Google recently announced they will be rolling out a new feature to Google Trends where users will have the ability to subscribe to popular topics, and highly searched for key terms, and have them delivered as email notifications.

If you’re familiar with Google Alerts, this new feature works in a very similar way. You will be able to subscribe to a particular topic and receive a notification if there is an increase in search volume around that topic. Currently, Google allows you to subscribe to any search topic, Hot Searches for any country, or any U.S. monthly Top Chart.

Another way you can use this feature is to subscribe to notifications about trending topics by location. For example, I live in Canada but I primarily write for audiences in the United States. If I wanted to receive notifications about popular topics and hot search keywords in the United States I could set up an alert to notify me of this and easily keep up to date with what’s trending in the US.

So how does this work and why is it important? 

This is an incredibly useful new tool for all the busy professionals out there who don’t have time to manually sift through blogs and websites every day to stay current. Now the information can be sent directly to you.

In this post I will discuss why this tool is important for a variety of reasons. Content creators, marketers, and those who want to keep track of their online reputation can all benefit from this tool. If you’re thinking, “I already use Google Alerts so why do I need this?”  I will explain the difference between these tools as well and how both of them are uniquely useful.

But first I will show you how to go about using this tool in the first place. You’ll be happy to know it’s incredibly easy, but there are a few ways you can use it and I want to make sure you don’t miss anything. So let me walk you through it.

How To Set Up Google Trends Notifications

There are several different ways you can set up your Google Trends notifications. Let me quickly walk you through all of them.

Subscribe To A Topic Of Your Choice

To set up email notifications based on a topic and location of your choice, simply visit the Subscriptions section within Google Trends and click on Add subscription.

From there, select the topic and country of your choice and indicate how often you would like to receive notifications.

Then click the Subscribe button.

Once you have subscribed you will receive notifications when there is a spike in search volume around the topic you specified. For example, if you subscribe to the topic of Search Engine Optimization you will likely receive a notification when Google releases a new algorithm update because it’s something a lot of people will be searching for.

Subscribe To All Top Searches By Country

In addition, or instead of, the method described above you can also subscribe to receive a regular digest of all the top searches within a specified country. This is useful if you’re not interested in keeping up with one specific topic, and would rather keep up with all high volume search terms in general.

To do this, start by going to the Top Searches page.

Once you get there, this is what you’ll see:

On the top left where it says “USA” is a drop down list of countries. Click on it and choose which country you would like to see the top searches from.

On the bottom right of the image above you’ll see a ‘Subscribe’ button. Click on it and you will be presented with a few more options.

When you click the Subscribe button you can choose to subscribe to only the most popular searches, some of the popular searches, or all of the popular searches.

You can also choose how often you want to receive notifications, with the options being: when it happens, once a day, or once a week.

Click on the Subscribe button one more time and you’re done!

What Are The Business Implications?

Google Trends notifications have a number of useful business implications. Here are some of the most important ones to make note of.

Online Reputation Management

If you represent a brand, business, or individual person that gets searched for a lot, this is an excellent way to keep track of what people are looking for. You may have Google Alerts set up already, which is great, but there are distinct differences between the two services.

Google Alerts notifies you about mentions on the web, but it doesn’t let you know what’s being searched for. That’s where Google Trends notifications comes in. Knowing what’s being searched for about your business gives you the opportunity to better cater to your audience.

For example, maybe you’ll find that people are frequently searching for reviews, or discounts, or tutorials about how to use one of your products. Conversely you may also find that people are searching for negative key terms, which gives you the opportunity to jump in and do some damage control.

Google Trends notifications adds another level of online reputation management that you can’t get solely from Google Alerts.

Content Marketing

If you’re a blogger or content marketer, knowing what people are searching for can be crucial to the success of your content. If you create a great piece of content that no one is searching for, chances are it will fall flat. Alternatively, if you create a piece of content that a large volume of people are searching for it will go over quite well.

Google Trends notifications allows you to stay on top of what’s being searched for in your niche, which can give you some insights as to what kinds of topics to create content around. This will help you ensure you create more pieces around subjects people searching for.

Is Google Alerts Going Anywhere?

I have heard some concerns from people that the launch of this new feature from Google means they will be phasing out Google Alerts and perhaps even discontinuing the service.

At this time there is no truth to those rumors. Google’s announcement never once alluded to the idea that they will be getting rid of Google Alerts, so I wouldn’t worry about it for now.

In my opinion, the two services are so uniquely different from each other in many of the ways I described above that it wouldn’t make sense to discontinue Google Alerts. One does not replace the other in any way, they both do very different things.

Conclusion

I hope I have fully explained how to use this new feature from Google and why it’s an important tool to add to your arsenal. If you have any questions about it, how to use it, or how to get the most out of it, I’d be happy to answer them. Just leave me a comment down below.