Building an online presence is essential for personal trainers who want to attract new clients and grow their fitness business. More importantly, ensuring you are getting value for money with all of your marketing efforts is even more important.

This blog post will explain Google Trends and why it's great for personal trainers. It's like having a secret weapon to understand what people are looking for when it comes to fitness. So, get ready to learn about how Google Trends can make your online fitness game stronger and connect you with more clients.

What is Google Trends?

Google Trends is a free tool that enables you to compare the popularity of search topics in real-time. It helps you identify whether topics are trending up or down and evaluate how this might vary over time.

Queries can be fine-tuned using various filters, including location, category, and time, and you can compare several search terms simultaneously.

The main difference between Google Trends and other keyword tools is that it shows comparative data rather than the overall results volume. The value of this data lies in its topicality; it shows what searches are most popular right now.

Imagine this scenario: you're passionate about fitness and want to share your expertise. You've set up a website, written compelling blog posts, signed up for personal trainer software, and started promoting your fitness services on social media platforms.

However, without a clear understanding of what your potential clients are searching for online, you might find yourself lost in the vastness of the internet.

This is where Google Trends becomes your trusted ally. It allows personal trainers to gain valuable insights into the interests and behavior of their target audience.

By analyzing the data from Google Trends, you can uncover the specific topics, questions, and trends that resonate with your potential clients. It's like having a crystal ball that reveals the fitness-related queries people are typing into Google's search bar.

The benefits of Using Google Trends

Google Trends is a great market research tool. It can be used not only for investigating but also for discovery. Essentially, it gives you insight into what people are currently looking for, as well as emerging trends, and that can be advantageous in several ways:

1. It helps you to establish what’s trending in your field – the ability to search for and track trends over a time period, identify rising trends, compare similar search terms alongside each other, filter by location and explore related topics all combine to give you a clear picture of what’s currently popular in your industry and where (and it may challenge your assumptions).
2. It can inspire you with new ideas – exploring related topics and queries might open up all kinds of connections and avenues that you might not have thought of before, but Google Trends can inspire you in another way, too. Finding out what’s trending generally – not just in your specific field – and incorporating that into your content is a great way of putting a current spin on things and widening your reach.
3. It enables you to find seasonal patterns – by analyzing how search terms perform over a period of time, you may be able to identify seasonal patterns, which will help inform your content planning and, even more crucially, your ad campaigns. For example, January is a key time of year for searches related to fitness and weight loss as people implement their New Year resolutions, so you likely need to allocate more budget for a PPC campaign during this month, depending on the keywords you’re using. 

All of these benefits lead to three important outcomes:

1. A more defined niche – this kind of detailed market research data will help you fine-tune your fitness niche (e.g., according to subject, location, and demographics), clarify your offering, and strengthen your brand.
2. A more effective marketing strategy – having a clearer niche will improve your marketing strategy, enabling you to be much more focused, particularly in terms of your paid advertising, and content plans.
3. An edge over your competitors – your increased awareness of rising trends (together with your unique angle and more focused strategy) is a valuable asset that will put you ahead of your competitors.

Some tips on using Google Trends

There are plenty of guides available online that drill down into the technical details of using Google Trends. A good starting point is Google’s own basic, and advanced information pages, but we can also recommend Semrush’s What is Google Trends & How to Use it.

It's helpful to do some preparation before using Google Trends. Examine your current marketing strategy and content plan, identify some areas to research, and put together a list of keywords and phrases to run queries on. However, it’s also important to approach Google Trends with an openness to the possibility of discovery and inspiration.

Using Google Trends to Stay Competitive

Here are some of our favorite ways to use Google Trends in your fitness business.

1. Creating Content: One of the most effective ways to stay competitive is by creating content that directly aligns with trending fitness topics. Google Trends can help you identify what's currently popular in the fitness world. This means you can craft blog posts, videos, or social media content that caters to these trends.
2. Adapt Your Training Programs: Understanding current trends can help you understand and amend your fitness plans to incorporate things like mindfulness, stress techniques, or nutritional trends.
3. Social Media Engagement: This is going to be how you can first use Google Trends in your fitness business. Using the platform to find trending fitness hashtags or challenges is a great way to both engage with your target audience, and boost your visibility.

Google Trends Key Features

1. Related topics: Useful for finding other subjects that your target audience is interested in; this can help with content planning as well as refining/expanding your offering
2. Related queries: Useful for understanding what people search for and refining/expanding your keyword list
3. Trending topics: Useful for finding general subjects (not related to fitness) that you can work into your content, tapping into their current popularity and widening your reach

Google Trends offers valuable and sometimes unexpected insights into what is currently popular. Allowing you to understand what your target audience is talking about, which in turn helps you shape your marketing strategy.

It’s free, easy to get to grips with, and well worth considering as an additional resource to add to your personal trainer marketing strategy.