How to use trends to drive web traffic
If you’re looking to drive more traffic to your e-comm site, you may have looked into SEO (search engine optimization) as a strategy. I’m a huge advocate for SEO, which allows you to grow qualified organic traffic to your site over time (all without pay-per-click ads).
There’s one caveat, though: SEO takes time, often months, to be truly impactful.
…but what if that process could be sped up a bit?
Covering trending topics can help you do just that. By creating on-trend content for your e-comm brand, you can harness the power of SEO on a potentially much faster timeline. This type of content has a limited shelf life, by definition - but it can help set your brand apart in a hyper-competitive e-comm landscape, and give you tons of relevant, engaging material that you can repurpose on your brand’s social channels and more.
Read on to find out how your e-comm brand can harness the power of trends to drive more organic web traffic.
Why trending topics work to create traffic
The global ecommerce market is growing rapidly - but that means your brand’s competition is growing as well. The level of saturation is variable depending on your brand’s product assortment, but one thing is certain: unless you’re a huge brand like Amazon, it’s only going to get harder to rank for most shopping and product-related keywords.
For the fashion and beauty brands I work with, it can take a long time - and a lot of targeted content - to start seeing organic traffic to their products. (An exception is Dosso Beauty, a brand who’s doing amazingly using organic traffic to sell their hypoallergenic hair extensions - but, to be fair, this a fairly niche product that’s targeted to an often-underserved audience.)
You may be thinking: this is great and all, but why should I, as a brand owner, care about keyword strategy? I’m already paying for Google and Facebook ads. Well, I’m here to tell you: using SEO to draw in organic traffic to your site is one of the most cost-effective growth strategies available to ecommerce brands. (More from me on why SEO is such an effective strategy here.)
Longterm, you’ll want to create comprehensive content that helps set your brand apart from competitors and ensures your products will appear in more people’s search results. But short-term, engaging with trending topics helps your brand stay relevant, capture audience attention, and - perhaps best of all - drives new traffic to your site, all without dipping into your brand’s ad budget.
This is because, when you leverage trending topics in your site’s content, you’re capitalizing on a tiny moment where a lot of people are all Googling the same thing. If you’re able to be really on the ball with your strategy, you can capture a slice of those highly interested people and direct them to your own website - where they’ll hopefully convert to buyers.
Case studies: e-comm brands leveraging trends
Let’s look at a few real-life examples of e-comm brands leveraging trends to rank really well on Google. All of the below examples (excluding the Into the Gloss article) were pulled from the first page of Google’s search results as of the time of writing.
Lulus x Barbiecore harnesses the power of pop culture
Pop culture is responsible for so many of the trends that affect fashion and beauty brands. Lulu’s created an entire collection page highlighting the Barbiecore trend, a one-stop shop for anyone who wants to create their perfect movie premier look (or just capitalize on the sudden influx of hot pink clothing):
What I love about this strategy is that it’s relatively low-lift for the company - they didn’t actually design all of these clothes because of Barbie, they just merchandised them together to tell an impactful trend story.
Curated collections can be really impactful when applied to niche internet trends, as well. Take this Balletcore collection featured on Urban Outfitters, capitalizing on a TikTok trend that started to go mainstream in 2022:
Nasty Gal x Eras Tour Inspo shows that events sell
Sure, lots of people put together themed outfits for the Barbie premier. But it wasn’t, like, a requirement. Lots of people streamed the movie at home, as well! Enter: live events - like Taylor Swift’s Eras Tour. If you’ve got a ticket, you need a look that turns heads. Here’s how Nasty Gal set Swifties up for outfit success:
I see the trending event strategy being especially impactful for regional brands trying to make a splash in a specific area, but it’s obviously great as well for larger brands to capitalize on huge live moments (like Coachella, Burning Man or the next time Taylor tours).
Don’t sleep on blogging! Featuring Into The Gloss x Euphoria
It’s no secret that I’m a big fan of blogging. Blog content is a no-brainer way to incorporate more trends into your site’s content, without having to change your shoppable assortments. I love how Into the Gloss - Glossier’s blog - covers pop culture and its impact on makeup trend, like this piece on Euphoria:
If you haven't recently, this is your reminder to take some time to plan out impactful blog content for your brand. And don’t forget to mix in some trends!
How to discover trending keywords
Word of mouth: what have you heard people talking about lately? What are other people on your team obsessed with? If your brand is more regional, are there any big events coming up? Word of mouth is one of the easiest and best ways to learn about trends relevant to your brand.
TikTok (+ social media broadly): TikTok’s Discover page is an amazing resource to keep your finger on the pulse of new trends. Things seem to be originating with TikTok these days, but of course, Instagram is still super useful as well (especially if you’re like me: I am old and spending too long on TikTok makes my remaining brain cells feel like sludge).
Google Trends: this tool is useful for seeing exactly what topics are trending in a given country (or even city). You can also assess the popularity of any keyword over time - just in case, say, you’re wondering whether Barbicore has finally jumped the shark (as of this writing, no).
Answer the Public: this tool allows you to type in a given keyword and see exactly what questions people are asking about it. Most of the time, the questions are fairly basic - but it can be a great starting point if you’re looking to write a blog post on a given topic.
Exploding Topics: this is probably my favorite trend-spotting tool. The site lets you filter by a variety of categories, and see which trending keywords have taken off in a given timespan - say, the past two years. Here’s a search I just conducted for the “fashion” category, which shows that the moment may just have passed for “whimsigoth” - tragic!:
How can my e-comm brand leverage trending topics?
Turn trending topics into web content
Use trends to push offers and promotions
Write blog posts with style guides and curated looks for a given trend
Create curated collection pages for trends
Leverage trends on social media
Turn trends into shoppable videos or image carousels
Comment on trend-related posts for greater brand exposure
Trends meet influencer marketing
Invite influencer collaborators to create styled on-trend looks that you can repurpose for social + email marketing
Quick-hit SEO tips for leveraging trends
Do some quick-hit keyword research to ensure you’re capturing the trend properly: IE are people searching “Ballet core” or “Balletcore”?
Make sure your page’s meta titles and descriptions are optimized to involve the target keyword
Inter-link new pages with rest of site so that Google sees they’re relevant
Ensure content is long enough + feels relevant to your brand and tone of voice
Covering trending topics can have so many benefits for e-comm brands. Not only are trends fun (just being honest!), but they help to keep your brand relevant - and, even better, they can boost short-term organic traffic.
Want to understand more of the how of SEO? Check out some of my other articles:
Want (even) more from me on e-comm SEO? Check out my guide to content strategy for e-comm brands.
Have questions? Get in touch. I answer all messages personally.
