5 Strategies for Leveraging Trends in Your SEO Content Plan

Learn how to effectively integrate trends into your SEO content strategy to enhance brand visibility and improve search performance.

Trending topics represent popular or emerging subjects of interest online. In the realm of SEO, capitalising on these trends provides a valuable opportunity to engage with a broader audience when they are most active and interested.

Adopting a trend-driven SEO approach can significantly boost brand awareness and foster greater advocacy. By aligning your content with current trends, you can differentiate yourself from competitors who often use similar, generic strategies.

Trends offer a strategic advantage, enabling brands to create distinctive and timely content that resonates with their audience. To leverage trends effectively within your SEO content strategy, consider these five key methods to stand out in the crowded digital landscape.

1. Create Timely Content Based on Current Trends

While keywords and their search volumes are valuable, they often come with high competition. Trends, on the other hand, present less crowded opportunities but require more effort to integrate into your workflow. Many brands might not even be aware when a term is trending.

To stand out, produce high-quality content that aligns with trending topics and publish it when interest is at its peak. This approach can attract more traffic due to reduced competition. Social search platforms can amplify your reach, as they reward timely content with higher visibility.

In an era where search engine results pages (SERPs) now include content from various sources like Reddit, TikTok, and YouTube, timely trend-based content on these platforms can also appear in traditional SERPs.

How to Implement This:

– Identify and Track Trends: Use tools like Glimpse, Google Trends, or Exploding Topics to spot emerging trends.

– Assess Opportunity: Determine if the trend is significant enough to warrant content creation.

– Create and Publish Quickly: Focus on platforms where the trend is gaining traction first, then expand to other channels if interest persists.

– Diversify Content Formats: Explore videos, blogs, and infographics to effectively engage your audience. Prioritize creating and repurposing content to fit the trend.

Example:

In the health and wellbeing sector, trends frequently emerge. For instance, if “intermittent fasting” gains traction after a celebrity endorsement, create a video series detailing its benefits, how to start, and the pros and cons, featuring the celebrity as a case study.

2. Re-optimize Existing Content for Emerging Keywords

Using trend tracking tools will help you identify new keywords and related trends. Look for emerging trends that are relevant to your existing content and make updates accordingly.

Updating well-performing pages with trending keywords can enhance their visibility and maintain or improve their rankings.

How to Implement This:

– Conduct Keyword Research: Continue to research keywords to guide new content creation.

– Map Trends to Keywords: Align your content with current trends by updating headings and sections as needed.

– Monitor Impact: Ensure the trending term has a higher search volume than your current keyword to justify the update.

Example:

For instance, a partner agency tracked the top 100 search queries where we rank. They found a trending term similar to an existing keyword. To leverage this, they updated the content to include the new term, provided it had a higher search volume than the existing keyword.

3. Plan Content for Recurring Trends

The previous strategies focus on reacting to current trends, but you can also proactively plan for recurring trends that appear at specific times each year.

By analyzing historical data, you can identify patterns and predict when trends are likely to resurface. This proactive approach allows you to plan your content strategy in advance.

How to Implement This:

– Review Historical Data: Look at past traffic and engagement trends to identify recurring patterns.

– Use Trend Tools: Tools like Exploding Topics can help you track when trends peak annually.

– Set Alerts: Configure alerts for growth patterns to be notified before a trend peaks, giving you time to prepare relevant content.

Example:

For instance, a retailer may see increased searches for gift ideas during the Christmas season. By tracking specific product trends during this time, they can plan content ahead of these annual spikes.

4. Leveraging Trends for Digital PR and Influencer Marketing

Trending topics are widely discussed online and can attract significant visibility and media attention. For publishers and brands, tapping into these trends can provide a valuable opportunity to increase exposure.

By aligning digital PR efforts with current trends, brands can gain valuable backlinks, build authority, and drive media coverage. Additionally, collaborating with influencers who are discussing trending topics can amplify a brand’s reach. When influencers and publishers share similar audiences, their endorsements can enhance visibility and impact.

How to Implement This:

– Identify Trends: Use tools like Glimpse, Exploding Topics, and Google Trends to find trends relevant to your industry. Ensure these trends fit with your brand’s messaging and audience interests.

– Create Press Releases: Highlight your brand’s involvement or expertise in trending topics. Include data, expert quotes, and case studies to make your press release more engaging.

– Monitor News: Keep an eye on breaking stories in your industry and use trend tools to quickly create content or statements that align with these narratives.

– Engage Influencers: Use influencer marketing platforms to find influencers discussing trending topics. Check their content, engagement rates, and audience demographics to ensure they are a good match for your brand.

– Use Trending Keywords: Incorporate trending hashtags and keywords in your posts and influencer collaborations to broaden your reach.

5. Create and Drive Your Own Trends

Brands can use trend data to identify user interests and emerging patterns at a broader level. By aligning content with these insights, brands can create and establish their own trends, making them unique to their brand.

This approach is popular with fashion and cosmetic brands that either start new trends or link their products to existing ones. Once a brand sets a trend, competitors may struggle to replicate it without seeming unoriginal, which can be noticed by users.

Brands can build and maintain loyalty by engaging their communities and driving trends upward. User-generated content (UGC) can add credibility and momentum to a new trend, helping it grow organically.

If a brand can’t create its own trend, it may focus on developing an emerging trend on a different platform. For example, if a trend is gaining traction on Instagram but hasn’t yet appeared on TikTok, a brand might create TikTok content to drive the trend there with less competition.

How to Implement This:

– Engage in Communities: Participate in forums, social media groups, and online communities where trends are discussed. Regularly engage with these communities to maintain momentum.

– Host Events: Organize webinars, live Q&A sessions, workshops, or conferences related to the trend you want to promote. Use these events to share detailed information and build excitement.

– Encourage UGC: Motivate your audience to create and share content about your brand and its products. UGC can help push the trend forward as more people engage with it.

Example:

A clothing brand identifies a growing interest in “Retro ’90s Fashion.” As a supplier of football kits from the 1990s, the brand decides to promote “Retro Football Shirts” by reissuing popular designs from that era. This nostalgia-driven strategy leads to high demand as UGC creators share their retro football kit collections, boosting the trend and increasing interest in the brand’s new collection.

From Reactive to Proactive: Using Trends in SEO Content

To make an impact and engage audiences effectively, brands should focus on incorporating trends into their SEO content strategies. This involves creating timely content, updating existing materials with trending keywords, planning for recurring trends, and leveraging trends for broader activities like digital PR and influencer marketing. Additionally, brands can drive their own trends to stand out from competitors.

Instead of following the same content strategies as others, brands can lead the industry and connect with their communities by proactively integrating trends into their SEO efforts.