Google has some great tools that can help you check the rise and fall ofyour brand in popularity vis-a-vis your competition. Google Insights and Google Trends offer valuable insights into search trends based on historical data.

These tools offer a great way to validate your findings through other modes. Sometimes, they can pop surprises and wipe off any fuzzy interpretations and get a clearer picture.

Take a look at this interesting example that shows the interest levels for mcafee, norton and avira anti-virus. Notice particularly, how April 2009 onwards, Avira has gained more in terms of interest level.

Now, lets look at the growth of each brand relative to the Antivirus and Malware category. Despite the negative growth for the category, Avira has seen a positive growth. And that too of 88%. This should get any competitor to stand up and take notice…

You can also view results by Regions and also see the popular search terms for your brand. And compare this data with that of competing brands.

There is a wealth of search information made available by Google. And as Google’s blog says you can “…forecast the trends into the future, and use it as a “best guess” for various business decisions such as budget planning, marketing campaigns and resource allocations. One could identify deviation from such forecasting and identify new factors that are influencing the search volume…”

If this interests you, take a look at this demo from Google -

If you would like us to help you analyse your brand online, give us a shout.