Trending topics are your key to free traffic
There's this thing that happens on Google that is rarely talked about. It's sort of a trade secret, if you will. And if you want to get really nerdy, we can dive into terms like "QDF" and all manner of alphabet soup, but let's keep it super simple so you can take advantage of it today.
TL;DR
Trending content is a cheat code for small business blogs. Write about what the internet is obsessed with this week and let Google send you strangers who might just become your favorite customers.
If you’re looking for blog strategy services, let’s chat. I can help find, or write, SEO optimized trending topics for your blog.
Trending Searches & SEO
When something blows up in the news, on social media, or in your little corner of the internet, Google can tell because suddenly it sees millions of people searching for that thing. It scrambles. It needs to show people good, relevant results for whatever they're frantically searching, and because it hasn't had time to gather a deep archive of opinions on the topic yet, it opens the door a little wider than usual.
That door, normally, is basically welded shut for small businesses competing with the big guys.
However, in the moment when something is trending, it swings open.
And if you happen to have a blog post about that thing sitting there, warm and ready, like a fresh loaf of sourdough (San Francisco Sourdough of course everything else is blasphemy and you can’t convince me otherwise). You get the traffic and eyeballs. You get the strangers showing up on your website.
The best thing about this is it gives you free permission to throw out what you had planned on your content calendar, and run amok. You don’t need pretty canva templates or anything else. It’s as simple as, the internet is curious about something, and you happened to write about it. Which, let’s be fair is SEO in a nutshell but this is a special kind of SEO trickery.
Blog about it immediately.
Here's where small business owners consistently blow it.
They wait.
They think, "Oh, I should write something about that," and then they wait until they have time, until it feels perfect, until Mercury is no longer in the gatorade. By then, the moment's gone and someone else got the traffic.
The businesses that win at this notice something picking up steam, sit down, and write something real and useful about it immediately.
When your herbalism customers start asking about a plant that just went viral, that's the week. When your skincare clients are panicking about an ingredient in the news, that's the week. You write it now, you publish it now, and you let Google do the rest.
Small but mighty SEO blogs
This will give you permission to feel genuinely smug about being small.
As a small business owner without a huge legal team policing your every word, or a PR team always in fear of a crisis; you can have a point of view. You are a real human on the other end of the screen who has opinions and experience and probably a chaotic furbaby with zero respect for deadlines.
Big companies have to run trending content through twelve layers of approval before it goes live. Trust me, I have lived this. You, on the other hand, can publish it this afternoon. That is an enormous, embarrassingly underused advantage.
You don't need a huge blog. You don't need to post every day or become a content machine that churns out five articles a week until you hate writing and you hate the internet and you've started talking to your houseplants.
Like what you’re reading, and want more?
How to take advantage of trending content for your blog
To do this you need to do a few things:
Be observant. Notice what people in your world are suddenly talking about. Think about how this can relate to your business, even if it doesn’t seem relevant on the surface.
Mine your DMs: Notice the questions showing up in your DMs. Are people asking about the same thing? Find out why.
Pay attention to the news: Notice what's in the news that overlaps with what you know. Reddit is also an amazing source for staying up to date.
Use Google Trends: It’s amazing, it shows you what is trending, where, and what related things are trending. Check it out here.
Make a habit: Check all these things once a week. Just note if anything has changed, and keep an eye on Google trends.
Then write something about it, as soon as you find it, before the moment closes. Don’t stall while you’re waiting to be perfect. Edit it after. Get it in the algorithm immediately.
The internet is constantly having conversations. Every once in a while, it has one that's squarely inside your area of expertise. Show up for that conversation.
A little SEO trick on trending topics
But here's a little trick (I’m not the one who told you).
It doesn't have to be directly inside your area of expertise. You can find fun and clever ways to ride a moment that has nothing to do with what you sell, and still come out ahead.
Here are some theoretical examples
When the Wicked movie dropped, the internet collectively lost its mind for about six weeks. A crystal shop has a vague connection to a Broadway adaptation about witches. So the owner who can actually cash in isn’t going to be the one who writes a generic "crystals for witches" post.
It’s going to be the one who got specific and timely with something like "The Crystals Elphaba Would Have in Her Bag" or "Glinda's Energy Is Definitely a Rose Quartz and Here's Why."
Suddenly they're sitting in the middle of one of the biggest search moments of the year, with a post that's genuinely fun to read, clearly written by a real person with a personality, and shareable enough that people are sending it to their group chats and linking to it across reddit.
The same thing happens with celebrity moments. When a famous person goes through a very public crisis and the entire internet turns into an amateur therapist, a tarot reader could write something like "What the Cards Actually Say About [Situation]" and that is going to get traffic for two to three weeks straight from strangers who were just curious, found your services and became immediately invested.
Yes, you probably aren’t going to sell a Crystal or tarot reading to half of this traffic. It’s not a conversion play. It’s a way to start building authority through brand mentions, links, citations and more. All of this makes your site more loved by both Google and AI search engines
Final SEO Advice:
Trending topics are amazing for SEO, especially for small businesses who normally compete against media or big brands. Take advantage of content with an entertaining take or unique point of view. Google rewards it and so do people.
If you’re looking for blog strategy services, let’s chat. I can help find, or write, SEO optimized trending topics for your blog.