Can you imagine seeing how many searches have been performed on Google for important keywords?

Google Trends is a new tool developed by Google Labs to help webmasters see keyword search volume. Users can enter up to five keyword phrases and Google will return a line chart showing the comparative volume trend over the last two years.

For example, when "dog food" and "cat food" are entered, the results show that "dog food" is searched for nearly twice as much as "cat food". This is definitely handy information when comparing keywords.

Google Trends provides other information such as City, Regional and Language comparisons. It is easy to see that people in the United States search for "dog food" about twice as much as people in Australia. Information like this can help webmasters focus marketing efforts regionally.

Google Trends does not show users the actual quantifiable numbers on any of the charts. I cannot tell how many times "dog food" was actually searched. It could be 10 or 10,000. A user can only glean basic relationships between keywords.

Here are a few tips for getting the most of Google Trends:

1) This is Google data. While it is still beta and they have disclosed that it may not be 100% accurate, it is still based on Google data. The point? Its Google data!! Get the most out of Google Trends even given the potential flaws.

2) Always search for multiple keyword phrases. The tool is based on showing comparisons. Searching for only one term will yield a trend line, but there will be nothing to compare it too.

3) Develop other keyword analysis skills such as finding synonyms and other similar terms. Maybe people actually search for "hound food".

4) Create benchmarks. Do some keyword analysis on a few keywords with tools that do provide concrete numbers. Then use those keywords as a standard against which to compare other keywords within Google Trends.