What are the Most Searched Words on Google?

I love it when people ask me what are the most searched words on Google and how to tell how many people are looking for their product or service.

It’s this part of search marketing that’s really interesting because some of the tools available are like you’re getting a direct connection into the mind of your customers.

By using some of the free tools I’ll talk about below you can start to understand exactly how people might be using Google to find your business.

Each and every day there are more than 3.5 billion searches on Google, that works out at more than 40,000 search queries every second. But what exactly are people searching for? There are a number of ways to get insight on what people are actually Googling (or Binging for that matter).

 

Assessing Search Volume Throughout the Year Using Google Trends

This insight into search behaviour can lead to some interesting and often surprising insights.

Take the chart below as an example showing the global search volumes for “how did this happen”, bearing in mind the American presidential election took place on 8th November 2016 and the spike happens that very same week – I’ll let you draw your own conclusions on what the true intent was behind the search:

Search trends after Donald Trump elected
The day the world asked ‘WTF!?’ captured perfectly by Google Trends

We used Google Trends to capture the above data. It allows you to enter a number of search keywords or phrases and compare relative traffic volumes for each – it doesn’t actually give you to total volume of searches, rather an indexed view so that you can assess the relative search volume throughout the year (or across multiple years).

In fact the team at Google used the trends tool to figure out and report on the most popular search terms following the announcement of the US election result:

Trump - fake news

This becomes even more useful when you use it for something actually related to your business.

Take for instance if you’re an air conditioning engineer and trying to assess how to spread your search engine marketing budget throughout the year, it stands to reason that the peak search volume would be in the summer but by using Google Trends you can confirm this and actually see the relative traffic for each month of the year across the previous 5 years.

Using this data you might then ensure you’ve got marketing budget set aside for Jan/Feb where searches for air conditioning engineers peak, particularly in New South Wales.

You might also want to put in place contingency plans for those quieter months and decide to move budget away from search marketing and promote the heating component of your air conditioning systems via Facebook (or potentially reinvest in heating related search keywords).

The challenge with trends is that it won’t necessarily tell you directly what the most searched words on Google actually are, rather it’ll let you do a broad comparison over a period of time.

If it’s raw numbers that you’re looking for then read on.

 

How To Get More Precise Search Word Data Using Google Keyword Planner

If you’re just starting out on your keyword research then it’s probably better to start with Google’s Keyword Planner tool. Bing also have their own version based on the data collected from their site.

To access these tools you’ll need to create a Bing Ads and/or AdWords account then login using the links above. If you’re already logged into AdWords and raring to go then you can access the keyword planner using the top nav as shown below:

keyword planner in AdWords nav

Or if you’re using AdWords new whizzbang interface click the three dots (top right) to access the menu below:

keyword planner in nav - NEW AdWords interface

Once you’re in there you’ll be able to enter a target search term, you’ll also be able to ask Google to pull search data from a more precise geographic area than you can in Trends. In the example below I’ve continued our research into “air conditioning installation” and narrowed the focus to Sydney.

You’ll get to see the report below on the search words you’ve entered with an immediate view on approximate monthly search volumes:

keyword tool - overall volumes for most searched words on google
Grab from Google’s Keyword Planner Tool – showing overall search volumes for air conditioning installation

Here I can immediately see the monthly search volume for all related keywords along with the average monthly search volume for the specific keyword(s) that I’ve entered in the tool.

I can also see some suggested keywords towards the bottom of the page.

This is a great way to expand the potential search words that you’re pursuing. Of the 3.5 billion daily searches on Google, 15% are new, never searched before words (source: Google)!

There are of course many other tools that will help you to understand the words that your potential customers are using to find your business but the two I’ve just reviewed are an excellent starting point.

Be warned once you delve into the world of trying to figure out the most searched words on Google it’s addictive stuff, you’ll probably end up wanting to delve into the mind of your customers on a daily basis!

If you’d like more advice on keyword research then please get in contact with us today, I’d be happy to help.