5 Free Google Tools for Researching Your Market

Internet marketers, webmasters and online businesses have always had a love / hate relationship with Google. Whatever you may think of them, they do provide website owners with some great market research tools.

No matter what market you are in or plan to be in, you will find the following free tools provided by Google very useful when researching your market. One word of advice: You should be researching your market constantly, NOT just when setting up your site. The internet is ever changing, and if you are not keeping up with those changes you will be left behind.

Market Research Tool 1 - Related Searches and Wonder Wheel

When you start typing in the main Google search box you should see a drop down box appear showing you some alternative search terms related to the word you just typed. Note these phrases down in a Notepad file or write them on a piece of paper. They will be useful as part of your keyword list used in the next tool. You will also see more related search phrases after you click search. Scroll to the bottom of the results page and you will see “searches related to”. Write down any new phrases shown there.

Recently, Google has released Wonder Wheel which is also a related keywords tool but is shown in a mind map format. You can also click on the related phrases to find more useful search terms. To access wonder wheel: enter your keyword in the standard search screen, then at the top of the results on the left you should see a show options link. Select that and it will reveal a menu. Near the bottom of the menu you should see wonder wheel.

Market Research Tool 2 - AdWords Keyword Tool

We all know how important keywords and search phrases are. Let's face it, it is what drives the Internet. Google has provided us with a tool that tells you what keywords and phrases people are using to find what they are looking for. You are able to search an individual country, more than one if you hold down the ctrl key on your keyboard as you select, or all countries.

The AdWords tool is now more valuable due to the fact it shows actual search numbers. Previously you only had a green bar to indicate how much traffic the search term receíved. You can also see how competitive each keyword is amongst AdWords advertisers, showing you which keywords are commercially most viable.

Market Research Tool 3 - Google Trends

Now that you have an idea what keywords and long tailed search phrases your market is using you can use the Trends tool to check the history of that keyword / phrase. Google Trends supplies data for the last 5 years, thereby giving you an idea if the search term is consistent. You can also see if the search term is especially popular at certain times of the year, also known as a seasonal keyword.

Another important function of Trends is the section that tells you the popularity of a keyword by country, city and language - very useful if you are targeting particular countries or even cities.

Market Research Tool 4 - Google Alerts

Alerts is incredibly underused by webmasters. If you want to stay in touch with what is hot in your market, you easily can by using Google Alerts. All you have to do is enter the most popular phrases in your market. Google will then send you links via email depending on what type you select.

The types are news, web, blogs, video and groups. If you would like a mix of all, you can select comprehensive. You can decide how often you want to be updated by selecting either: as it happens, once a day, or once a week. I hope you can see how powerful this is if you want to be seen as an authority in your market.

Market Research Tool 5 - Google Web Search

Finally, we have Google´s standard web search which is not standard in my eyes. It provides a lot of information if you know what to look for. Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is an important part of running a website. By performing a search of your market keywords, Google will tell you what type of content it sees as important.

If you see videos, blogs or images, this gives you another way to reach the top 10 of Google´s search results. If you see Web 2.0 style sites such as Digg, that could be another avenue. If there are AdWords ads on the right side of the screen, that tells you the market is commercially viable and more importantly that the keyword you entered is good enough to pay for, especially if there are 10 ads or more.

As you can see, even if you do not have money to buy the latest tools, there is a way to get some very important information using free tools courtesy of Google. Are you starting to feel alittle love for them now?

Good luck!