More Google Tools for Food Advertisers, Food Content Providers and Foodie Minds of America

Monday, August 10, 2009

Posted by Jenny Liu, Industry Marketing Manager - CPG

Google Wonder Wheel

Google has a product called Wonder Wheel. It creates a visual representation of search results in a spider diagram-like format. Clicking on the Wonder Wheel option brings up a tag cloud of hyperlinked search phrases. To use wonder wheel: conduct a search on google.com, on the results page, there is a expandable 'show options' link next to 'web'. You will see Wonder Wheel as an option under Standard View. Let's take a ride on the wheel and dig deeper into what consumers are searching for related to summer salads.

According to the wonder wheel results for 'summer salad recipes', consumers are looking for 'cucumber salad', 'chicken salad', 'fruit salads' and 'pasta salads'. They are also looking for recipes that are easy. If one clicks on the result for 'easy summer salads', we see that consumers will go so far as to type in the word 'simple' into the search bar, searching for simple 'avocado salad' and 'simple cabbage salad'. We also see that consumers will even search for salad recipes based on ingredient varietals like 'olive oil salads' and 'balsamic vinegar'.

When one expands the wheel to focus on balsamic vinegar, we see that consumers care about its health benefits, whether or not it has calories, if balsamic vinegar from modena italy is somehow different from others, how to make a reduction and what would be a suitable substitute if one dislikes balsamic vinegar or finds that it stains the ingredients.

You can, of course, continue to build new Wonder Wheels by continually clicking on new related searches.

Google Timeline

On the flip side, what does the content look like on the provider side to fulfill the consumer curiousity? Are people or publishers writing about easy summer salads? What does the trend look like? For this, you can consult the timeline tool, found under the wonder wheel selection.

You can alter the dates to the current year and see the monthly trend of articles that talk about easy summer salads. The article must note all three words.
In the monthly trend for 'summer salads', you can see the ramp up that steadily takes place reaching the peak in July and August.

This timeline tool is particularly useful for tracking the “zeitgeist” of certain keywords and topics. For CPG, we see increases in information being written about 'acai' and 'probiotics' as one would expect.

Cookin' With Google

A product called Cookin' With Google is listed under Custom Search in Beta. It is a tool that consumers can use to help hunt and peck specific recipes that match up to ingredients they may have already on-hand or already have in mind. For instance, perhaps a look into the fridge yields the following random ingredients: eggs, chicken peas and cheese. If this string is punched into this tool, we see this search result:

What's nice about the tool is that it can be further refined for Vegan, Crockpot, Vegetarian, Atkins, Weight Watchers, and Gluten-Free to name a few. A really neat tool for consumers looking for recipes that suit their lifestyle.