The free Google Keyword Tool is a simple (and slightly addictive) tool that can be used to to discover how many people search for various terms using Google’s search engine. It’s designed to give people who are interested in running ads on Google an idea of what terms people are looking for that may be relevant to the product or service they are hoping to advertise. It is also often used by bloggers and website creators who sometimes create content featuring the more popular keywords in an attempt to rank highly in Google’s search results for those terms and in return receive a lot of free traffic for their content.

Those uses aside, the Google Keyword Tool can also be used to help give you an idea about the psychology of what comedy fans are looking for and help shape how you think about the content you’re creating and the audience for it. For example, here’s four observations I made after searching for a variety of different comedy terms in the Google Keyword Tool…

1. Audiences are looking for things that are “funny,” not things that are “comedy.”

One of the first things you’ll notice is the huge discrepancy between searches using the term “funny,” compared to searches using the term “comedy.” For example, Google gets 1.5 million searches a month for the term “funny videos,” but only 90,000 searches a month for the term “comedy videos.” This demonstrates that when people are looking for a laugh online, they’re not necessarily looking for something done by a professional (because “comedy” conveys something more professional than just “funny”), but rather they are just looking for a video that makes them laugh – whether that video was created for that purpose specifically or whether it was some guy accidentally getting hit in t he nuts. It’s worth remembering as you position yourself and your content online that people don’t care if you’re a “pro,” they just want to see things that are funny.

2. Broaden your definition of comedy.

A follow up to the emphasis on funny over comedy is that it’s probably worth broadening your definition of what comedy is because the Google Keyword Tool reveals that the kinds of funny content that are most searched for are probably very different than you might expect. For example, the most searched for “funny” term is “funny games,” which is searched for a whopping 4 million times a month. This means that nearly three times more people are looking for funny games online than are looking for funny videos, so maybe your efforts are better spent creating a funny game than they are a funny video. Other types of funny content that are frequently searched for in Google include “funny quotes” (searched for 2.7 million times a month), “funny jokes” (searched for 1.5 million times a month), “funny pictures” (searched for 1.5 million times a month), and “funny shirts” (searched for 300,000 times a month).

3. YouTube matters.

YouTube is much more than just a website at this point, it’s become synonymous with online video and the Google search results prove that. For example, more people search for the term “comedy YouTube” (110,000 searches per month) than search for “comedy videos” (90,000 searches per month). And another 670,000 people a month search for “funny YouTube.” It’s further proof that any comedian who is still ignoring YouTube at this point is ignoring the majority of people who look for comedy content online.

4. Like it or not, audiences define you by your race and gender.

It may not be fair for comedians to be typecast by their race or gender, but it’s clear that comedy fans are still looking for comedy based on these superficial characteristics. For example, there’s 22,000 searches each month for the term “black comedians,” 18,000 searches a month for the term “female comedians,” and 1,600 searches a month for the term “Latino comedians.” By comparison, genre-specific searches are much less frequent with just 110 searches a month for the term “alternative comedians” and just 91 searches a month for “smart comedians.”

These are just the tip of the iceberg of the things you can find out by playing around with the Google Keyword Tool and I’d encourage you to experiment with some searches that relate to your own interests and see what you find. Oh, and in case you’re curious, there’s 2,900 searches a month for the term “How to be a comedian,” so that explains all the people at those open mics.

Once you get some of the funny videos search traffic, here’s a look at how you can make $11,000 a month from your own funny videos.