Gangnam Style, the Olympics and Hurricane Sandy – these are just three of the most common terms Australians have plugged into Google this year, according to the search engine’s latest Zeitgeist report.
The annual wrap of the year’s most common searches also provides a prompt for SMEs, with experts saying businesses should keep track of what’s being searched for in order to exploit popular trends.
“It’s good to be aware of this sort of stuff,” says StewArt Media chief Jim Stewart. “Especially if you see there are phrases or words in your industry that people are talking about in a way you’re not expecting.”
The Zeitgeist report features a wide range of ranked searches, including the most popular trending searches, news moments, and even travel destinations.
The Korean pop sensation Gangnam Style topped the trending searches list, followed by television reality show The Voice and pop band One Direction, while Lara Bingle, Miranda Kerr and Delta Goodrem topped the Australian celebrities search list.
Hurricane Sandy was the most searched-for news moment, followed by Julian Assange and daredevil base jumper Felix Baumgartner.
Australians opted for tropical holiday destinations this year, with Bali, Fiji and Hawaii topping the list, while Mount Hotham in Victoria won out for local attractions. Manly and Darling Harbour rounded out the top three.
Some of the “how to” searches are the most humorous, with Australians searching for information on how to love, how to change, handstand, breastfeed, and even “hypnotize” – Google even pointed out Australians used the “z” instead of an “s”.
But even though plenty of the lists are fun to read, Jim Stewart says they can provide a benefit to your business. It’s important to keep on top of search trends as they happen, so you can work them – naturally – into your search engine optimisation strategy.
“It’s interesting to see if there are phrases or words in your industry that people are talking about in a way that you’re not expecting,” he says.
If a business notes that certain phrases are being used unexpectedly, they can work those into their own SEO and hopefully gain a benefit.
“Even on a seasonal basis there could be stuff changing that could affect you.”
Read up on Australia’s most popular searches:
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
COMMENTS
SmartCompany is committed to hosting lively discussions. Help us keep the conversation useful, interesting and welcoming. We aim to publish comments quickly in the interest of promoting robust conversation, but we’re a small team and we deploy filters to protect against legal risk. Occasionally your comment may be held up while it is being reviewed, but we’re working as fast as we can to keep the conversation rolling.
The SmartCompany comment section is members-only content. Please subscribe to leave a comment.
The SmartCompany comment section is members-only content. Please login to leave a comment.