Four free demand signals
Demand leaves four kinds of public trace. Search volume - how often people type something into a search engine. Search trend - whether that volume is going up, down or flat over the last few years. Social conversation - how often the topic comes up on platforms like Reddit, Facebook groups or LinkedIn. Marketplace activity - how often listings get sold or saved on platforms like Etsy, eBay, Amazon or Booking.com.
No single signal tells you the answer. Together they tell you a story. Steady search volume plus growing social conversation often means a market quietly maturing. Falling search volume plus growing marketplace activity often means people are buying in a different place than they used to. The skill is in reading the combination, not the individual numbers.
Reading search volume
Free search-ranking tools and Google itself give you a rough sense of how often people search for a phrase each month. You don't need to obsess about the exact number. You need to know the shape - is this a phrase searched a hundred times a month or fifty thousand?
For a local service, monthly volume in the low hundreds in your town is often plenty. For a national online shop, you usually want phrases searched at least a few thousand times a month combined. The exact threshold depends on what you sell and what you charge for it. A two-thousand-pound service can work on much smaller search volume than a fifteen-pound product.
Reading the trend
Google Trends shows you whether interest in a topic has grown, fallen or stayed flat over the last five years. Type in your main phrase, set the location and the timeframe and read the line.
A flat line means a stable market. A rising line is a market still being formed. A falling line is a warning - either the language has changed (people are searching for the same thing in a different way) or the underlying demand really is shrinking. Try a couple of synonyms before you decide which it is.
- Rising line, growing volume: an opportunity if you can move quickly.
- Flat line, decent volume: a stable market - room for a clearly differentiated offer.
- Falling line: check synonyms. If they all fall, the demand really is shrinking.
- Spiky line: a seasonal market. Plan campaigns around the peaks.
- Tiny volume, no trend visible: either too local to register or not enough demand to build a business on.
Reading social conversation
Spend half an hour on Reddit and any Facebook groups that match your topic. Search for your main phrase. Read the last three months of posts. You're looking for two things: how often the topic comes up and what tone people use when they talk about it.
If the topic comes up regularly and people sound frustrated, you've found a live demand. If it comes up regularly and people sound happy, the market is well served and you'll have to differentiate hard. If it barely comes up at all, either your category is too niche to register on social media or there's less interest than you thought.
Reading marketplace activity
If you sell anything that lives on a marketplace - handmade goods on Etsy, books on Amazon, holidays on Booking.com - the marketplace itself is a demand signal. Look at the bestseller lists in your category. Look at how many reviews the top listings have. Look at how often new listings appear and how quickly they accumulate reviews.
Service businesses don't have a marketplace in the same way, but Google Business Profile listings work similarly. A category with twenty active local profiles, all with steady review counts, is a healthy market. A category with two profiles that haven't had a new review in two years is either tiny or in decline.
When the signals disagree
Sometimes search volume looks weak but social conversation is loud. That usually means the audience is younger or more online and isn't searching - they're discovering through feeds. Sometimes search volume is strong but the trend is falling and reviews talk about quality problems. That usually means the market is mature and ripe for a better offer.
Don't try to resolve every disagreement. Write down the signals you're seeing and the most likely explanation. Treat anything you can't explain as a question to bring into the customer conversations in chapter five.
What to do this week
Pick one product, service or category you're considering. Spend forty-five minutes on Google Trends and a free search-ranking tool, half an hour on Reddit and any relevant Facebook group, and half an hour scanning the marketplace or local listings. Write a one-paragraph summary at the end: is this market growing, steady or shrinking, and is the volume large enough for what you're planning?
Start with the customer. If demand is healthy, the next chapter helps you read the competitors who serve that demand today, so you can find your angle. If demand is weak, the kindest thing this eBook can do is help you spot it now rather than after you've spent money.
