How to use Exploding Topics for SEO content – 5 trend tool tactics

Updated on 7th August 2023

When everybody is doing SEO, how do you continue to stand out in SERPs? The answer: uncommon SEO strategies, such as writing about upcoming trends first.

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Exploding Topics is a deceptively powerful tool, enabling you to spot keyword trends and topics that have viral potential but are still in their infancy. I’ve raved about the great tool before in our Exploding Topics review but wanted to give you some actionable advice on how to use it to regularly create content with high ranking potential, before your competitors!

In their own words:

“Our USP is first, that we help people identify trends that they don’t know about yet. And also that we’re able to identify trends very early. That’s actually our main USP because it’s one thing to show people a trend that they don’t know about, but if it takes off the next day, it’s too late to do anything about it. So, our goal is to identify trends as early as possible.” - Brian Dean

→ Further reading: Exclusive interview with Brian Dean, Exploding Topics co-founder

Exploding Topics vs. Google Trends

Not all trending topics are equal. And not every means of discovering them are. With the world and its dog using Google Trends, get an edge in your content research efforts with Exploding Topics.

The problem with Google Trends is it’s made for content validation, not content discovery. Unless you know about a trending topic already, you’re going to have a hard time finding it.

Benefits of Exploding Topics for SEO:

  • Efficiency: saves a ton of manual keyword research
  • Early: spots new trends 6+ months before competitors
  • Thought leadership: be at the forefront of innovation
  • Proficiency: a constant pipeline on new content ideas
  • Proven topics: traffic bets backed up by the numbers
  • Expansive: suggests related, relevant topics

What is an Exploding Topic?

An Exploding Topic is one that’s starting to gain traction with early adopters and insiders, but is yet to hit the mainstream or go viral.

Exploding Topics analyzes millions of sources to uncover them, including forum mentions, social media shares, industry news articles searches of related topics across the web. The algorithm that powers Exploding Topics is so sensitive it can pick up on new topics way faster than any human.

Exploding topics review   Dashboard   Surges.co

It’s no exaggeration to say Exploding Topic applications can cut your SEO idea and research time in half, and make your content more likely to trend itself. Let me show you how…

How to use Exploding Topics for SEO research

1. View metatrends as potential topic clusters

Megatrends are trends and megatrends zoomed out. They’re the bigger picture that span various topics and have a seismic influence on the way we all live, work and play.

Exploding Topics brings this context to its tool and analysis, piecing individual topics together into categories, much as you would for a topic cluster.

And what is a topic cluster you ask? A topic cluster is multiple pieces of content grouped by a shared topic and related subtopics, each one answering key questions a reader might have. For example, within the metatrend of wealthtech, Exploding Topics places robo-advisers, day-trading apps and peer-to-peer lending. Within the metatrend of plant-based foods sits emerging brands, plant-based meal plans, plant-based diets and meat alternatives, to name but a few subtrends.

Exploding Topics is a goldmine for tomorrow’s topic clusters and a few steps ahead of your standard keyword research tools.

2. Find growth startups nobody knows about

This tactic is stolen right out of Exploding Topics’ own marketing playbook.

Everybody loves lists. Whether it’s an investor looking for the next unicorn, a journalist needing sources for a story or a sales person hunting down leads, Exploding Topics makes it easy to find and rank up-and-coming startups in any category. Recent examples include ‘25 Fast Growing Startups In 2022’, ‘15 FinTech Payment Startups’ and ‘30 Trending and Notable Beauty Startups’.

Exploding Topics   how to find the next big thing in any sector

Curious readers will eat up this type of content, eager for startup growth stats which Exploding Topics is in a unique position to provide. Make sure they hear about them first from you.

3. Trend roundups as thought leadership articles

Exploding Topics   SEO thought leadership article using popularity data

Roundup posts are snappy summaries of need-to-know content in a particular industry or topic area.

Easy to compile and an easy read, they’re a win/win for writer and reader.

Trend software is a godsend for roundup posts. Utilizing the ‘related topics’ panel underneath any trend reveals others in the same field. Stitch these together with the trend graph, search growth stats and explainers, citing key businesses and you have yourself a truly rankworthy article full of high-potential keywords.

4. Tap into the Exploding Topics API for open data

If you’re writing informational blog content, always ask: Why should readers believe me?

Enrich your site’s subject matter expertise with an online industry dashboard using live data from Exploding Topics’ API.

Journalists are constantly searching for stats to illuminate a story. Be rewarded with more media mentions and natural links with very little work.

An Exploding Topics Pro subscription (from $247 per month) allows you to tap into their data at source, which you can use to build custom dashboards. Other API use cases include integrating trend data into your existing data sources and drilling down even further on specific subtrends for your blog posts.

5. Create beautiful infographics from new topics

Great marketers take a single piece of content and distribute it many times over. Blog post. Social post. Video. Weekly newsletter. Infographic. And that’s just for starters.

Infographics are proven link building open goals, earning you organic inbound links from other bloggers as they share it on their own sites. The more you can demystify future trends with valuable stats, the more people will want to share it.

Don’t forget to add an embed code to your website, making it easy for others to copy and paste your infographic and link back to its source.

In summary, coming up with new topic ideas for blog articles on a consistent basis is challenging - not to mention time consuming. Exploding Topics can help you to spot new trends faster and produce engaging, authoritative content around emerging topics before they take off, the very definition of thought leadership.

Businesses using a trend-spotting tool such as Exploding Topics to consistently show up at the forefront of their industry with high-quality, insightful content have a huge advantage. Not just in the eyes of their target audience but also Google and other search engines. A constant stream of organic traffic awaits.

You may also like: → Exclusive interview with Brian Dean, Exploding Topics co-founderGet early access to trending topics - our Exploding Topics review30 Best SEO Content Writing tools for 2022

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