Last night while I was messing with my AdWords account, I found a new tool that Google is offering called Google Insights for Search.  I spent a few hours (yeah, quite the life I live) playing with this new exciting tool.  I’ll just go through a quick runthrough of an example so all the YOUmozzers can go and experience it. 

I recommend the first thing you do when you get to the tool is go and read the Help page associated with it.  It will help you understand all the different numbers and what the charts are really showing you.  Since almost everyone that reads this blog is interested in SEO for one reason or another, I will use that as my example.  

In the first image I compared the terms “search engine optimization” and “seo” because often people question which term is more useful to use.  I filtered the results so only the United States from 2004 to present would show.  You have a wide variety of locations to pick from and can narrow it down to region, which I will show you later.

If you look at the image you will see that it breaks the information into two different areas, interest over time and regional interest.  The numbers on the interest over time graph reflect how many searches have been done for the particular terms, relative to the total number of searches done on Google over time.  From the graph you can see that the term “search engine optimization” and “seo” started out about equal, but the term “seo” has grown by leaps and bounds.  So basically is says for 21 people who search for “search engine optimization,” there are 64 people who search for “seo.”

I narrowed the next search down to my native state of Michigan.  Again, it showed me more useful information.  I broke it down into regions in Michigan that are searching for the terms “seo” and “search engine optimization.”   Now I know that if I’m focusing on the Detroit area, I need to optimize my page for the term “seo” instead of “search engine optimization.”

Google says “Google Insights for Search shows the likelihood of users in a particular area to search for a term on Google on a relative basis.”  I feel this tool can very useful for everyone out there who may need to optimize their site for particular terms in certain areas or for those who need to know when certain terms are hot.  I've also found it useful to find the difference between attorneys and lawyers with one of my clients, Grand Rapids Lawyer.  Go check it out and report back what you thought of the tool and its possible uses.