Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is just another web- and online-related undertaking becoming popular of late. This basically involves concepts in improving the likelihood that a website appears top or on front-page results in search engine results pages.

Sometimes, the search engines themselves assist SEOs (as people into optimization are called) by giving out tools that help with tweaking every bit of one’s site into being searchable.

One such tool is Google’s new Google Trends, still in development stages (under the Google Labs banner). Trends allows a user to compare among two to five keywords with respect to how many times users have searched, and how many times such have appeared on news items, as keywords and topics.

A comparison of “laptop” (blue) and “laptops” (red)

The search-volume graph shows a user how much the keywords entered have been searched over the course of a couple of years (can be modified). The news graph below the volume graph, meanwhile, shows how many times the keywords have appeard on Google News.

How useful is this? Well, among the techniques involved in SEO is including relevant keywords and key phrases on a website’s content, and focusing on achieving a certain keyword density. Trends allow an optimizer to correctly determine the keywords to use. For instance, if “laptop” has a higher tendency to be searched as compared to the plural “laptops,” then it would be better to include this term over the latter.

Of course, it takes some time before one’s optimization techniques become fruitful, in terms of Google Pagerank and results-page outcomes. But that’s part of the fun!