There is more than one way to find what people are searching for online. 🕵️
This guide walks through eight effective methods, from keyword research tools to forums and social media insights.
Whether you’re optimizing a website or planning content, these techniques will help you discover what your audience cares about. Let’s explore the best ways to uncover valuable search trends and use them to your advantage.
How Does Searching Online Actually Work?
When you search for something, it’s like walking into a library looking for a specific book. 📚
Google (or another search engine) instantly checks its catalog (the index), compares the keywords you typed to the contents, and pulls up the most relevant results.
It prioritizes books (web pages) based on factors like how often the book mentions what you’re looking for, how trusted the library thinks the book is (via backlinks), and how easy it is to read. The most relevant books (pages) are then displayed for you to pick from.
How Can You See What People Are Searching For?
When you’re trying to find what people are searching for, you’re like a librarian trying to predict which books they’ll want based on trends, questions, and popular topics.
By using tools like Google Trends, keyword research tools, and forums, you’re gathering the information search engines use to rank content.
Why Business Owners Should Care
As a business owner, knowing what people are searching for is crucial for staying competitive. By understanding search intent and trending topics, you can create content that aligns with customer needs, improve your SEO strategy, and drive more relevant traffic to your website.
This ensures you’re meeting your audience where they are, answering their questions, and addressing their pain points. Ultimately, it helps you increase visibility, attract leads, and grow your business effectively.
8 Ways to Find What People Are Actually Searching For
Curious about what people are searching for? Here are 8 practical ways to uncover the topics and keywords your audience cares about 👇
1. Keyword Research Tools
Keyword research tools are platforms designed to help you find the most relevant and high-performing search terms for your content or business.
They provide detailed data on the keywords people are searching for, helping you optimize your website or content to rank higher in search engines.
How they work
These tools analyze search engine data and generate lists of keywords based on a starting term. They show search volume, competition level, and trends over time, allowing you to assess which keywords are worth targeting. Some tools also offer suggestions for long-tail keywords, related phrases, and more.
What they can do
Keyword research tools can help you discover new keyword opportunities, assess the competitiveness of various search terms, and track trends over time. They make it easier to plan content strategies, optimize existing pages, and improve your site’s visibility in search engine results.
What they show
These tools typically display search volume, competition (how hard it will be to rank), PPC metrics (if running ads), and trend data (how interest in a keyword is changing over time). Some tools also show keyword difficulty scores and offer suggestions for related keywords.
Are they useful for business owners?
Absolutely! This is one of the most important SEO skills if you have an online business. This insight helps site owners create relevant content, improve their SEO strategy, and ultimately drive more organic traffic.
It’s a valuable resource for growing online visibility and attracting new customers.
Strengths and Weaknesses
- Strengths: Provides specific keyword data, search volumes, competition insights, and ranking opportunities. Helps discover high-potential keywords.
- Weaknesses: Can sometimes offer limited context on user intent or actual behavior. Results may vary between tools, making comparisons tricky.
2. Google Trends
Google Trends is a free tool that shows the popularity of search queries over time. It provides insights into how certain keywords or topics are trending globally or within specific regions, allowing you to track interest and fluctuations.
How it works
You simply enter a keyword or phrase, and Google Trends displays data on its search volume, interest over time, and geographical distribution. It compares trends across different regions and time periods, showing rising and falling interest.
What it does
Google Trends helps you identify trending topics, gauge seasonal patterns, and discover emerging keywords. It’s useful for adjusting content strategies to align with what’s gaining attention.
What it shows
Google Trends shows interest over time, related topics, geographic data, and rising search queries. It also highlights spikes in interest, helping you understand when and where people are searching for specific terms.
Is it useful for business owners?
Yes, Google Trends is helpful for business owners because it shows what people are interested in right now. This can guide content creation, product development, and marketing strategies, making it easier to connect with potential customers.
Strengths and Weaknesses
- Strengths: Shows real-time search trends and interest across regions.
- Weaknesses: Lacks exact search volume data and detailed competition insights.
3. People Also Ask
People Also Ask (PAA) tools show the questions that people commonly ask related to a particular search query. These questions often appear in Google’s search results, helping you understand the queries related to your topic.
How they work
By entering a query, these tools pull up a list of frequently asked questions that people search for on the web. They display common queries in a collapsible format that shows the most relevant and popular ones.
What they can do
PAA tools provide insights into customer intent and common questions, helping you optimize content to directly answer these questions. This can improve your chances of appearing in featured snippets, or in position 0 on Google with a piece of your text answering a question.
What they show
PAA tools display related questions, with additional context like search volume or frequency of the queries. They often suggest similar questions, helping refine your content strategy.
Is it useful for business owners?
Yes, PAA tools are great for business owners as they reveal what potential customers are asking. By answering these questions in your content, you can improve your SEO and connect with users looking for solutions.
Strengths and Weaknesses
- Strengths: Helps uncover content opportunities based on related user questions.
- Weaknesses: Limited in providing search volume or trend data for comprehensive SEO analysis.
4. Social Media and Reddit
Social media platforms and Reddit are rich sources for discovering what people are searching for and discussing. These platforms provide real-time insights into trends, conversations, and questions within specific niches or industries.
How it works
By monitoring posts, threads, and comments, you can identify common questions, trending topics, and pain points that people are actively engaging with. Reddit, in particular, allows you to track specific subreddits that are relevant to your audience.
What it can do
Social media and Reddit tools can help you find keywords, questions, and content ideas that may not show up in traditional keyword research strategies and tools. They give you a real-world, conversational perspective on what users care about.
What it shows
These tools reveal trending hashtags, popular posts, frequently asked questions, and the types of content your audience is interacting with. They offer a behind-the-scenes look at real-time user behavior.
Is it useful for business owners?
Definitely. Social media and Reddit offer a direct line to your audience’s thoughts and preferences.
Business owners can use these platforms to discover emerging trends and understand customer needs in real-time, providing valuable insight for product development and marketing. Unlike traditional tools, they also offer a more organic, community-driven perspective.
Strengths and Weaknesses
- Strengths: Provides real-time insights into trending topics and user discussions.
- Weaknesses: Requires manual filtering, and insights may not reflect broader search behavior.
5. Competitor Analysis Tools
Competitor analysis tools help you track and evaluate the performance of your competitors’ keywords, websites, content, and SEO strategies.
They provide insight into how your competitors are ranking, which keywords they target, and where they’re earning backlinks.
How it works
By inputting a competitor’s website or URL, these tools give you a detailed overview of their online presence, including traffic trends, ranking keywords, backlink profiles, and content strategies. They compare this data to your own to highlight areas of opportunity or improvement.
What it can do
Competitor analysis tools allow you to identify gaps in your SEO strategy, see where your competitors are excelling, and spot potential keywords you might have missed. They help you refine your content and link-building efforts.
What it shows
These tools display competitor keyword rankings, backlinks, top-performing pages, and traffic sources. They also provide comparisons between your site and others, helping you see your strengths and weaknesses in relation to competitors.
Is it useful for business owners?
Yes, it’s incredibly useful for business owners. It lets you see what your competitors are doing right, where you can improve, and which opportunities they might be missing. Unlike other tools, competitor analysis provides a comparative, strategic angle to help sharpen your approach and boost your own online visibility.
Strengths and Weaknesses
- Strengths: Offers valuable insights into competitors’ performance, backlinks, and keywords.
- Weaknesses: Can be time-consuming and doesn’t always capture subtle competitor strategies.
6. Search Console Data
Google Search Console (GSC) is a free tool that provides detailed insights into how your website performs on Google search. It tracks metrics like clicks, impressions, click-through rates (CTR), and keyword rankings.
How it works
GSC collects data from Google’s search index, giving you access to reports that show which keywords bring visitors to your site, how often they appear in search results, and how well your site performs.
What it can do
Search Console helps identify technical issues like crawl errors, improves site indexing, and provides feedback on user experience. It can also show which queries drive traffic, helping with keyword strategy.
What it shows
It displays data about keyword performance, search traffic trends, page indexing, and site health (such as mobile usability and security issues).
Is it useful for business owners?
While it does have a steep learning curve, Search Console helps business owners monitor how their site appears in search results, track performance over time, and spot issues that may affect user experience or rankings. It’s essential for improving your SEO strategy.
Strengths and Weaknesses
- Strengths: Provides direct insights into your site’s performance, search traffic, and technical issues.
- Weaknesses: Limited to your own site, doesn’t offer competitor data or broader search trend insights.
7. AI and SEO Forecasting Tools
AI and SEO forecasting tools (like Market Muse) use artificial intelligence to predict trends, keyword performance, and traffic changes based on historical data. These tools help anticipate future SEO outcomes, making it easier to adjust strategies ahead of time.
How it works
They analyze past data, including keyword performance, user behavior, and ranking changes, then apply algorithms to forecast trends and identify opportunities or risks in your SEO strategy.
What it can do
These tools can forecast keyword trends, predict search traffic, and identify shifts in SEO strategies. They allow you to plan proactive changes to stay ahead in a competitive market.
What it shows
Forecasting tools show projections for keyword traffic, ranking shifts, and potential content opportunities based on historical patterns and search trends.
Is it useful for business owners?
Yes, AI and SEO forecasting tools help business owners make data-driven decisions and plan long-term SEO strategies. They provide a glimpse into potential future performance, which is invaluable for adjusting content, backlinking efforts, and keyword strategy.
8. Search Atlas Tools
Search Atlas lets you find out what people are searching for in more than one way. Our platform gives you keyword research, competitor research, and people-also-ask tools, all in one dashboard.
We also incorporate the most important GSC and GA4 data in simple, automated reports, so you don’t have to struggle with mastering the two platforms.
And we also provide more than that: SEO automation and Google Ads automation AI assistants that completely take over your tasks and make marketing an online business much, much easier.
Find What People Are Searching for With the Help of AI
Knowing what topics resonate with your audience allows you to create targeted, effective strategies. Search Atlas AI tools make this process easier, offering quick insights that can improve your content, rankings, and overall online presence.
With our AI tools, you can quickly gather insights that help improve your strategies. Automation not only saves time but also provides valuable data that can keep your content on track with trends.
Want to get started? No commitment and cancel anytime: Try Search Atlas with a 7-day FREE trial!
