is so incredibly important and really trying to get into the head of the prospect or customer or whatever, whoever you’re targeting to understand what are they looking for, what are they trying to solve for?  And you’re trying to be that solution.  And so there’s so much strategy and thought that goes into the planning piece of it that makes everything else work.  And so, yeah, intent is incredibly important.  And I think I’ve seen a lot of people just focus on certain keywords and volume and kind of spin their wheels a little bit and in that area.  And so really understanding what you’re trying to do and what that target is and what the goal of either the pages and the target keywords are.  And then how that fits together. 

Matt Bertram·10:44

Upper funnel, lower funnel is what’s going to get you to the promised land.  So. 

Chris Burres·10:51

Customers and leads, all right.  Number two, finding related keywords.  What makes Google trends unique is its ability to recommend it related keywords that are currently growing in popularity, trends, returns a list of keywords.  It considers as closely related to your search.  Google trends, search shows keywords in order of popularity.  And we’ll even provide you the exact percentage search volume increase for each one of the keywords.  Sometimes it will replace that percentage search increase with the word breakout.  That sounds exciting because it is that means that the keyword has increased by over 5000% breakout, 5000%.  These are trends that the author has found to be some of the most important to hop on.  Now you gotta be careful.  The downside is building a strategy on breakout keywords.  They can turn into fats. 

Chris Burres·11:46

If they’re fads instead of actual trends, then all the content that you wrote for them may just eventually go stale. 

Matt Bertram·11:54

Yeah, no, it’s kinda, you know, you’re chasing your trace and breakouts.  And I think understanding how to define a trend versus something that, I mean with the 24 hour news cycle, it’s incredibly, you know, difficult to understand yeah.  To understand.  And so you got to look at those kinds of deeper trends, you know, that’s why we’ve been really looking at the web three space, right?  And so I believe that’s a underlying trend kind of like the internet is an underlying trend. 

Chris Burres·12:29

You’re being that a crypto is not a breakout is an actual trend or it’s both a breakout and a trend. 

Matt Bertram·12:35

At times.  It’s certainly a breakout, but I told you that the trend, and for those that believe it’s a fad, let’s talk in a couple years and you’re going to wish you invested. 

Chris Burres·12:45

All right.  Number three, discover Ray related topics.  The last one was keywords.  This is topic.  So when you’re looking on the result page for trends left of the related queries, there’s another table called related topics.  This table provides you with insight into broader topics that people are searching for.  These recommendations can help you find new and trending ideas for future content.  So again, looking at, Hey, wow.  I never thought that this particular topic was related to my subject, but if I dig into it and look at the keywords associated with that topic, now I can have some understanding of keywords that I might want to target. 

Matt Bertram·13:24

Yeah.  I think the thing to remember here is Google is trying to organize all information in the most compact and efficient way possible.  And it’s looking for associations, right?  And this is another example of algorithm that’s connecting together, similar keywords and related topics and seeing how they all fit together based on, well, your analytics of what you might like to look at and click.  And certainly they did a good job with you, Chris.  And so that’s the power of machine learning right there.  So. 

Chris Burres·14:07

That’s all right.  I do have somebody literally blowing leaves at five 30, almost in the dark, outside my window.  I don’t know if you can hear that or you’re just hearing. 

Matt Bertram·14:16

A little bit, a. 

Chris Burres·14:17

Little, it’s not too bad.  It’s good to have a directional mic.  That’s actually good.  And they’ve moved past now.  So next is start big and whittle down inter a big time keyword for your topic.  Something that you really wish you had position one for and kind of know you’re never going to get and then click the button.  Now from here, Google trends invite you to drill down in a number of ways worldwide.  You can actually drill down into regional locations where this trend, where that topic and or keyword is trending use tools.  So you can select times use multiple times selections to get an idea of again, long-term trends versus short term trends.  And that could be trends up or down, right? 

Chris Burres·15:01

If it’s a long-term trend up, Hey, that’s something you want to write some content on.  If it’s a long trend down, then you want to think about, okay, well, how much longer is this going to last?  Is this something that maybe is going to be a little asymptotic and continue to have good volume?  And it is worth continuing to create content for, or maybe it’s just going to fade off into oblivion and you want to stop spending time on it.  You can also, yeah, go ahead. 

Matt Bertram·15:26

No, no.  I was just going to quiz you really quickly.  So what did internet marketing digital marketing used to be called?  That’s trending down. 

Chris Burres·15:39

Internet marketing, digital marketing.  What. 

Matt Bertram·15:42

Was it prior before that. 

Chris Burres·15:47

And not just market? 

Matt Bertram·15:49

Mm. 

Chris Burres·15:50

M oh, 

Matt Bertram·15:52

Modern marketing. 

Chris Burres·15:54

Modern.  Really? 

Matt Bertram·15:55

Yeah.  A lot of marketing.  That’s what people used to call it, modern marketing.  And. 

Chris Burres·16:00

I would like some of that, that modern marketing, please. Are you sure you weren’t just searching Texas?  I would like some of that modern marketing please.  All right.  Next filter by categories is essential.  So again, you can boil down the categories.  You can look at those categories, look at the actual keywords that are associated with those categories.  Find out if those are important to you.  And then finally a web search type.  So you can look at web images, news, Google, shopping, and YouTube.  So that’s all very important.  Well, YouTube might be the most important of those.  Well, they are really making lots of noise right outside my window.  All right, next, this is number five context, context.  That sounds kind of like location, location from real estate. 

Chris Burres·16:51

No, the results of today, aren’t compared to the overall popularity of all trends, but rather the previous Heights of the keywords you entered.  So you entered a phrase like modern marketing, and you’re going to see this chart, which is zero to a hundred. And it’s going to show you based on all the time, where is it in terms of percentage of the highest point of interest.  And that will give you an idea that’s what that’s looking at.  So be careful, don’t think that’s actually searches.  Don’t think it’s actually clicks.  It’s actually a percentage of the maximum traffic.  We are getting a little feedback.  Now, as an example, take the phrase, Caribbean cruise pre COVID-19 evening. 

Chris Burres·17:35

You can imagine what it was doing and that it had a trend and that trend was in the upward direction.  You can also imagine that it plummeted off of the face of the search right around COVID-19 lockdown and has continued to stay very low on an ongoing basis now. 

Matt Bertram·17:55

Yeah.  Share screen for those that are watching.  Cause this is pretty awesome. 

Chris Burres·17:59

Pretty dramatic, right? 

Matt Bertram·18:01

Yeah. 

Chris Burres·18:05

Yeah.  There we go.  It peaked right before.  I wonder what that’s about.  That’s weird, right?  Oh no, that’s not.  That’s weird.  Why did it peak up right before it locked down? 

Matt Bertram·18:18

People trying to get out of Dodge. 

Chris Burres·18:21

I got one last trip to the Caribbean before we get locked down.  All right.  So one takeaway from here is never ignore context, right?  That’s why this header is called context, context, try to get rid of your own blind spots.  Other ways of adding context include using the compare tool to add new keywords.  So compare it to different keywords, nice feature of a, of Google trends filter by country or category.  And then also look at web searches versus YouTube searches versus whatever searches as I dance around the screen.  Number six, get more advanced with specific search options using related queries and other specific search options can help you find new keyword ideas and even steal business from your competitors.  That just sounds good to say, right?  Like steal business from your competitors. 

Chris Burres·19:19

You’ll notice that there are five options under this.  Really.  He only clicks only talks about one.  When you’re looking at the result and you’re looking at related topics, there’s a dropdown called rising by clicking rising.  You can also have the option to view top overall keywords dig into this data is the, is the point that he’s making is the point that Chuck is making.  Don’t be afraid to dig down into the CA queries.  There’s a good chance that you can hop on a new trend before it becomes a breakout trend.  And that’s the first six items.  Do you have something to add there? 

Matt Bertram·19:56

You know, it’s kind of like a, I guess, buy low, sell high sort of like the breakout, like, and get in front of the trend.  You can capitalize on it when it happens.  I mean, if you look at maybe podcasts like Joe Rogan, he certainly rides the trends and he’s been very successful at it.  There’s certainly a lot of their components and he’s very good with guests and all those sorts of things, but he certainly, you know, brings people on that are part of the national conversation.  And I looked at a data point showing that I think he had more share of voice than all the other news networks combined or equal to or something like that.  Like he it’s massive.  Right. 

Matt Bertram·20:39

And I think that he’s talking, he’s not talking from talking points, he’s talking about what people are interested in.  And then he’s bringing people on to further like.