By Charlotte L. Hanna CCO CMBS Global

Google Trends is a tool that shows the world’s interest in certain topics, the frequency with which those topics have appeared in Google News stories, and in which geographical regions people have searched those topics most. The data is updated daily.

You can also see the day’s top 40 fastest-rising search queries in the U.S. under Hot Searches. This data reflects “sudden surges in popularity”, and like much of the nation’s “weather” (a term considered too generic for Hot Searches, by the way) this information changes rapidly, so Google updates it hourly.

Unfortunately, the data produced for these tools may contain inaccuracies, and is therefore not the most reliable source for knowing and understanding exactly what topics or key phrases your target market is searching. Trends can be fun and interesting – but for more accurately tapping into the searches of your target market, you will probably want to rely on another of Google’s free tools called Google Insights for Search. [Read more...]