What is Google Trends?

I discovered this little gem about six months ago, and have been obsessed with it ever since! Google Trends is an online search tool that allows you to see how specific keywords, topics and phrases have trended over a period of time. It graphs how often a term is used over time and where geographically most people are searching for a given term. This data can be exported the data into a .CSV file which can be opened in Excel or other spreadsheet applications. Another cool feature is that you can compare up to five terms to view their relative popularity.

Why is all of this important? For a couple reasons:

• Mobile: More and more consumers are searching on mobile devices. And people search differently on mobile than they do on a computer. If they are typing the search, they tend to use fewer words. If they are using voice controls, they tend to be more conversational. This will an affect on the keyword phrases you choose.

• Change: The only constant is change, and you can be sure the topics and phrased that consumers use to search for real estate online will change as well. If you're going to go to work hard at optimizing your website and content for a keyword phrase, wouldn't you rather use a phrase that is trending UP, rather than one that is trending DOWN?