Using Google Trends to Find Pottery Business Ideas
Google Trends is free. You can type anything into it and see what people are searching for over time. I spent a few weekends mapping out pottery-related searches because I wanted to know whether starting a small ceramic studio in my area made sense financially. Here is how you actually do it without wasting an hour clicking around. Go to trends.google.com. In the search bar, type "pottery" or "ceramics" or "handmade pottery." Then change the time range to "Past 5 years." This gives you enough data to spot seasonal patterns without getting cluttered by daily noise. The default "Past 12 months" is too short for a craft that has very specific buying cycles.
Once you have the main trend line, scroll down to the "Related queries" section. This is where the actual ideas hide. Most people stop at the homepage graph and miss this. The top rising queries for pottery usually include things like "pottery wheels for beginners," "ceramic glaze recipes," "terracotta pot repair," or "macrame plant hangers." These show up consistently in Q1 and Q2 every year, which tells you when demand peaks. I learned about the terracotta angle by accident. I was looking at "pottery near me" and noticed a spike every spring in the Pacific Northwest. When I drilled into the regional data, it turned out to be people searching for plant pot alternatives after winter damage. That insight led me to start a small line of frost-resistant ceramic planters, which sold through within three months of launching. Another thing most beginners get wrong is not setting the right category filter. In Google Trends, click the dropdown that says "All categories" and select "Shopping." This filters out casual hobbyist searches and focuses on commercial intent. You will see a completely different pattern emerge. The rise of "porcelain doll repair" for example shows up much more clearly when you restrict to Shopping, because those are people actually spending money on restoration services.
If you want to compare multiple pottery niches at once, use the comparison feature. Type "ceramic mugs" and "stoneware vases" in the same search box separated by a comma. The resulting graph shows which sub-niche has stronger long-term growth versus short-term hype. I used this to decide between focusing on tableware versus decorative pieces. Tableware showed steady but slow growth. Decorative vases had bigger spikes tied to interior design trends. I went with tableware because the demand was predictable, even if the growth curve was flatter. There is a limitation you need to be aware of. Google Trends only shows relative search interest, not absolute volume. A query going from 5 searches per month to 10 shows as a 100% increase, which looks dramatic on the chart but is worthless for business planning. Always cross-reference with something like Keyword Planner or even manual observation of local market prices before making decisions based solely on trend data. The tool also does not capture offline behavior. If your target customers are buying pottery through Instagram shops or local craft fairs rather than searching Google, the trends will look artificially flat for your niche. I discovered this when the data kept underestimating demand for custom glaze work in my area. The people buying custom pieces were mostly finding me through social media, not search engines. So I started paying attention to Pinterest trending topics alongside Google Trends, which gave a much more accurate picture of what my actual customer base wanted.
Get the Full Details
Step-by-Step Workflow
1. Start with broad terms
Type "pottery," "ceramics," and "clay" as separate searches. Note which one has the highest baseline interest in your country. In the US, "pottery" consistently outperforms "ceramics" by about 2x. In the UK, it reverses. This tells you which keyword to prioritize for SEO and content planning. Click "United States" (or your target market) in the location dropdown. Then go to the "By sub-region" tab. You will see states with unusually high interest in specific pottery types. For example, New Mexico and Arizona show spikes for "Santa Clara Pueblo pottery" that have nothing to do with general interest and everything to do with regional craft tourism. If you are not physically located in those areas, ignore that noise. The "Related topics" section below "Related queries" shows broader subjects like "Clay conditioning," "Wood firing," or "Kiln safety." These are educational searches that indicate people are at different stages of the learning curve. A rising interest in "kiln safety" suggests a growing beginner population that will eventually need equipment, which is your market. A rising interest in "wood firing techniques" suggests your audience is advancing beyond level, which means you can charge premium prices for specialized work.
Click the download button in the top right. It gives you a CSV file with the time-series data. You can then plot this in Excel or Google Sheets alongside your own sales records if you already have a shop. Matching trend peaks to your actual revenue spikes helps you calibrate your forecasting accuracy. The biggest mistake I see people make is treating a temporary viral trend as a lasting signal. When "pottery painting" spiked during the pandemic lockdowns, several new studios opened expecting that demand to continue. It did not. By late 2021, interest had dropped back to pre-pandemic levels. Google Trends shows you the spike, but it does not tell you whether the spike is structural or situational. You have to use context to figure that out. Another issue is geographic mismatch. If you search for "pottery" globally, the results are dominated by countries with massive populations like India and China, where the search behavior is completely different from what you will see in North America or Europe. Always set your location filter before drawing conclusions.
The data also has a 48-hour delay. If something is happening in real time, you will not see it until two days later. This is fine for long-term planning but useless for catching breaking trends. If you need real-time monitoring, you would need a paid tool like SparkToro or even manual tracking of hashtags, not Google Trends. For pottery specifically, the most valuable insight I found was seasonal timing. Demand for outdoor planters peaks in March and April in most Northern Hemisphere markets. Demand for indoor ceramics and gift items peaks in October and November. Knowing this lets you plan production schedules and inventory purchases around actual demand curves instead of guessing. I now buy raw clay and glazes in February so they are ready when March search interest starts climbing. It has saved me from stock shortages at least twice.
