Find inspiration for your next video with Google Trends

By checking out what's popular on YouTube, you can find inspiration and pitches for new videos for your channel. In addition, you get a deeper understanding of what resonates with viewers and engages the most right now.

With a little luck, a lot of skill and the right timing, your next video can become a viral hit and your following will grow!

But, trends come and go, what's hot today might be freezing cold tomorrow. By reading this guide, we explain how you should think to succeed and tell you how you can use YouTube Trending and Google Trends to give your next video the conditions to be a success!

Why is trending on YouTube important?

It gives you an indication of what type of content is hitting home at the moment and thus which topics and areas you should think about making your next video around to increase the number of views.

Given how much time people already spend on YouTube, you need to adapt your content to fit where viewers already are. By applying that mindset, you can:

• Find future topics to create content around
• Reach a wider audience
• Increase views on your existing content

It's not rocket science. By creating videos with content that many people search for, you increase the chance that your particular video will be recommended, end up on people's homepages and get more views.

But how do you see what's popular on YouTube?

There are actually many ways to find out what's popular on YouTube, but there are two methods that we think are extra easy and also completely free:

1. Check Popular on YouTube

One way to quickly see what works on YouTube right now is to check YouTube's own Populart page. To do so, navigate to YouTube, click Explore and then Popular. It will take you to a page with different video categories for you to browse.

You see which videos and topics are most popular in categories such as music, film, gaming, news and sports. On YouTube, you can also find which YouTube Shorts are trending and which video creators are hot right now.

The page is updated every quarter and is different from your home page which mainly shows content that is customized for you.

In order for a video to end up under Popular, YouTube checks, among other things:

• The number of new impressions
• Where the views come from
• How the video performs compared to previous uploads
• When the video was uploaded

2. Used Google Trends

Google Trends is another great tool for finding ideas for your next video. In addition to seeing what is trending on Google and what is most Googled where you are right now, there is also a YouTube filter that shows you how popular something is on YouTube.

It's very easy to use, search for a topic and then click Web Search. At the bottom of the list is YouTube search. Check it out and you'll see how popular what you searched for is right now or over a certain period of time, awesome huh?

To utilize the full potential of Google Trends, you should:

• Check Google Trends categories: find topics and areas that are popular with the help of categories such as Health, Food and drink or Beauty and fitness.
• Discover local trends: filter your search on a location, it can be global or in, for example, Sweden.
• See seasonal variations: see how searches look over time to find when in the year the most people are searching for something.
• Look wider: Expand your search to include Google results, image searches and more.
• Find new keywords: dig deep into searches and topics to find nuggets that many are just starting to search for.

That's what the score on Google Trends says

Some related questions, topics and areas have a number from 0 to 100 next to them. This means that 100 is the most and when it is 50 it is half as popular.

 Examples of how you can use Google Trends to get ideas for new videos: We check how the result for "lifting weights" looks like on Google Trends for the United Kingdom with the YouTube filter on.

As you can see, interest is quite high throughout the year, but with a clear peak in January. This probably means that people look for exercise at the beginning of the year as a kind of New Year's resolution.

3. Turn your video idea into reality

Now that you have a handle on how to see what video content is popular right now, it's time for the next step, which is to realize your idea. Here are three tips on how to do it:

3.1 Ask four questions

Getting new traffic to your channel is great, but getting the right traffic is even better. After all, you want a high level of engagement with users who watch and comment on your videos.

If your channel is about cooking, it might not be super smart to suddenly make a video about Fortnite just because it's popular on YouTube. Ask yourself these questions before running on a topic:

• Who is watching your videos?
• What kind of video content do you enjoy creating?
• What is the goal of your video creation?
• Does your idea have a logical connection to your other videos?

By answering these questions, you can easily decide if your idea is worth realizing or if you should look further for new inspiration.

3.2 Is it more than a short trend?

Another thing to check is whether you believe the topic is just a fad or whether you believe the interest will last over time. Just because something is very popular right now doesn't mean it will always be that way. Your videos should contain content that you believe will attract traffic for a long time to come.

Let's take an example! Selfie sticks appeared overnight a couple of years ago and became incredibly popular.

As you can see, the interest has continued even though it didn't quite reach the peak at the beginning. If we search for "fidget spinner" instead, another viral thing, the interest is pretty much zero these days.

Unfortunately, there is no magic bullet that can tell if something will be popular over time but it is worth bearing in mind that not all trends are here to stay.

3.3 Keep an eye on the calendar

Take advantage of the different holidays and events of the year to create and publish videos at the right time. To make it simple, search for example for "gifts", there are extreme peaks during every December.

By reflecting on these "seasonal variations" you get as close to a magic divining ball as you can get. You can anticipate peaks in searches and get ready to publish your video at just the right time.

To summarize…

Here above are our top tips and tricks for understanding and using what's popular on YouTube to your advantage when planning your next video.

By reflecting on these trends, you give yourself a much better chance of getting more views and making more money from your video content. If you want to earn even more money from your video content, it is smart to start your own channel on VOYD where you can sell your videos individually or as part of a membership.