How to use Google Trends for SEO and keyword research

Google Trends is Google’s free tool for seeing how interest in a search rises and falls over time, and how it differs from one place to another. It does not give search volumes: it scores interest from 0 to 100, relative to the highest point on the chart. That makes it the right tool for two SEO questions: which wording people type, and when they type it.

This tutorial on how to use Google Trends follows seven steps: set the filters, compare phrasings, read the seasons, find rising searches, check regions, try the Gemini panel added in January 2026, then take your shortlist to Keyword Planner for volumes. It is part of my guide to small business SEO.

Menu names below are those of the English interface. Google redesigned the Explore page in January 2026 and rolls out its new features gradually, so a label or a panel may differ slightly on your screen.

What Google Trends shows, and what it does not

For each point on the chart, Trends works out the share of Google searches, in that place and at that time, that matched your term. It then scales the chart so that its highest point is 100 (Google News Initiative). Four things follow:

• 100 is the peak of this chart, not a number of searches. 50 means half as popular as that peak. Two charts made separately cannot be compared: put the terms on the same chart instead.
• A flat line does not mean flat demand. Each point is a share of all searches, so if searches for your service grow at the same pace as searches in general, the line stays flat.
• 0 means not enough data, not zero searches. Trends leaves out terms that very few people search.
• Narrow terms often show nothing. A service plus a town name is usually too small for Trends: test the service on its own, in your country, and check local demand in Keyword Planner.

Step 1: open Explore and set the filters

Go to trends.google.com, type your main service in the search box and press Enter: the Explore page opens on your term. Before you read the chart, check the four filters above it.

1. Location: your country, United Kingdom for UK clients. On Worldwide, the chart mixes searches from every country, the United States included, and British and American English do not always use the same words (solicitor and attorney, estate agent and realtor).
2. Time range: Past 5 years to see seasons and the long-term direction, Past 12 months for recent changes.
3. Category: keep All categories unless your word has two meanings. A trainer can be a coach or a running shoe; choosing the category of your trade removes the other meaning.
4. Search type: Web Search, the default, is the one that matters for SEO.

As you type, Trends offers two kinds of entry. A search term counts searches that contain your words, in the language you typed them in. A topic groups every search about the same subject, in any language, so the topic London also counts searches for Londres. To choose between phrasings, use search terms; to measure interest in a subject as a whole, use a topic.

Step 2: compare the words your clients actually use

Add terms to the same chart with Compare. Since the January 2026 redesign, you can compare up to eight at once (the limit used to be five). Same chart, same scale: the highest line is the wording people type most in that place and period.

Start with the words your clients use on the phone and in their emails, not the vocabulary of your trade. A UK business might test “web designer” against “website designer”, or “air con” against “air conditioning”. Trends counts what you type, not what you mean, so if both the singular and the plural are plausible, test both.

If you sell in both countries, test each language in its own country rather than translating your English keyword. My French clients say “SEO” and “référencement” equally, and they mix English words such as “landing page” with French ones such as “site vitrine”: only a chart set to France tells you which to put on a French page.

Quotation marks and the plus and minus signs refine a term:

The minus sign is the handy one: -jobs, -free or -course take out people who will never buy your service.

Step 3: read the chart for seasons and direction

With Past 5 years selected, look at Interest over time. Three shapes matter:

• A pattern that repeats every year: a climb, a peak and a fall in the same months. That is your season.
• A slow rise or decline over the years: the direction of your market, or of the word itself as people adopt a new one.
• A single spike: news, a television programme, a post that went viral. Do not build a page around it.

For a seasonal business, note the month the climb starts rather than the month of the peak. An air conditioning installer wants to know when people start looking; a wedding photographer, when couples start searching. Pages need time to rank: Google’s guidance on hiring an SEO says that, in most cases, it takes four months to a year to make the improvements and then see the benefit. So create seasonal pages well before the season, and refresh the existing ones (prices, dates, photos, questions) a few weeks before the climb.

Two traps when you read the line:

• A vertical line marked Note flags a change in how Google collects data. A jump just after it is not your market moving.
• The last point is often incomplete and marked as partial data. A sudden drop at the very end of the line usually corrects itself.

Step 4: find rising searches and related topics

Below the chart, Related topics and Related queries list what people search for alongside your term. Each panel has two views:

• Top: the most searched related queries over your period. They show the words people add to your service: a town, a price question, a brand.
• Rising: the queries whose searches grew most compared with the previous period of the same length. Breakout replaces the percentage when growth is above 5,000%. Since January 2026, Trends shows twice as many rising queries as before.

Rising queries are where content ideas come from. A rising question can become a blog post, an FAQ entry or a new section on an existing page; my guide on how to write SEO blog posts covers the writing. Check before you act, though: a Breakout can start from almost nothing, and a rising query can be news that fades within a week. Click it to open its own chart and check that the rise lasts.

Step 5: see where interest is strongest

Interest by subregion maps the same score by area. In the United Kingdom, the subregions are England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland; switch the view to cities for more detail when there is enough data. The score is a share again: 100 is the area where your term takes the largest share of local searches, not the area with the most searches, so a smaller city can rank above London.

With several terms on the chart, the breakdown shows which phrasing leads in each area, which helps when your clients in different regions do not use the same words.

Use the map to decide which areas to mention on your pages and where to start your local SEO. Do not answer it with one near-identical page per town: Google’s spam policies treat pages aimed at specific regions or cities that funnel visitors to one page as doorway abuse (Google Search Central).

Step 6: let Gemini build the comparison

On 14 January 2026, Google announced a Gemini side panel for the Explore page (Google’s announcement). You describe what you are interested in, and Gemini picks relevant search terms, plots up to eight of them on the chart and suggests prompts to take the exploration further. You can then edit the terms and change the country, time and search type filters.

Google labels the panel experimental and rolled it out gradually, starting on desktop, so it may not appear on your account or on your phone. Where it does, treat its list as a first draft:

1. Check the location first: a comparison built for the wrong country answers the wrong question.
2. Remove the terms your clients would never type, and add the ones they do.
3. Read the chart yourself. Gemini chooses the terms; the 0 to 100 scale still means the same thing.

For the vocabulary itself, I use deep research with an AI assistant: it brings out what people complain about in a niche and which words keep coming back. If you work that way too, Trends is a quick way to check which of those phrasings people actually type into Google.

Step 7: take your phrasings to Keyword Planner

Trends tells you which phrasing and when. It cannot tell you whether the highest line means fifty searches a month or five thousand. For that, take your shortlist to Google Keyword Planner: it is free inside a Google Ads account, and without ad spend it shows volumes as ranges rather than exact figures. My Google Keyword Planner tutorial shows how to open it without running ads.

I use Semrush mainly for keyword research, including what each keyword costs in ads: what advertisers pay shows which keywords bring business, and I double down on those in SEO rather than paying for clicks. My Semrush review helps you decide whether the subscription is worth it for you. The whole method, from the first list of words to the plan of your pages, is in my guide to keyword research for small businesses.

How to use Google Trends before each new page: a checklist

Run through this list before you write or rename a page:

1. Set the location to your country and the time range to Past 5 years.
2. Compare the phrasings your clients use, singular and plural when both are plausible.
3. Note the winning phrasing and, if there is a season, the month the climb starts.
4. Open Related queries > Rising for questions to answer on the page or in a blog post.
5. Check Interest by subregion for the areas worth mentioning.
6. Take the shortlist to Keyword Planner for volume ranges.
7. Use the winning phrasing in the page title, the first paragraph and one heading.
8. Come back once a year, before your season: the words people use change.

You do not need anyone to use Trends: it is free, and once you know where each panel sits, the list is quick to run for each service. Hand the job over when you would rather have someone choose the keywords, plan the pages and write them; that is part of my SEO service.