How To Find Trending SEO Keywords? Tips You Must Know

How To Find Trending SEO Keywords? Before diving into tools and tactics, it’s worth pausing: what exactly is a “trending SEO keyword,” and why bother chasing them?

• A trending keyword is a search term whose popularity is rising (or has recently spiked) compared to its historical baseline.
• Targeting trending keywords gives you a chance to ride interest before the competition fully responds.
• But it’s a double-edged sword: if the trend fades quickly, you might be chasing traffic that vanishes.

Why Trending Keywords Matter (and when to chase them)

So the sweet spot is spotting trends early and validating whether they have staying power (or enough volume) to make your effort worthwhile.

When you balance trend-seeking with quality and intent, your content stays relevant but doesn’t feel reactive or shallow.

Core Strategies: How To Find Trending SEO Keywords?

Below are tested strategies (and variations) to help you spot what’s rising — plus how to vet, validate, and act on those keywords.

1. Leverage Google Trends (and its “Trending Now” features)

Google Trends is your baseline — free, immediate, and full of signals.

How to use it well:

• Enter a seed keyword or topic and view “Interest Over Time” — you’ll see rises, plateaus, or declines. Insights here can guide your content calendar.
• Use filters: region, category, time period (past week / month / 5 years) to spot local vs. global trends.
• Scroll down to Related Queries / Related Topics — look especially for “Rising” or “Breakout” terms (those that have seen >5,000% increases).
• Use “Compare” to stack two or more keywords and see which is surging.
• Explore the Trending Now section (updated frequently) to see what’s spiking currently.

Caveats & tips: How To Find Trending SEO Keywords?

• A jump in interest doesn’t always equal high search volume—some breakout terms are niche.
• Trends are context-sensitive: a term trending globally may not be relevant in your region.
• Use it as a discovery tool, not your only source.

2. Use Advanced Keyword Tools: Ahrefs, SEMrush, Exploding Topics, etc.

Google Trends gives you direction; these tools give you data (volume, difficulty, metrics) and scale.

Ahrefs (Keywords Explorer / Matching Terms Growth)

• Enter a seed or topic → go to “Matching terms” → sort by Growth over recent months.
• Use filters (country, language, search intent) to refine what’s trending in your niche.
• Check “SERP overview / Search Intent” to see how searchers are framing their queries.

How To Find Trending SEO Keywords? SEMrush

• Use Keyword Overview to view trend charts, CPC, difficulty, and volume.
• Bulk analyze up to 100 keywords at once to compare trends.
• Use Keyword Magic Tool to expand related keywords, then filter by increasing volume or low competition.

How To Find Trending SEO Keywords: Exploding Topics

• Exploding Topics tracks emerging topics, predicting upward momentum before most people catch them.
• It gives you categories and trend scores — useful for spotting early-stage trends you can adopt first.

Other tools & methods to cross-check

• Use SpyFu to peek what keywords your competitors are bidding on or ranking for.
• Try free resources like WordStream’s Free Keyword Tool to get quick ideas and assess volume.
• Combine tool outputs: pick a trend from Google Trends, then validate via Ahrefs, SEMrush, or Exploding Topics.

3. Monitor Social Media / Forums / Community Signals

Many trends start in conversation before they show up in formal keyword tools. If you tap into social pulse, you’ll often get the jump.

Social & hashtag monitoring

• Twitter / X: check trending hashtags, trending topics in “Explore.”
• Instagram / TikTok: search your topic, look at popular hashtags, trending tags. TikTok’s Creative Center (for business accounts) provides trending hashtag analytics.
• Use hashtag-tracking tools (e.g. Keyhole, Hashtagify) to gauge momentum.

Reddit & niche forums

• Go to subreddits relevant to your topic. Sort by “Rising,” “Hot,” or filter by time period.
• Use Keyworddit (a Reddit-based keyword tool) to extract what people are typing in thread titles and comments.
• Gauge which topics have high engagement and whether they reflect a trend worth exploring.

Industry news / thought leadership

• Read niche publications, blogs, press releases, Twitter threads.
• If a topic is being discussed in your field, probe whether search demand is growing too.

When you see overlap — say, a hashtag trending on TikTok and a topic rising in Google Trends — that’s a stronger signal.

4. Use Autocomplete, “People Also Ask,” & Search Suggestions

These are low-lift but effective methods to read what searchers are starting to type.

Autocomplete / Search Suggestions

• Use incognito mode (or clear cookies) and start typing your topic in Google search. See what suggestions appear.
• The suggestions are shaped by volume and relevancy to current search behavior.
• Do this on YouTube, Amazon, Bing, etc. — keyword intent can differ by platform.

“People Also Ask” (PAA) boxes

• Enter your keyword in Google search and scroll to PAA boxes. These are questions people actually ask.
• Click on PAA entries to expand more questions (Google often reveals layers).
• These are great sources of long-tail, rising keywords.

These crawling techniques are still powerful because they reflect real user behavior in real time.

Vetting What You Find: Don’t Chase Every Spike Blindly

Once you spot a “trend candidate,” you need filters to decide whether it’s worth the content spend.

Use these validation criteria

1. Volume / Absolute demand
   A trend spike is interesting — but if monthly searches are 20, it might not justify building content around it.
2. Competition / Keyword Difficulty (KD)
   If it’s trending but ultra-competitive, entering might be tough. Aim for mid-level difficulty if possible.
3. Trending consistency
   Is it a sudden flash or a sustained upward trajectory? Compare recent months vs longer term (6–12 months) to see if it’s stable or fading.
4. Search intent alignment
   Does the trending keyword align with what your audience wants (informational, transactional, navigational)?
   Matching intent means your content is relevant and more likely to perform.
5. Broader signals
   If social media, forums, news, and search tools all point toward the same trend, strength of signal increases.
6. Seasonality / Timing
   Some keywords rise seasonally (e.g. “Black Friday deals”) — they’ll spike every year. Use those intentionally but don’t mistake seasonal recurrence for novel trend.

How to Structure Content Around Trends

Once you’ve locked a trending keyword, the way you build content matters. Use these toward capturing traffic and staying relevant.

Clustering & Keyword Grouping

Don’t target just one keyword — group related keywords (similar themes, variants) and build a content cluster around the trend. This aids SEO authority. This approach is known as keyword clustering.

Map content to intent

• For informational keywords, build guides, explainers, how-tos.
• For transactional/transaction-adjacent trends, offer comparisons, reviews, buying help.
• For navigational, optimize pages that help users get where they want (e.g. brand names, category pages).

Update, refresh, iterate

Trends evolve. As user behavior shifts, tweak your content to reflect new subtopics, questions, and angles.
Track exceptions, feedback, and performance in Google Analytics & Search Console.

Internal linking & siloing

Link from trend-themed pages to pillar content or deeper resources. This helps distribute relevance and capture long-term traffic even if trend dies.

Visual Ideas to Include (Infographics, Charts, etc.)

To boost engagement and clarity, use visuals wisely: Trends & Insights

• A trend graph (line chart) showing the upward trend of your target keyword over time (from Google Trends).
• Bubble chart or table comparing multiple candidate trending keywords (volume, growth, difficulty).
• Flowchart or decision tree that shows your vetting steps (volume → difficulty → intent → signal).
• Side-by-side comparison visuals of social media trends vs keyword volume for confirmation.
• Clustering map or keyword network diagram showing how related keywords connect to your main trend.

These help readers see the trend logic, not just read about it.

Sample Workflow: From Idea to Published Trend Content

Here’s a sample on how to find trending SEO keywords you might adopt:

1. Ideation / Trend discovery
   Use Google Trends and Exploding Topics to spot a candidate such as “AI video generation tools” rising trending.
2. Validation
   Check that monthly volume is reasonable, difficulty is approachable, and search intent matches your niche (e.g. “how to use AI video generator”).
3. Keyword expansion
   In Ahrefs or SEMrush, find supporting keywords: “best AI video generators 2025,” “AI video app free,” etc.
4. Cross-check social / forums
   Are people talking about this on Reddit, TikTok, YouTube? Do hashtags or threads confirm interest?
5. Content planning & cluster formation
   Set a pillar article around “how to use AI video generation tools” + cluster posts on specific tools, reviews, tips.
6. Publish & monitor
   Track performance in GSC, Analytics; refresh content weekly or monthly as things evolve.

Integrating Tools & Internal Linking

If you’re interested, you can check free tools on cemfustools.com to complement the methods above (e.g. search volume estimators, trend trackers).
You can also explore bundle prices or single tools to see pricing or standalone tool options.

👉 Trending Keyword: Trends & Insights