One of my favorite research tools is Google Insights. This tool can give you back so much information, it’s simple incredible… if you know how to use it right!

I won’t lie. I have kept my mouth shut on this topic for quite some time because of the fact that everyone else was. Very few people really know how to use Google Insights, from what I’m seeing.

But, I figured “what the hell…”

Without any fluff, let’s dive right in.

First of all, head over to Google Insights.

Right from the start, you’ll see this page: (I apologize for the quality, but I needed something smaller)

Notice the Search box. You can quickly add more keywords to compare them against each other. You can also click on the other Radio Buttons (Locations, Time Ranges) to compare data. You can quickly sort by year, compare years, drill down from Markets, and even dig deeper into each market (categories).

This tool does so much stuff, but nobody really knows much about it, it seems.

Keep the “Search Terms” radio button checked, and in the Search Box, put in “Acai Berries” …

As you’ll see, you now have Google Trends showing up, along with a bunch of news items. Who cares, right?

Not us… we didn’t go to Insights to view the trends

Scroll down and we’ll get to the good stuff.

Notice all of the BREAKOUT text? THIS is the stuff we’re looking for, and it’s going crazy over here.

Breakout is simply Google telling us that this keyword is “off the charts.” See, Google Insights uses simplified math to let us know of up and coming Keyword…or “hot keywords.” When you see a keyword with +100%, this means that the Search ratio has increased by 100%. Easy stuff!

So, breakout goes above and beyond +5,000% … this is TRULY great stuff, and you can literally find some real gold nuggets in this data!

Now while you’re going through this tutorial, make sure you check out how easily you can sort through data by going up to the “2004 – present” drop down menu and playing with this stuff. Check 7 days, 30 days, 120 days, etc. Check out 2008. Compare years, compare Keywords. Click on keywords and dig deeper.

Next, click on the United States link in the middle area (regional), and you can actually see the states that are the most popular for this term:

This is great for geo-targeting for certain products!

With some keywords, you can even click on the State and checkout the cities that come up. Even more geo-targeting!

Now, if you were to scroll down and click on the term “goji berries” in the “Top Searches” area, you’ll see that more keywords come up. You can literally do some major keyword research on this thing if you really took your time.

For each keyword you click, you’ll see a new list (usually) of keywords. Some will have even more Breakout terms that you can copy and paste into your keyword tools.

With the Term Goji Berries in place, I can easily check on the “Locations” Radio Button at the top left and then put in United States -> California and come up with some great geographic information for my research. Cool stuff, right? If you notice – each state will show it’s own popular Keywords. If this isn’t great stuff, I don’t know what is…

By clicking on the Time Ranges radio button, you can sort through/filter the data by Time ranges, Location/Region and Keyword.

Now if I go back, reset the tool and put in the term “Bullet Proof Vests” in one box, and “Bulletproof Vests” in another, you’ll notice there’s going to be a difference. Obviously, the search terms are related to the same thing, but the data will still be different…

Scroll down to the Search Terms (bottom box) and you’ll see a drop down menu. You can easily go from one keyword to the next and see the search terms for both main keywords.

You can also go back to the top, reset everything and head over to “categories.” You’ll notice that there’s a drop down menu with a ton of categories, but little arrows to dig deeper into those categories. This is more great stuff…

If I were to click on AUTOMOTIVE — then go to CAR STERO, I can see the search terms, and you’d notice a breakout term “p8400″ … click on that term and you’re going to find a ton of great info on what appears to be a MODEL NUMBER.

Those of you who are good with Model Numbers know that this could be GOLD.

I hope this quick tutorial helped you, as I wrote this in a hurry. I wanted to make a video, but I forgot that my sound card is jacked up right now.

Hopefully I can come back and hit you with a more advanced Tutorial in video-style

Thanks for reading!

Clint