Katie Coen

Opening a new business can bring a world of opportunities, but it’s not as easy as one, two, three. In order to be successful, extensive research must be done to decide where to start, who would be interested, and what those potential customers are looking for. 

Let’s say I was part of a team that wanted to open a chain of coffee shops based in Arizona. The plan is to open 10 locations in the next year, then add another 25 the following year. The first 10 shops need to be centrally located in Arizona and its surrounding states. My mission is to dig into data using Google Trends to find out what online users are looking for in a coffee shop to make the business successful. 

Google Trends gives you access to extensive data on millions of topics based on the search requests from people across the world on Google. Since Google is a search engine, anyone can enter terms or keywords that get evaluated by the algorithm. Then the most relevant pages are matched and given to the searcher. The websites or social media pages that show up close to the top of the Google searches always pay attention to search engine optimization (SEO). SEO is a technique used to improve a website’s ranking in a search engine result page (SERP). The ranking in a SERP directly determines how well a website is optimized for the search engine, like Google. The better your website is ranked, the more people will likely see it. Therefore, the objective of SEO is to get more traffic and prospective customers to your website through search engines. 

But why do average Google searches matter to someone opening a business? Search engine data analytics show us historical search data so we can learn insights into trends, common keywords used, and how much advertisers spend. Google Trends does just that. It can tell you how people search for a topic, when the interest spiked, what keywords bring in more views, which places in the world are most interested, what the trends are on the internet, and how competitors are performing. 

Let’s dive into some of the research I collected on Google Trends while planning a coffee shop chain.

Interest in a coffee shop is extremely high right now in general. This graph shows you the interest in searches related to coffee shops since 2004. There has been a steady increase in interest over the past 12 years, besides a large dip during the height of the pandemic. While the interest has gone down since July 2023, it is still high.

If we look at the interest in coffee shops across the entire country, Hawaii is the state with the highest rating. Arizona, where this coffee shop chain would be based, is placed at number 18.

Here you can see the overall interest in coffee shops in Arizona since 2004. Right now, the peak is at the highest point in Google’s history, showing there is a significant market in the state for a new coffee shop business.

When people in Arizona are searching for coffee shops, these are the top keywords they are using. There are no name brand coffee shops listed, which gives another incentive to open up a new business chain.

But when looking at topics related to coffee shops, there is a different story. There is some competition, but there is low interest in searches. It seems there is not a mega popular coffee shop brand in the state right now, which could boost business at a new option.

This map shows the areas of Arizona where a coffee shop is most popular. The highlighted areas include bigger cities, like Phoenix and Tucson. When planning locations for the 10 initial coffee shops, they should be placed strategically inside the cities where the populations are the highest. Phoenix and Tucson would be the best places to start the chain.

Outside of Arizona, the neighboring state of California would be a great place to place some of the starter coffee shops.

In California, cities near the border of Arizona are booming with coffee shop interest. Santa Barbara and San Diego are both close to the Arizona base of the coffee shop and have extremely high interest based on this map. Other Google Trend statistics show coffee shop searches in California are at their highest peak yet, which shows similar data to the interest in Arizona.

Nevada would be another option of a state to expand in. The interest there is lower than in Arizona and California, but is higher than other surrounding states.

As you can see, Reno would be the best area to put a location. Strategically, it would be smart to expand into other areas once the chain has gained popularity.

Based on all this data from Google Trends, it is clear coffee shops are in high demand on the West coast of the U.S. The interest in a business like this is at a peak in Arizona and California, and therefore could be very successful. The specific cities and regions in these states with the highest interest should be the focal points of expansion. The first 10 coffee shops should be located in Phoenix, Tucson, Santa Barbara, and San Diego.

All of the Google Trends data is clearly helpful in proposing a business plan because it outlines where and what people want. Since Google is so widely popular, the trends shown represent a large portion of internet users, and should be taken seriously.

Resources

Khan, G. F. (2018). Creating Value With Social Media Analytics: Managing, Aligning, and Mining Social Media Text, Networks, Actions, Location, Apps, Hyperlinks, Multimedia, & Search Engines Data. CreateSpace.

Thony, S. (2024). Module 4: Social Media Actions Analytics and Search Engine Analytics. Lecture.