Discover how to seamlessly incorporate trends into your SEO content strategy to boost brand awareness and enhance search performance.

 

Trending topics are popular or emerging subjects capturing online attention. In SEO, these trends present valuable opportunities to reach a broader audience at peak engagement times.

Adopting a trend-focused SEO strategy can significantly boost brand awareness and advocacy, distinguishing your content from the often uniform approaches of competitors.

Trends provide a unique advantage, enabling brands to create standout, timely content. Here are five ways to harness trends in your SEO content strategy to make an impact.

 

Create Timely, Trend-Relevant Content and Deliver During Peak Interest

 

While keywords and their search volumes are valuable, they are often highly competitive. Conversely, trends present a less crowded opportunity but require more effort and can disrupt conventional workflows. Many brands might not even recognize a term is trending.

To capitalize on this, produce high-quality content that captures immediate interest and leverages lower competition. Social search amplifies this potential, allowing your content to appear instantly on platforms and benefit from algorithms that favor quick responses.

In an evolving landscape where Google SERPs include Reddit content, TikTok videos, YouTube clips, and more, content on social search platforms can also appear on traditional SERPs alongside website content.

 

How to Do It

1. Identify and Monitor Trends: Use tools like Glimpse and Google Trends, or consider alternatives like Exploding Topics to track emerging trends and those gaining traction.
2. Assess Opportunity: When a trend hits a promising point, evaluate if investing time in content creation is worthwhile. Analyze where the trend is gaining momentum by checking channel breakdowns to see where it’s emerging.
3. Create Content: Develop content tailored to the emerging trend. Start by focusing on the channels where the trend is most prominent. Create diverse content formats—videos, blog posts, infographics—to effectively reach your target audience, and repurpose this content as needed.
4. Act Quickly: Aim to produce and publish content within a few hours of identifying a trend, especially on social search platforms. If resources are limited, prioritize trend-focused content over previously planned material.

 

Example

In the health and wellness sector, trends evolve rapidly. For instance, if Glimpse indicates that “intermittent fasting” is trending due to a celebrity endorsement, a brand could create a video series exploring the topic, covering how to start, the benefits, and potential drawbacks, using the celebrity’s experience as a case study.

 

Re-optimize existing Content for Emerging and Trending Keywords

 

As you become more adept with trend tools, you’ll notice they often track keywords and reveal related trends. Identify emerging trends related to your existing content and update it to align with these new keywords.

If a page is already performing well, updating it with trending keywords can further enhance its visibility and rankings, providing the dual benefit of maintaining and improving its performance.

 

How to Do It

1. Keyword Research and Mapping: Conduct keyword research to guide your content creation. Map trending keywords to your existing content to integrate them into your strategy.
2. Content Optimization: Adjust your content to incorporate these trending keywords. This could involve updating an H1 tag or fine-tuning a section in an H2, depending on what fits the context.

 

Example

For instance, an agency partner developed a dashboard to track the top 100 queries where we rank. We discovered a trending term similar to an existing keyword but slightly different. We optimized our content to include the new term to leverage this trend. Verifying that the trending term had a higher potential reach than the current keyword’s monthly search volume (MSV) was crucial to ensure the update would be beneficial.

 

Identify and Plan Content for Recurring Trends

 

While the previous strategies focus on reactive adjustments, another approach involves proactive planning for trends that recur at specific times of the year. By leveraging historical data, you can identify patterns and anticipate when trends are likely to resurface, allowing you to plan your content strategy.

Understanding keyword seasonality is a well-known tactic for content strategists, but predicting recurring trends requires a more nuanced approach and tools like Exploding Topics.

 

How to Do It

1. Analyze Historical Data: Review past traffic and engagement metrics to identify patterns and spikes related to specific topics or trends.
2. Utilize Trend Tools: Use tools to track recurring peaks and seasonal trends throughout the year. Set alerts for significant growth indicators to stay ahead of trends. For instance, configure alerts for year-over-year growth thresholds to get timely notifications.
3. Plan Content Accordingly: Based on the data and alerts, develop content ahead of the anticipated peak to maximize impact.

 

Example

Consider a retailer that experiences increased searches for gift ideas during Christmas (seasonality). By tracking specific product trends that emerge during this period, they can anticipate and prepare content for these trends, aligning their strategy with the expected spikes in interest.

 

Leverage Trends for Digital PR and Influencer Marketing

 

Trending topics reflect widespread popularity and online discussion, offering valuable opportunities for publishers and brands to gain visibility and media attention. By integrating trends with content creation and newsjacking, brands can effectively position themselves within current conversations.

Combining digital PR efforts with emerging trends can enhance link-building, authority, and revenue through increased media exposure. Influencers discussing trending topics can amplify a brand’s message, especially if their audience aligns with your target demographic.

 

How to Do It

1. Identify Relevant Trends: Use tools like Glimpse, Exploding Topics, and Google Trends to find trends pertinent to your industry. Ensure these trends align with your brand’s messaging and audience interests.
2. Craft Compelling Press Releases: Develop press releases highlighting your brand’s involvement or expertise in trending topics. Incorporate data, expert quotes, and case studies to enhance the appeal and likelihood of media coverage.
3. Monitor Industry News: Watch breaking stories and use trend tools to quickly create content or statements that tie into these narratives, ensuring timely relevance.
4. Engage Influencers: Use influencer marketing platforms to identify active influencers in trending topics. Evaluate their content, engagement rates, and audience demographics to ensure alignment with your brand.
5. Utilize Trending Hashtags and Keywords: Incorporate trending hashtags and keywords in your posts and influencer collaborations to broaden your reach and maximize visibility.

 

Create and Drive Your Trends

 

Brands can use trend data at a category level to gauge user interests and identify emerging meta-level trends before creating content around a related product. This approach allows a brand to establish a trend uniquely associated with it.

Cosmetic and fashion brands, for example, often create trends such as “Dupe” products or capitalize on existing trends to promote their offerings. Once a brand establishes a trend, it becomes challenging for competitors to adopt it without appearing to copy it, which can be noticeable to users.

Fostering loyalty and engagement within a community can help drive a trend forward. User-generated content (UGC) can provide credibility and initial traction, aiding in the organic spread of the trend.

If developing a new trend isn’t feasible, brands can aim to amplify an emerging trend on a different platform. For instance, if a trend is gaining traction on Instagram but hasn’t yet hit TikTok, there’s an opportunity to pioneer the trend on TikTok with less competition.

 

How to Do It

1. Engage with Communities: Participate in forums, social media groups, and online communities where emerging trends are discussed. Regular engagement helps maintain momentum and fosters community support.
2. Host Events: Organize webinars, live Q&A sessions (TikTok is ideal for this), workshops, or conferences focused on the trends you want to promote. These events can provide detailed insights, answer questions, and build excitement.
3. Encourage UGC: Motivate your audience to create and share content about your brand and its offerings. UGC can accelerate the trend’s development and enhance its reach.
4. Monitor and Adapt: Monitor platforms where trends are emerging and adapt your strategy to leverage these insights effectively.

 

Example

A clothing brand notices a growing meta-level trend around “Retro ’90s Fashion.” As a supplier of football kits from the 1990s, the brand decides to drive the “Retro Football Shirts” trend by reissuing iconic products from that era.

As nostalgia for ’90s fashion surges, UGC creators showcase their retro football kit collections, share outfit ideas, and integrate the kits into modern streetwear. This drives significant demand for the brand’s new retro collection, making it a trending topic.

 

From Reactive to Proactive: Incorporating Trends in SEO Content

 

By creating timely, trend-relevant content, re-optimizing existing materials, planning for recurring trends, leveraging trends for broader activities, and even driving trends, your brand can distinguish itself and foster meaningful audience engagement.

Why follow the same content strategies as your competitors, even with a different tone of voice? Instead, lead the industry and genuinely connect with your community.

Proactively integrating trends into your SEO content strategy is a powerful way to achieve this. If you find it challenging or overwhelming, consider our monthly SEO packages and let the experts guide you.