Understanding when people are likely to search for your product or products is key to developing your digital strategy, and that is where Google Trends comes in. Using the tool, we can enter a search term, and it will tell us the popularity of that search over a period of time. Essentially, it paints a picture of a keyphrase’s lifetime.

So, continuing our look at the garden & outdoor theme we’ve had going on this week, we’ve done a search trend analysis for six keyphrases which garden and outdoor retailers are likely to want to be ranking for.

Greenhouses

The overall search interest in greenhouses has been fairly consistent, which indicates a demand from consumers year after year. The most popular time of year is around March and April, with a mini-peak around September. This brief upward trend in September could be as a result of gardeners looking to cover plants going into the winter months.

Garden Furniture

Typically, the peak in searches around garden furniture has taken place in April or May. However, there are one or two exceptions, notably in 2013 where there was a peak in July, and 2014 where there was a sustained period of searches across April, May, June and July, before falling away. Unsurprisingly, searches around garden furniture correlate with temperature; the warmer it is and the better the weather is, the more people want to sit outside or have garden parties or barbecues.

BBQ’s

Firstly, you’ll notice that we’ve done the trend analysis on ‘BBQ’ and not ‘barbecue’. That’s because the term ‘BBQ’ averages 2.25 times more average monthly searches than the alternative ‘Barbecue’, and so it makes more sense to run the analysis on the phrase which is going to drive more traffic to retailers’ sites. Once again, it’s unsurprising that the ‘BBQ’ phrase is driven by the weather, but it’s also interesting to note the popularity of the search term has increased over the past 10 years.

Plant Seeds

Another search term which has seemingly grown in popularity over the past few years is ‘plant seeds’. Yet again there is clear seasonal influence, and the trend follows a similar pattern to ‘greenhouses’, with a peak in March and April, and a sub-peak in September.

Lawnmowers

Once more it’s around April that the search terms “lawnmower” and “lawnmowers” become popular, as people look to battle their overgrown lawns which haven’t been kept well over the winter months. It’s interesting to see the shift in how people search though, with the two phrases initially starting out very closely matched, but by 2011 they start shifting apart with “lawnmower” taking the lead in terms of search popularity.

Want to know more about how we can help you optimise your site for the popular search terms in your industry? Then get in touch with us here and we’ll be in touch!