The purpose of this post is to see if writing about a specific trending topic will in fact drive more traffic to a blog. I’ll be updating with Google Analytics to see how it goes.
As you know there are many theories about when (if?) the end or Judgement Day will occur. The recent movie ’2012′ was based on the Mayan calendar’s prediction of the End. Now, Harold Camping of Oakland, California is predicting that it will be May 21, 2011.
The key words for this are May 21, Judgement Day, Harold Camping, May 21 2011. You can find the latest trending words at: http://www.google.com/trends/hottrends. Unfortunately, there weren’t many marketing related hot trending words today. I would have much more to say about those topics than about Judgement day on May 21, 2011. Nevertheless- I’m looking at this as a great experiment to help my clients and students learn how to use trending topics on Google (or Twitter) to drive more traffic to their blogs and posts.
Of course, the downside of focusing on a transient trending topic is that May 21, 2011 will come and go – most likely with no Judgement Day 
and the blog post will be irrelevant after that. I think I’ll start checking trending topics for trends in the topics and see if there are more resilient ones that can drive traffic for longer. I’ll keep you posted on all accounts!
UPDATE: :MAY 12 Nothing too amazing to report from yesterday. One click through from the keywords including May 21 2011. I’m sorry if they were too disappointed. That said, the date is still trending so there may be some more traffic today!
UPDATE: MAY 13 Nope- no more clicks
UPDATE: MAY 23 Wow! 7 clicks in total. Many just on “trending topic” though- and not on the May 21, 2011 Judgement Day content. Now if there were more trending topics about marketing workshops