How to Use PLR With Trending Topics to Get More Blog Traffic
I love working less and making more money. To do this, I use a combination of PLR with trending topics. The PLR creates a foundation for my blog posts, while the trending topics carry it through for traffic and $$.
Planning is key.
Obviously this is a given as part of “how to plan a blog series”, but this step is worth talking about in detail. Planning is how you'll build the foundation needed to make your blog series (and subsequent email series) successful.
Capitalize on trends.
One of the easiest ways to increase your traffic almost instantly is to hop on a trend. Unfortunately, most trends are not evergreen – and your blog posts should be. What's a blogger to do? I'm so glad you asked! The key is to meld your evergreen content with popular trending topics.
Evergreen topics like gardening and budgeting will always be popular. Combining budgeting with the 52 Week Savings Challenge that went viral several times is the perfect way to combine your evergreen budgeting content with a viral trend. If a celebrity talks about the challenge or it goes viral again in any way, your blog post series is going to get some of that juice!
How to find trending topics on social media
Using social media to find trending topics is a good plan, but it takes time. You'll need to dig through trending topics that would resonate with your readers, and hope to get a post up quickly enough before the topic is no longer trending.
What's trending on Pinterest?
Check out what's trending on Pinterest by putting your search terms in and comparing them to related terms (below the graph).
You can compare more than two at a time, which is awesome! Related terms also give you LSI keyword ideas, subheading ideas, or even digital products to create and promote during your blog post and email series.
If you aren't ready to create your own digital product yet (though I highly recommend it!), you can find affiliate products that will fit in well with your email series. When you purchase done-for-you content from PLR for Blogs, you get affiliate recommendations when applicable. 🙂
What's trending on YouTube?
While it changes often and you never know what's going to pop up as trending next, YouTube has an extensive list of trending videos for you to sift through when looking for content ideas. Some of the trending ideas won't fit with your niche. If you find this is the case, start with your PLR in mind.
If you purchased one of our budgeting bundles and want to write a series about improving your credit score, search for the top videos on YouTube related to building credit. You can embed those videos in your blog posts, or create your own videos – a new and improved version of what's already out there.
What's trending on Twitter?
It's probably easiest to see trends on Twitter, because almost everyone already knows how to use that feature on the platform. Every hashtag is tracked and the top performing ones are posted for all to see – which makes them even more viral!
Twitter trends change really quickly, so be sure to use the advice from above: combine your evergreen PLR content with trending topics. Do not chase trending topics unless you're a news/gossip/celebrity blogger. A trending topic like #sundayvibes would, theoretically, be trending every Sunday. If you blog about positive affirmations, a success mindset, or even improving your life overall, this could be an awesome hashtag to work with.
Trending topics will bring fast traffic, and lots of it, but it won't always stick around. Evergreen content will be the cornerstone of what Google sees and ranks you for.
What's trending on reddit?
Entering reddit is like transporting to a whole new world – in the best and worst ways. If you've never experienced the joy/pain of reddit, now's your time to shine. Looking at trending topics on reddit may be awesome one day and terrible the next. I joined a few subreddits (niche-related forums) for the topics I blog about. When I see something is going crazy on reddit, I know there's a high probability the post will perform well.
With all research, I highly recommend setting a timer so you don't get sucked down the rabbit hole of never-ending net surfing. You can learn more tips like these in my Lightning Fast Content Creation course!
What's trending on TikTok?
TikTok is relatively new compared to Facebook and Twitter, but it's taken the world by storm! Well, at least parts in the world that allow it. 😉 When you log into TikTok, what's trending will be your #foryoupage – so it's all based on what you have liked and interacted with in the past. This is a good thing, if you like and interact with channels that are within your niche. If you use TikTok like most of us do, for crap-scrolling, you won't be gathering the most trending ideas for your niche this way.
David from Food n Service wrote a post and created a video for the super-viral TikTok pasta. He combined an evergreen pasta recipe, while capitalizing on this TikTok trend that may last a week or a month or a year. One thing he did that will help it perform well, was that he posted it as soon as he realized it was going viral. Other bloggers will eventually blog about it, too, but being one of the first can help you get more eyeballs on your content.
How to find trending topics on Google
With Google trends, you get to see what is trending now but also:
- the popularity of the trend over the past 5 years
- the popularity of the trend on social media at a glance
- where it is most popular (by state or country)
- compare two or more trends
- and more!
With Google trends, you can see what has trended in the past but also use this data to predict when it will go back up. This is the perfect formula for creating a blog post series! If you are a budget blogger and you write about both gardening and traveling, you can use PLR to start a series about each topic.
Then, your email series can work your readers through your budget gardening series and cross-promote your travel on a budget series because you know gardening is popular in Spring and travel is popular in Summer. It's also popular during the winter months due to holidays, which is how you can then take your travel folks to your gardening series for Spring).
Another perk of using Google to find trends is that if you know Spring gardening traffic peaks in March and April, you know to have your blog posts up by February. I always publish my posts at least 6 weeks before the topic is set to spike again. The sooner you can hit publish, the better.
Searching the topic “road trip”, you see there are clear spikes and dips at about the same time each year. If the traffic for your topic goes up in February, start publishing it in December so it has time to gain some traction before it spikes for the year. Some topics spike multiple times each year. If this is the case with yours, search for trending topics when it's set to spike again. Then, update the post. Making your post more relevant and adding text to make the post longer can help you rank higher on Google.
