I’m into SEO and it helps to know what people are “searching” for. People everywhere are looking for stuff; business stuff, relationship stuff, news stuff, fun stuff, illegal stuff – all kinds of stuff.
So for different reasons at different times, I like to ask the question “What are people Searching for?”
Of course, depending on the reason – say for an SEO campaign, for example – how I’d go about answering that question, and the weight of the answer, will vary.
Zeitgeist
Zeitgeist is the spirit, or the ambiance of a time. (Starting to see how this might be important?) It can relate to the cultural, spiritual, ethical, intellectual, political, and economic climates of an area.
From the Wikis…
In 1769 Johann Gottfried Herder wrote a critique of the work Genius Seculi by the philologist Christian Adolph Klotz and introduced the word "Zeitgeist" into German as a translation of genius seculi (Latin: genius - "guardian spirit" and saeculi - "of the age").
The German Romanticists habitually attempted to reduce the past to essences and treated the Zeitgeist as a historical character in its own right, rather than a generalized description for an era.
“Searchers” of answers, of the truth, of ideas…This powerfully enigmatic concept of Zeitgeist has given birth to many endeavors of creative minds. For example:
- Zeitgeist: The Movie (Wikipedia entry)
- Official Zeitgeist: The Movie (Official site of movie series)
- Zeitgeist Films (Wikipedia entry)
- Official Zeitgeist Films (Official site of Film Distributor)
- The Zeitgeist Movement
Although a bit “over the top”, some of these projects help to shed light on how the Spirit of the Time might influence certain behaviors, ways of thinking, and more.
Understanding what might be a hot topic for a certain area, in a certain niche, for a certain group of people, at a certain point of time – could be very beneficial for Marketers.
Enter Google.
Google Zeitgeist
You may have already formed an idea of how all this comes together, but I’ll let Google sum up their endeavor (that began 2001) for themselves, from: What is the Google zeitgeist?
"Zeitgeist" means "the spirit of the times", and Google reveals this spirit through the aggregation of millions of search queries we receive every day. We have several tools that give insight into global, regional, past, and present search trends. These tools are available for you to play with, explore, and learn from. Use them for everything from business research to trivia answers.
See what Google says people have been searching for…Google Zeitgeist: