Google Hot Trends ~ The Path To Riches

I was bound and determined to get out a new informative post today! Nothing in particular came to mind, so I decided to see what was currently trending on Google, which caused me to say "hey, there is a topic for today's post!"

Did you ever wonder what the current hot topics are and what other people are currently searching for? Well, wonder no more! Check out these links for Google Trends and Google Insights:

http://www.google.com/trends/
http://www.google.com/trends/hottrends

http://www.google.com/insights/search/

Basically, you can get a quick glimpse of what is hot/trending right now and perhaps you can find something you're interested in or at least might want to be aware of.

I looked up the differences between Google Trends and Insights...Basically Google Trends is more of a quick "average person" tool to see what's going on in the world or at least what people are searching for. Google Insights is much more granular, but also a pretty neat free tool.

For example, clicking on the hot trends link above will show articles on the Texas A&M shooting yesterday, Taylor Swift buying a home in Cape Cod, Jennifer Aniston getting engaged, Shark Week, etc.

If you click on the Google Insights link, you can dig way deeper. For example, you could do a search for what is trending in your area over the last 7 days and if you wanted, you could even pick a specific category.

Below are Google Insight search results that I just ran to find out what is trending over the last 7 days in the Atlanta, Georgia and Denver, Colorado areas.

Atlanta, Georgia results for the past 7 days

Denver, Colorado results for the past 7 days

Some results are the same, such as Paul Ryan being at the top due to Romney announcing him as his running mate over the weekend. However, I find it curious that Atlanta is very interested in country singer Randy Travis, who was recently arrested for suspicion of DWI after crashing his car and being naked in a convenience store trying to get cigarettes, while he isn't even on the radar in Denver.

Randy Travis mug shot

And Powerball shows up on both because this week it's up to $305 million for the Wednesday drawing. I know that because I am always asked by folks on my team to take care of collecting the $ and getting tickets for our team. Gotta be in it to win it!

Both are pretty cool, free tools you can use to see what's going on in the world or your own back yard and if you're looking for a topical blog post idea, that might be a good place to start! Hope you found that useful, have a super day!