![\"Exploding](\"https://cdn.buttercms.com/1hKlzskSRBiEKuYM4XQx\")
Ordering too much or too little inventory is a big problem.
\nSeasonality is one of the most common reasons E-commerce store owners lose money due to an inventory management issue. It’s hard to determine how much product you’re going to need during those seasonal ups and downs!
\nPlus, there’s always the possibility that demand won’t follow the same trajectory as years before, leaving you in the dark…and with too much or too little inventory.
\nBut with the right plan, you can avoid that as much as possible.
\nI’ll walk you through a step-by-step process for managing seasonal inventory, including how to layer in trend research so you’re anticipating those changes in demand year-over-year.
\nSeasonal inventory management is the practice of planning, ordering, and clearing stock based on predictable cycles of consumer demand driven by weather, holidays, events, or cultural moments.
\nCyclical inventory demand goes up and down with the economy, often without much warning. Seasonal inventory, on the other hand, is more predictable. It tends to follow the same patterns each year, so you can actually plan ahead.
\nTraditionally, seasonal inventory planning assumes your sales are pretty predictable. You look at last year’s numbers, tweak for growth, factor in holidays, and order based on that. And for products tied to specific seasons, that approach still works just fine.
\nFor example, if you sell clothing, you’ll obviously sell more sweatshirts during the colder seasons.
\nFor products without that kind of predictability, though, seasonal demand gets much harder to figure out.
\nPlatforms like TikTok and Instagram now create their own mini “seasons”—short bursts of demand sparked by a single video, trending sound, or influencer shoutout. A product can go from barely searched to completely sold out in just a few weeks. And by the time that spike shows up in your historical data, you’ve already missed your chance.
\nFor example, a cozy home product that's always sold reasonably well in fall might do 10x its usual volume if it gets picked up by a wave of \"hygge season\" content on TikTok in October. Your historical data told you to expect a seasonal lift, but not one that big!
\nThis doesn't mean historical data isn’t useful—it should still be used as your baseline. It just means that you need to pair it with forward-looking trend data to catch those possibilities. I'll get into exactly how to do that in Step 3.
\nBefore you work with any sales data, sort your seasonal products into two groups: products with a fixed and easily defined seasonal cycle, and products whose seasonal demand is a little more wishy-washy.
\nFor example, products with a fixed seasonal cycle might be holiday decor, seasonal clothing, or garden supplies. These have a very predictable demand curve every year, making them the most straightforward to plan around.
\nThe second group is trickier. These are products that have some element of seasonality (like maybe they sell better in fall or tend to spike around Valentine's Day) but their demand is more sensitive to trends, social media, and consumer mood than to the calendar itself.
\nWe’ll approach these two categories differently when forecasting to make our forecast more accurate.
\nYour historical sales data is the most important part of your seasonal inventory plan. Pull at least 12–24 months of data broken down by SKU, including unit sales, revenue, return rates, and dates.
\nBefore you do anything with that data, clean it.
\nThree things in particular will skew your forecasts if you leave them in:
\nReplace stockout-period zeroes with estimated figures based on surrounding weeks, and flag anomalies separately.
\nOnce the data is clean, plot weekly or monthly sales by SKU across the full period and look for patterns. When do your upward trends start building? How long do they last? How sharp is the drop-off?
\nTake notes and then move on to step 3.
\n[list=product number=5]
\nHistorical data is your bread and butter for planning your inventory, but it can't tell you what's trending right now, especially for products in that trend-sensitive category you identified earlier or anything new to your catalog.
\nThis is where you need a tool.
\nExploding Topics is a trend-spotting platform that identifies rapidly growing industries, products, and search terms months (or even years) before they become mainstream.
\nThe Exploding Topics Trending Products report surfaces products with growing E-commerce search interest across search engines and social platforms.
\nFor each product in the database, you get a growth trajectory, a channel breakdown data showing where interest is originating, and related products that are trending alongside it.
\nStarting with your seasonal products that are usually easy to predict, toss them into the Trend Analysis tool:
\nIf you sell fall home goods, for example, search your core product categories and look at which related topics and use cases are getting more popular as you head into the season. A product you've always stocked might have a new angle driving demand this year, so they’re worth looking up.
\nFor your trend-sensitive products, treat Exploding Topics data as a direct input to your forecast. If a product in your niche shows growing early interest, that's a signal to plan more inventory than last year's sales would suggest.
\nOn the other hand, if a category you were planning to expand into is stagnant or declining, you have data to justify stocking less.
\nFor example, let’s say you stock humidifiers, and you tend to sell more of them in the fall and winter months.
\nHowever, if you had checked Exploding Topics in December or January, you would have seen a sudden popularity spike as more people became more interested in using humidifiers for things like skincare routines, plant care, and general indoor air quality optimization:
\nStocking extra humidifiers at that point would have been a great idea, as sales continue to spike in comparison with years before.
\nThe goal here is to use your historical sales as a baseline, then layer trend signals on top, combining what you know happened with what's actually going on in the market right now.
\nFor a deeper dive into using Exploding Topics in your demand forecasting, check out How to Master E-commerce Demand Forecasting + Find More Profitable Products.
\nWith your cleaned data and trend signals in hand, build out your forecast SKU by SKU and calculate two numbers for each product: your demand estimate and your reorder point.
\nYour reorder point is the inventory level at which you need to place a new purchase order to avoid a stockout. A straightforward formula to follow is:
\n(average daily sales × lead time in days) + safety stock
\nSafety stock is the buffer you keep beyond your expected demand to absorb forecast errors and supply chain delays. A common way to figure out how much you need is to multiply your average daily sales by the number of buffer days you want to keep.
\nFor your trend-sensitive seasonal products, you might want to build in a more conservative buffer. Demand can speed up faster than your lead time allows you to respond, and running out of stock during a short seasonal peak is typically a bigger problem than holding a few extra units at the end.
\nKeep good notes as you go. If your forecast turns out wrong, document exactly what happened. These notes will help you make a more accurate forecast next season!
\nDon’t wait to plan for the end of the season when it arrives. By the time sales drop off, your options for getting rid of any excess stock have shrunk significantly.
\nBefore peak season begins, decide in advance what you'll do with inventory that doesn't sell. A clearance or flash sale strategy should already be mapped out, including the discounts you're willing to accept and the timing of markdowns.
\nSome seasonal merchandise can carry forward to next season without losing much value. Identify those products during your purchasing decisions and scale your orders accordingly, rather than treating all seasonal inventory the same.
\nFor products with a short appeal window (anything tied to a specific cultural moment, a trending character, or a current-year theme), consider building your purchase quantities conservatively from the start. It's often better to sell out and miss a few sales than to absorb a large markdown on inventory that has a hard expiry date on its relevance.
\nReviewing your exit plan against actual sell-through rates mid-season also gives you time to pull forward your clearance timing if a product isn't moving as expected, rather than reacting after the peak has already passed.
\nNo matter how much thought and careful planning you put into your forecast, your inventory plan will miss sometimes. These are the most likely culprits to throw you off:
\nCompetitor stockouts. When a competitor runs out of a seasonal product, their demand could shift directly to you. Try to keep an eye on competitor inventory levels during peak season so you’re ahead of the game if they sell out.
\n[cal:comp_keywords]
\nSupply chain delays hitting at the wrong time. A two-week shipping delay matters a lot more for Halloween decor in early October, for example, than it does for a year-round product. Seasonal inventory has hard deadlines, and delays that wouldn’t matter as much at other times of year can wipe out your entire selling window for a seasonal product.
\nTo minimize the possibility of this happening, build extra lead time into your purchase orders for your most time-sensitive seasonal products, and have a backup supplier identified in advance just in case.
\nTreating a viral spike as a new baseline. If a product had an unusually strong season because of a press mention, an influencer feature, or a social media moment, that result is real, but it's typically not repeatable. Using that spike as your demand baseline for the following year is one of the fastest ways to overstock. Flag those anomalies when you clean your data in Step 2, and make sure your next forecast is built on normalized demand, not a one-time event.
\nUnderestimating the post-holiday return surge. For E-commerce stores, the period immediately after peak season often brings about a significant return volume. Gift-driven categories are particularly prone to this. Factor your typical return rate into your end-of-season inventory expectations so you're not caught with more stock and fewer sellable units than your sales numbers suggest.
\nThe best way to keep your seasonal inventory plan as accurate as possible is to combine clean historical data with forward-looking trend research. Your past sales tell you what to expect, whereas the trend data you get from Exploding Topics tells you where demand is heading.
\nStart your free trial of Exploding Topics Pro to find trending seasonal products before they peak and curate a more accurate seasonal inventory.
","summary":"Ordering too much or too little inventory is a big problem. Seasonality is one of the most common reasons E-commerce store owners lose money due to an inventory management issue. It’s hard to determine how much product you’re going to need during those seasonal ups and downs! Plus, there’s always ...","seo_title":"How I Create Seasonal Inventory Management Plans","meta_description":"Learn how to manage seasonal inventory with a step-by-step process that combines historical sales data with forward-looking trend research.","featured_image_alt":"Seasonal Inventory Management Blog Post Image","url":"https://explodingtopics.com/blog/seasonal-inventory-management","featured_image":"https://cdn.buttercms.com/output=f:webp/ybZaDIBURTqup95caVuN","author":{"bio":"Jolissa Skow is a senior content writer and content strategist with a background in SEO, Google Analytics, and WordPress. She's been published on Search Engine Land, G2, UpCity, Salesforce, and more, and her Google Analytics tutorials have been shared by Google on their social media platforms. She loves to read and runs a book blog in her spare time. She currently lives in Minneapolis, where you'll find her zipping around on her pedal-assist electric bike.","slug":"jolissa-skow","email":"jolissa.skow@gmail.com","title":"Senior Content Writer","last_name":"Skow","first_name":"Jolissa","facebook_url":"","linkedin_url":"https://www.linkedin.com/in/jolissa-skow/","instagram_url":"","pinterest_url":"","profile_image":"https://cdn.buttercms.com/GYZYCKikRmeIz8F6odMV","twitter_handle":""},"tags":[],"categories":[]},{"status":"published","created":"2026-05-11T15:00:40.005263Z","updated":"2026-05-11T15:06:58.923427Z","published":"2026-05-11T14:58:57.804000Z","scheduled":null,"title":"How to Use Google Trends for E-Commerce Growth","slug":"google-trends-ecommerce","body":"One of the best things you can do for improving your e-commerce sales is to focus on trending topics. With a good understanding of what's currently trending, you can plan effective (and even viral) marketing campaigns, deliver exactly what your customers need, get ahead of competitors, and develop products that people really want to buy.
\nAnd if you're new to e-commerce or trend research, Google Trends is a good place to start.
\nGoogle Trends is a free trend spotting tool that uses data from the Google search engine. The platform shows you metrics related to:
\nYou can access Google Trends via any web browser, and you don't need to sign into your Google account.
\nNote: Google Trends only looks at data from Google products. If you're looking for trends that are specific to a social media platform, such as TikTok trends, you'll need to use a different tool.
\nYou can use Google Trends for topic discovery in two different ways.
\nThe \"trending now\" page lets you view all of the trending topics in a specific location or industry over a given time range.
\nThis is useful when you:
\nFrom this page, you can:
\nThe Google Trends Explore page is the place where you can search for a specific trending topic and narrow the results by:
\nI like to use the explore feature when I have an idea or have heard about a specific topic and want to see if it's broadly popular.
\nGoogle's individual trend pages are easy to read. Each page includes a graph of interest fluctuations over a specified time period, related search queries, and related popular topics.
\nOne of the things I like best about Google Trends is how you can directly compare trends by changes in interest over time:
\nThe ability to find trends is great, but you have to know how to use that information in order to make Google Trends data valuable to your business. I find there are five specific ways in which Google Trends can help you grow and optimize an e-commerce business.
\nFirst, Google Trends is a helpful tool for evaluating trends across your industry. You can start broad and narrow down your research further in order to find the right trends for your niche.
\nLet's say I run a stationery store and I'm interested in selling products for people who journal. I could start by typing in \"journaling\" and:
\nBased on these results, I can see that while interest in journaling as a broad topic is declining, searches for journaling pens are on the rise. I could then explore this subtopic further to identify what brands of pens are most popular with my target audience.
\nTip: To be sure that the search trend information you gather is relevant to your audience, I recommend using a more comprehensive tool like Exploding Topics. When you search for a trend in the Exploding Topics database, you can see how it performs across all social media channels in addition to organic search.
\nIn situations where you know you sell a very specific product to a defined audience—such as basketball shoes for athletes—you can use Google Trends to evaluate interest in competing brands.
\nIn this case, I can see that Nike is the most popular, followed by Adidas. I could then further research each brand’s trending products along with the digital marketing techniques that they're using. All of this information can then inform my product development, inventory, and promotional decisions.
\n[cal:comp_keywords]
\nGoogle Trends is also useful for pinpointing where a trend is most popular. This is particularly helpful if your brand sells goods internationally, or if you're planning to expand into a new market.
\nTo explore popularity by location, simply change the location filter on a trend page or view the top \"trending now\" topics for a region.
\nThe ability to view trends by location is also useful if you know a trend typically starts in one location before moving to where your business is located.
\nJason Stewart, of Cape Town, South Africa, watches global trend movement in order to plan his marketing strategy. His company, Probitec, sells high-quality, delayed-release probiotic capsules that are unlike anything else on the South African market.
\n\"A lot of trends that are global can be hidden in South Africa until a little bit later,\" said Stewart. \"In an emerging market like our country, we have some time to act on trends.\"
\nStewart finds and monitors future trends by reading the Exploding Topics newsletter each week.
\nYou can also assess seasonal demand related to specific topics when using Google Trends. Seasonality isn’t clearly labeled by Google, though, so you’ll need to make sure you’re looking at year over year trend patterns to spot repeated peaks and dips.
\nYou can set the Google Trends data range to go back to 2004, making it easy to see spikes in search term popularity.
\nTip: Use Exploding Topics Pro to make the process of assessing seasonal popularity even easier. Each trend detail page has a list of clearly highlighted key indicators that make it simple to quickly assess a trend’s seasonality, current popularity, consumer sentiment, and more.
\n[cta:trends]
\nGoogle Trends can also be a useful tool to check out before you even launch your e-commerce site. By researching emerging trends, you can find the most profitable niche that aligns with your business plan.
\nFor example, planning an e-commerce business around the concept of \"fitness\" may be far too broad. As a topic, fitness can include everything from at-home workouts to elite athletics.
\nBy looking at the Google Trends page for fitness, I can see that many of the related searches are names of various gym chains.
\nAs a result, I may want to consider honing my \"fitness\" niche idea down to more specifically focus on:
\nA lot of people are curious about how well Google Trends works for finding SEO keywords, and while you can use it as a jumping-off point for your research, it's not my first choice.
\nHere's why: Google Trends shows you search volume, but it doesn't show you:
\nYou absolutely need to know what the search intent is and how competitive the keyword is in order to accurately pick SEO keywords for your content strategy development and campaigns. Knowing if an AI overview is present in the search engine results page (SERP) is very important now, too, as people increasingly rely on Google's AI tools to find answers.
\nTo see all of that information, you'll need to use a dedicated keyword research tool in addition to Google Trends.
\n[cal:traffic]
\nTip: Use Google Trends to find popular topics, then use selected trends as seed keywords. Enter these seed keywords into a keyword research tool (like the Semrush Keyword Magic Tool) to find other terms and long-tail keywords that relate to your topic of choice.
\nYes, Google Trends is useful for e-commerce entrepreneurs and marketers who want to get a free, broad overview of:
\nBut Google Trends isn’t the best choice for doing detailed SEO research or getting a better picture of the products that are most popular on Amazon or TikTok. For that you’ll need other tools.
\nI recommend starting with Exploding Topics. The app’s trend newsletters, free trend lists, and free SEO tools (not to mention the complete trend database for subscribers) will all allow you to gather more relevant information to inform your e-commerce marketing and product development.
","summary":"One of the best things you can do for improving your e-commerce sales is to focus on trending topics. With a good understanding of what's currently trending, you can plan effective (and even viral) marketing campaigns, deliver exactly what your customers need, get ahead of competitors, and develop products that ...","seo_title":"How to Use Google Trends for E-Commerce Growth","meta_description":"Google Trends is a useful tool for e-commerce businesses of all sizes, but some of its limitations can be frustrating. This guide explains what you need to know.","featured_image_alt":"Google Trends E-Commerce Blog Post Image","url":"https://explodingtopics.com/blog/google-trends-ecommerce","featured_image":"https://cdn.buttercms.com/output=f:webp/LyMU0t0HR1eiD11Y2NcJ","author":{"bio":"Emily is a freelance content writer at Exploding Topics. \r\n\r\nA former news correspondent, she has over 15 years' experience creating B2B SEO content that resonates with humans, not just algorithms. Through her SEO consultancy, she helps SaaS companies connect with their ideal audience through organic search. \r\n\r\nEmily can also be found leading SEO training sessions for nonprofits and incubators like Nest, WomensNet, and more.","slug":"emily-gertenbach","email":"emily@egcreativecontent.com","title":"Writer","last_name":"Gertenbach","first_name":"Emily","facebook_url":"","linkedin_url":"https://www.linkedin.com/in/egertenbach/","instagram_url":"","pinterest_url":"","profile_image":"https://cdn.buttercms.com/phlwhfleSRa39eLcrrHf","twitter_handle":""},"tags":[],"categories":[]},{"status":"published","created":"2026-05-08T11:21:18.975894Z","updated":"2026-05-08T11:29:47.157409Z","published":"2026-05-08T11:20:51.472000Z","scheduled":null,"title":"How to Use Exploding Topics for Rapid Competitive Product Analysis","slug":"competitive-product-analysis","body":"You’ve probably felt it before—that sinking feeling when you see a competitor’s product launch announcement and realize they beat you to it. Maybe their new offer wasn’t even something on your radar, and now there’s a huge gap in your lineup.
\nIt’s tempting to act fast and try to put out something comparable as quickly as possible, perhaps even directly copying the new product just so you can say, “We have that, too!”
\nIt might make you feel better in the short term, but in the long run, there’s no strategic advantage to rushing an unplanned product out the door. Instead, take a deep breath, then dive into some competitive product analysis to find out how to create an offer that is everything your competitor has, plus what they missed in the planning stage.
\nA streamlined, reliable system for responding when a competitor launches a new product first removes panic from the situation so you can think clearly and make a smart decision, not just a fast one.
\nThe competitive analysis process I’ve outlined in this post can be completed in 60 minutes. I recommend trying it out when you’re not under pressure first, so you can make any tweaks needed and familiarize yourself with the steps.
\nThe only thing you need before you get started is an Exploding Topics account. I use the Pro plan, but you can test drive the framework with the free version.
\nThe first thing you need to do is better understand your competitor’s current positioning.
\nIn Exploding Topics, go to the Trend Analysis tool and type in the main category for your competitor’s new product. For my example I’ll use “smart water bottle.”
\nSet the timeframe filter to six months. This will give you an idea of how the topic was growing during your competitor’s planning and production stage.
\nNext, scroll down to the related trends section and sort the trends by growth.
\nThen export the related trends to a spreadsheet.
\nThis will make it easier to filter out branded and irrelevant topics. Once you’ve done that, look at the remaining trends and see if you can spot any patterns. For example, there are several related trends for “smart water bottle” that reference backpacking, which is likely a popular use case.
\nAfter you’ve identified relevant related trends, search each of them and look at their trend curves, just like you did for your main search. What did their growth look like six to nine months ago, when your competitor was working on their product design? Could any of these trends have influenced their decision making?
\nTo help with this, look at your competitor’s product page. Read the copy and note down any keywords that are related to trending terms you’ve found. If there are terms that stick out that aren’t already on your list, look them up in Exploding Topics and analyze their growth curves as well.
\nOnce you’ve gathered all this information, create a new spreadsheet with three columns:
\nThis sheet gives you insight into your competitor’s mindset prior to launching, and also starts to show you the gaps they left when they created their product.
\nOnce you’ve filled in your spreadsheet, take a look at the trends you’ve collected and see if you can spot any that indicate a gap in your competitor’s strategy.
\nIn short, you’re looking for trends that indicate there are untapped market segments your competitor hasn’t made an effort to appeal to. This can show up in a variety of ways, such as pricing, use cases, or customer service and delivery.
\nSome keywords you might look out for during this stage are “affordable,” “luxury,” “easy,” “beginner,” and “expert.” These all immediately signal a specific target market that’s actively looking for the product you’re researching.
\nHowever, there are more subtle ways gaps can show up, too.
\nLet’s expand on our hypothetical smart water bottle scenario. Perhaps my competitor has positioned their smart water bottle as an essential for athletes like marathon runners and crossfitters.
\nAs I noted earlier, there are several related smart water bottle trends for backpacking and hiking. These would be use cases my competitor overlooked, and an opening for me to step in and market my own product toward backpackers and hikers looking for a smart water bottle.
\n[cta:comp_keywords]
\nNext you need to look at your spreadsheet and identify attribute trends, meaning that they are related to product features. Ideally, they’ll be from the column of trends that are taking off now that weren’t growing as much six months ago when your competitor was researching.
\nIncorporating these trends into your product design will give you a unique edge over your competitors and provide a tangible benefit to consumers who choose your product over theirs.
\nUsing the Trend Analysis tool, search each of these topics and look at their related trends.
\nFor example, I looked into “smart water bottle with reminder” and found “light up water bottle reminder.”
\nIf my competitor’s product did have a reminder feature, but it didn’t include an indicator light, that would be an important gap to note and potentially incorporate into my own product design.
\nFor each of these micro trends you identify, check the growth curve (if one is available). Trends with regular or exploding growth are preferable. Any trends that have peaked should be discarded.
\nOther strong signals include:
\nRepeat this process until you have five to ten differentiation angles. Not all of these will be viable to pursue, but ideally you’ll find a handful that have high growth momentum and are reasonable to implement from a production standpoint.
\nAt this point should have a handful of competitive gaps and differentiation points that you can combine to put out a product that is unique and not just a rip off of your competitor’s. But a strong idea is just the start. You also need to think about logistics.
\nUse the last ten minutes of your product analysis to do a quick time to market assessment. For the product or products you’ve brainstormed based off of your research, consider:
\nTaking all of these factors together, put together a rough estimate of how long it will take you to launch.
\nThen go back to the trend analysis for the topics related to your product idea. Check your estimated launch timeline against the trend’s growth.
\nIf it looks like a trend will peak before you can get your product on the market, adjust your idea accordingly. Ideally, you’ll see steady, sustainable growth and can count on it to continue while you bring your vision to life.
\n[cta:market]
\nSometimes it might be better to pass on launching a product in response to a competitor if there are certain indicators that it’s not a smart move strategically.
\nFeeling like your competition has outpaced you might cause you some difficulties in the short term, but investing time and resources into a product no one will buy is a mistake that could have long term impacts.
\nHere are some things to watch out for during your analysis that indicate it’s probably in your best interest to pass on developing a new product in response to your competitor’s launch:
\nIn short, don’t launch a product simply because your competitor has something comparable. Put all the same consideration into it as you would if you were developing a new product from scratch.
\nThe only thing better than a one-hour competitive product analysis framework is spotting emerging products before your competitors in the first place. Exploding Topics curates trends based on a unique blend of machine learning and human analysis to help you find relevant ideas for your brand while they’re still growing.
\nIf you want to level up your trend spotting, you can use the Exploding Topics API to create a trending product alert system. Deliver the hottest product ideas to your Slack channel or another preferred platform to find opportunities without lifting a finger.
\nAll you need is an Exploding Topics Pro plan. Try it free for seven days and see how it changes product development for your brand!
","summary":"You’ve probably felt it before—that sinking feeling when you see a competitor’s product launch announcement and realize they beat you to it. Maybe their new offer wasn’t even something on your radar, and now there’s a huge gap in your lineup. It’s tempting to act fast and try to put ...","seo_title":"How to Use Exploding Topics for Rapid Competitive Product Analysis","meta_description":"Learn how to use Exploding Topics to create an offer that beats your competitors'.","featured_image_alt":"Competitive Product Analysis Blog Post Image","url":"https://explodingtopics.com/blog/competitive-product-analysis","featured_image":"https://cdn.buttercms.com/output=f:webp/zum7mTJcSHKlhgwmvMw5","author":{"bio":"Molly is a technical content writer with a passion for making technology easy for anyone to understand. She specializes in content strategy and implementing data-driven workflows that improve user experience. Molly holds an MFA in Creative Nonfiction from Northwestern University, and loves blending her creative writing background with her technical writing experience to craft narratives that inform and engage readers. In her spare time, she enjoys reading and spending time with her family, including their many, many pets.","slug":"molly-tyler","email":"molly.tyler496@gmail.com","title":"Writer","last_name":"Tyler","first_name":"Molly","facebook_url":"","linkedin_url":"https://www.linkedin.com/in/molly-tyler-writer/","instagram_url":"","pinterest_url":"","profile_image":"https://cdn.buttercms.com/oCdUgSWR3e8Fwq2zeMdX","twitter_handle":""},"tags":[],"categories":[{"name":"market-research","slug":"market-research"}]},{"status":"published","created":"2026-05-06T11:41:10.385120Z","updated":"2026-05-06T11:45:40.411141Z","published":"2026-05-06T11:40:18.019000Z","scheduled":null,"title":"7 E-Commerce APIs to Build the Perfect Online Store","slug":"e-commerce-apis","body":"E-commerce APIs can help you bring together the most reliable tools while also keeping your store scalable and flexible as it grows. With the right combination of technologies, you can provide the best products, secure payment processing, and personalized customer experiences.
\nThe best part? APIs can also automate processes for your store to save you valuable time.
\nI’ve brought together the best e-commerce APIs in one list so you can find the right ones to power your business.
\nAPI stands for Application Programming Interface. APIs enable software to communicate by sending requests for resources from one app to another, which then sends back a response.
\nIf that sounds a bit vague, that’s because APIs offer almost infinite possibilities. The resources and responses can be almost anything, including valuable assets for your online store.
\nHere are a few e-commerce API use cases:
\nBasically, APIs bring all the pieces of a successful e-commerce venture together by enabling them to send information to each other. What you choose to integrate and how is up to you.
\n[cta:trends]
\nWhy use e-commerce APIs to build your online store?
\nFor starters, it’s more efficient to make use of existing resources than to build your own. You don’t need to develop an entire payment gateway if you can use an API to connect your site to an existing one.
\nDedicated third-party tools are also usually very good at what they do. Tapping into their specialized expertise means you get the best of the best for your online store.
\nAPIs are generally considered a cost effective solution, too. By saving time on development, you’re also saving money. Plus, you don’t have to pay to maintain multiple tools.
\nIn time, your e-commerce site will grow, and your API integrations can grow with it. The scalability offered by APIs will help you continue to meet customer demand, even if it increases rapidly.
\nBy automating processes for your site and connecting your e-commerce platforms, you minimize the manual effort you need to invest in managing your business.
\nDepending on what you sell and the complexity of your e-commerce site, you may benefit most from incorporating only a few APIs. Or, if you have a large customer base and sell a wide variety of products, you might need to use several to meet the needs of your buyers.
\nThe APIs listed below are well-established and secure solutions. You can use them separately or in combination to achieve your goals.
\nShopify offers multiple APIs for different purposes, but I’m going to focus on its Storefront API.
\nThe Storefront API enables you to build a headless e-commerce store. You can use all of Shopify’s e-commerce capabilities, like creating products and allowing customers to add them to a cart for checkout, but with your own customer-facing website.
\nTo put it another way, you can build your own custom e-commerce website and use Shopify to power it.
\nThe Storefront API is a GraphQL API, which means that it provides a single endpoint (or URL) that allows you to access multiple resources. This is a flexible option that lets you extend your store while keeping it lean.
\nShopify provides multiple frameworks and Software Development Kits (SDKs) to help you build your headless e-commerce site.
\nYou can build custom apps using Shopify APIs on the basic plan, but in order to access the Storefront API and unlock all the available customization features, you’ll need a Shopify Plus account.
\nIf you like the idea of headless e-commerce but aren’t sold on the Shopify API, Bigcommerce and Magento (Adobe Commerce) are alternative solutions.
\nTaking payments is, of course, an integral part of any e-commerce operation. Stripe offers an easy-to-use REST API for collecting one-time, subscription, and usage-based payments.
\nThe Stripe API also allows you to implement multiple payment methods, such as credit cards or bank transfers. It enables you to use webhooks to track payment statuses and integrate with marketing platforms to notify customers.
\nStripe’s Payments Records API also gives you the ability to track and monitor all your e-commerce payments, including ones processed using another payment gateway.
\nEven though Stripe offers a dashboard where you can track payments, this API enables you to build your own payment record keeping system. This will help you when you need to report profits, manage refunds, and troubleshoot failed payments.
\nThis API offers a lot of flexibility and has a good track record of being very developer-friendly. It offers multiple SDKs to help you get started quickly, and is very well documented.
\nEvery Stripe account—including free accounts—includes API access. Some API calls, such as account balance retrieval and bank account owner verification, have fees for each successful request. Rate limiting also applies.
\nYou don’t need your own products to get into the e-commerce business. You can sell products from marketplaces like Amazon and earn commissions through affiliate programs.
\nHowever, you don’t have to rely on shoppers finding their way to your Amazon storefront to make sales. Using the Amazon Product Advertising API, you can display Amazon products on your website.
\nThis is a great solution if you have an active blog that you use to recommend products to readers. Rather than making them leave your site to see information about the items you’re selling, you can display details such as the product’s price and description.
\nThe Product Advertising API also enables you to incorporate search functionality to allow customers to find the items they’re interested in. If you want to display Amazon products in a more traditional online store format, this feature will come in handy.
\nTo use the Amazon Product Advertising API, you need a verified Amazon Associates account that has been accepted into the Amazon Associates Program.
\nE-commerce involves some level of risk and reward. You can minimize the risks and maximize the rewards by making sure you have the right products on offer at the right time.
\nExploding Topics is an excellent resource for discovering products right before they take off. By capitalizing on public interest, you can make sure you have the most desirable items for sale when the demand hits its peak.
\nThe Exploding Topics API enables you to track trending products using your own system. You can create alerts for messaging apps like Slack to let you know when new products in your niche start to gain momentum, or track products in more traditional reports.
\nThe Products endpoint accepts parameters for price, monthly sales volume, and revenue in addition to filtering trending products by category.
\nWhether you’re selling third-party products as an Amazon affiliate or your own products, knowing where consumers’ interests lie can help shape your e-commerce strategy. API access enables you to retrieve this information as quickly as possible so you’re ahead of the game.
\nTo use the Exploding Topics API, you’ll need an Exploding Topics Business plan as well as the Exploding Topics API add-on.
\n[cta:market]
\nShipping is a necessary expense when you’re selling physical products online. Using multiple carriers so you can get the best rate is one way to minimize the cost, but without the right tools, the logistics of this becomes complex fast.
\nShippo API can handle those logistics for you. It compares carrier rates, validates addresses, creates shipping labels for your orders, tracks shipments, and more to help ensure a smooth experience for both you and your customers.
\nI’ve shared APIs in this post that can help you build custom e-commerce platforms powered by Shopify or Amazon, but if you’re using these solutions as-is, Shippo has direct integrations that will let you connect them (and other e-commerce tools) to its network of carriers.
\nIf you’re building your own online store from scratch, Shippo will integrate with your custom e-commerce hub, too. It’s well documented and even offers an MCP server to allow you to optimize your shipping operations with help from your preferred AI assistant.
\nShippo offers scalable pricing as well, making it affordable to get started. There’s a free tier that lets you generate 30 labels per month, as well as pay-as-you-go and custom plans.
\nIt might not be glamorous, but running a business means keeping up with invoices, tracking profits, and if you have other employees, managing payroll. Quickbooks is a popular software for handling all of this, and it offers an API to make integrating it with your e-commerce site simple.
\nThe Quickbooks API lets you create invoices, categorize income and expenses, calculate sales tax, and more. Connecting it to your e-commerce site directly streamlines these processes by allowing your site to share data with Quickbooks automatically, instead of requiring you to manually input information.
\nTo use the API, you’ll need an Intuit Developer account. There are several SDKs available to assist with your development as well.
\nThe last API I’ll share with you is the HubSpot API. There are lots of marketing platforms with APIs available, but I’ve chosen HubSpot for this list because of the variety of features it provides.
\nHubSpot’s central feature is its Customer Relationship Management (CRM) database, which stores details about your customers. Using the HubSpot API, you can collect customer information on your website and send it to HubSpot to use in email marketing campaigns.
\nHubSpot’s API also includes endpoints to manage events, track engagement, publish website content, and even facilitate e-commerce orders. It’s very well documented, so you should have no trouble finding your way around the different resources that are available.
\nHubSpot has a variety of account types available, including Developer test accounts and Sandbox accounts for trying out the API. A Standard HubSpot account (free or paid) will provide access to most API resources, but a Marketplace provider account is required for some features. API rate limiting applies.
\nIf HubSpot isn’t quite what you need to get the word out about your e-commerce business, you might try the Mailchimp API for email marketing or the Meta marketing API for social media.
\nAs I mentioned earlier, you can incorporate multiple APIs when you’re building your e-commerce site. However, there are a few things to keep in mind when selecting which ones you’re going to use.
\nFirst of all, you’ll want to make sure all the APIs you integrate are compatible with each other and with any e-commerce tools you’re using out of the box. For example, Shippo API has dedicated integrations for Shopify, making it faster and easier to set up if that’s the platform you’re using to sell products online.
\nSecurity is also an important factor, especially when it comes to handling payment information and customer data. Be sure to read up on relevant regulations and ensure any APIs you integrate your store with follow best practices for authentication and data encryption.
\nUsing APIs that are well documented and have an established track record will help on both of these fronts.
\nIt’s also wise to check out the developer communities around the APIs you’re considering to learn about any quirks or potential issues that might arise while you’re working with the API. Developer communities are an excellent resource for troubleshooting if you need help down the road, so looking for active groups who are responsive will benefit you as well.
\nThere are infinite ways to build your e-commerce site, and APIs like Shopify Storefront, Stripe, and Amazon Product Advertising can help keep your online store flexible and scalable as you grow your customer base.
\nJust as importantly, the Exploding Topics API can give you timely access to emerging trends in e-commerce products so you can add the items customers want to your virtual shelves and have them ready when shoppers come searching.
\nAll you need is an Exploding Topics Business plan and the API add-on to get started. There are many use cases for the API beyond finding new products, too, so make sure to try out all its endpoints to make the most of the data it has to offer.
","summary":"E-commerce APIs can help you bring together the most reliable tools while also keeping your store scalable and flexible as it grows. With the right combination of technologies, you can provide the best products, secure payment processing, and personalized customer experiences. The best part? APIs can also automate processes for ...","seo_title":"7 E-Commerce APIs to Build the Perfect Online Store","meta_description":"Learn how e-commerce APIs power modern online stores, automate operations, connect essential tools, and enable scalable, flexible shopping experiences for growing brands.","featured_image_alt":"E-Commerce APIs Blog Post Image","url":"https://explodingtopics.com/blog/e-commerce-apis","featured_image":"https://cdn.buttercms.com/output=f:webp/HfiP5LtFTYmwkIH6zhd7","author":{"bio":"Molly is a technical content writer with a passion for making technology easy for anyone to understand. She specializes in content strategy and implementing data-driven workflows that improve user experience. Molly holds an MFA in Creative Nonfiction from Northwestern University, and loves blending her creative writing background with her technical writing experience to craft narratives that inform and engage readers. In her spare time, she enjoys reading and spending time with her family, including their many, many pets.","slug":"molly-tyler","email":"molly.tyler496@gmail.com","title":"Writer","last_name":"Tyler","first_name":"Molly","facebook_url":"","linkedin_url":"https://www.linkedin.com/in/molly-tyler-writer/","instagram_url":"","pinterest_url":"","profile_image":"https://cdn.buttercms.com/oCdUgSWR3e8Fwq2zeMdX","twitter_handle":""},"tags":[],"categories":[]},{"status":"published","created":"2026-05-04T09:06:16.447405Z","updated":"2026-05-04T09:11:37.309221Z","published":"2026-05-04T09:04:54.621000Z","scheduled":null,"title":"How to do Thought Leadership on LinkedIn","slug":"thought-leadership","body":"Whether you’re looking to establish a personal brand or seeking to build corporate credibility, thought leadership is a powerful medium. And LinkedIn is the backdoor marketing channel you may be guilty of totally neglecting.
\nWhen you hear thought leadership, you might think of op-eds in leading publications. But with zero barriers to entry, and direct access to your intended business-focused audience, LinkedIn is a great place to start building your credentials as a strategic thinker within your chosen niche.
\nWithout ever plugging your product or flaunting your resume, you can show your target market that you and your brand deserve to be taken seriously. But with AI slop flooding LinkedIn more than just about any other platform, it can be difficult to know how to stand out from the crowd.
\nFortunately, there are some simple ways of using technology to help you, without farming out the critical thinking to AI. Everyone has access to ChatGPT, but only you can add truly original value to the conversation.
\nSo if you want to know how to fake thought leadership on LinkedIn, you’re in the wrong place. But if you’re looking to maximize the impact and reach of your insights on the platform, with some pointers on where to start, then this is the guide for you.
\nThought leadership is the process of establishing yourself as a leading authority within your niche by publishing media that showcases your original insight on prominent topical issues. When done well, your reputation will precede you with potential future clients and/or employers.
\n
“Thought leadership” searches have increased by 379% in the last 5 years.
I’ll admit that the phrase “thought leadership” sets off my corporate jargon alarm. But the idea behind it is deceptively simple and effective.
\nThe potential benefits are both individual and collective:
\nIf you can produce effective thought leadership as a business leader, you’re getting free marketing. And it’s the best kind of marketing: organic, light-touch, and highly targeted at your intended audience.
\nAccording to Edelman, 73% of B2B decision-makers believe that an organization’s thought-leadership content is a more trustworthy basis for assessing its capabilities than its formal marketing materials.
\n[cta:social]
\nIt’s all well and good saying that you should aim to become a leading voice within your industry. While that might be good advice, it runs the risk of being trite.
\nBut while not everyone can become preeminent thought leaders, with entire sectors hanging off their every word, anybody can make a start. That’s where LinkedIn comes in.
\nYou don’t need any kind of established baseline to start producing thought leadership on LinkedIn. You can skip the pitches to industry publications, and you won’t need to wait on a podcast invite: you just start writing.
\n(And if all goes well, LinkedIn could be your ticket into these other forms of media.)
\nHowever, the lack of barriers to entry does mean that you’re losing an important quality filter. LinkedIn has become renowned for its high levels of AI-generated content: some estimates suggest more than half of all posts on the platform are likely created by AI.
\nClearly, AI is a very powerful tool. And there’s certainly nothing wrong with using it to help spark inspiration, carry out research, and tighten up your prose.
\nBut if your “thought leadership” carries all the hallmarks of AI writing, how can you expect fellow industry professionals to conclude that you are a stand-out master of your craft? Rather than showcasing your original insight, it runs the risk of implying a lack of it.
\nBut the good news is that with so much generic, pseudo-thoughtful content on LinkedIn, it only takes a little bit of work to genuinely stand out. And there are ways of using technology to your advantage without entrusting your corporate voice to ChatGPT.
\nIf you’re thinking about how to go about producing thought leadership, the chances are that you already believe you have something valuable to add to the conversation within your industry. You don’t just wake up and decide to be a thought leader if you don’t have anything to say.
\nThat’s a great starting point, and your own industry knowledge and perspective should always be the backbone of the content you produce. It should go without saying that if you’re attempting to showcase your expertise, you need to stick to subject matter you know well and have genuine opinions about.
\nThat being said, if you want to see those lightbulb “insightful” reactions pouring in, you’ll want to pick a topic that is on the pulse. So looking at trends within your industry is a great place to start.
\nFor instance, let’s say that you’re in the productivity technology sector. A quick look at the “workplace” section of the Exploding Topics database provides some excellent jumping-off points.
\n“Bossware” (software installed on work devices to track employee performance) seems particularly promising. It’s timely, topical, and likely to invite diverse perspectives.
\nThat latter point is particularly important. After all, if nobody could reasonably disagree with your post, it probably isn’t thought leadership.
\nThis is where you’ll really stand out from would-be thought leaders who think all they have to do is run a topic through AI and paste the output on LinkedIn. You’ve still made use of technology to make sure you’re writing about something your audience cares about, but you’ll be sharing your genuinely-held opinion, not just an automated aggregation of things that others have already written.
\nYou don’t have to use Exploding Topics to find your subject matter, and there are some other good tools out there. For instance, Google Trends is a leading platform (although it is much harder to genuinely browse, and only really comes into its own when you already have an idea you’re trying to validate).
\nBut one particularly valuable Exploding Topics feature is its channel breakdown. Before you commit to a topic, you can see from the outset whether it’s something people are actually discussing on Linkedin.
\nIn the case of bossware, we can see that LinkedIn is the top channel for the trend. So this looks like a winner as a basis for a thought leadership piece.
\nSentiment analysis is another useful feature. You can go beyond a topic’s bare popularity to see how people are talking about it.
\nSentiment is divided into positive, neutral or negative. But when it comes to thought leadership, you shouldn’t default to following the crowd.
\nTo be clear, there’s no point being contrarian for the sake of it. But if you find a topic where your perspective runs against the grain, that could be especially valuable.
\nFor instance, we can see that “bossware” has negative overall sentiment attached to it.
\nChallenging that negativity would produce some of the most striking thought leadership. You could think about different ways of defying received wisdom:
\nBut even if you’re in the majority, then you can still produce a highly worthwhile piece of content. In this example, drawing out exactly why bossware is bad, and what solutions companies should be using instead, could add worthwhile insight to the conversation:
\nAnd in case you were starting to think I’m some kind of totally anti-AI luddite, this part of the thought leadership process is actually a great time to turn to ChatGPT or a similar tool. Using it as an interactive sounding board can help to crystallize and refine your own perspective, clarifying your thoughts before you commit them to writing.
\n[list=topic number=5 category=workplace]
\nOnce you have your topical subject matter, and you’ve stress-tested your perspective against other possible opinions, it’s time to start writing your thought leadership piece.
\nIf you haven’t done much writing, then this can be daunting (and I completely get the temptation to turn to AI). But that’s another reason why LinkedIn is such a good place to start.
\nAll you need to worry about is writing in your authentic voice. You don’t have any publication house styles to adhere to, and the post can be as long or as short as you like.
\nAnd remember, you’ll stand out just by virtue of having made the effort to write it yourself.
\nWith that in mind, there cannot be a single clear formula to good thought leadership. Indeed, avoiding the trap of being formulaic should be one of your top goals.
\nEven so, if you’re struggling with where to start, there are some very general principles to follow. Forbes breaks down good thought leadership into 3 components:
\nThese are general enough guidelines that you shouldn’t find yourself churning out boilerplate content. It’s a very loose framework that you can use to create genuinely original thought leadership.
\nBut don’t fret about checking that every sentence follows the “heart, brain, mouth” approach. Ultimately, if your personal perspective is driving what you write, you won’t go too far wrong. And you’ll develop your voice with practice.
\nThere are multiple ways to assess whether or not your thought leadership on LinkedIn has succeeded. But the most important measure is whether or not you have started a conversation.
\nThis, after all, is what thought leadership is all about. So if people are in the comments (whether they are agreeing with your perspective or challenging it), you can be pleased with how you’ve done.
\nAt the highest level, success also means generating personal or corporate leads. According to the Financial Times, 69% of CEOs request calls or meetings with companies that produce good quality thought leadership.
\nYou can’t expect every post to bring with it a flood of opportunities. But if people are reaching out to you off the back of what you write, that’s clearly a major win.
\nBecause LinkedIn is a form of social media, you can also use impressions and reactions as secondary KPIs.
\nAn “impression” on LinkedIn is effectively a view: every time somebody is shown your post, it will be recorded as an impression.
\nThat can be broken down further into “members reached”, which excludes duplicate views from the impressions data. So if 1 person sees your post 5 times, that’s 5 impressions but only 1 member reached.
\nImpressions vs engagement
\nNaturally, a high number of impressions is good. But as with all social media, engagement is king, and that applies particularly strongly when you’re actively trying to create thought-provoking content.
\nAs mentioned, comments are really the gold standard of good thought leadership. But “reactions” are another form of engagement, and they are important; if lots of people react, the LinkedIn algorithm is likely to show your post to more people, creating a virtuous cycle to virality.
\nOn LinkedIn, reactions are broken down into categories: like, celebrate, support, love, insightful, and funny. Thought leadership most naturally targets “insightful”, but any engagements are valuable, and there’s no hard evidence that the algorithm gives preference to a particular reaction type.
\nIt’s not worth getting too weighed down in things like optimal LinkedIn posting times. Your main focus should be on producing genuinely thought-provoking, high-quality content.
\nBut it goes without saying that once you’ve created something you are proud of, you want to get it in front of as many people as possible. Especially when thought leadership can be such effective marketing.
\nThe LinkedIn for Marketing blog assessed data from partners Hubspot, Sprinklr and Buffer. There was no single time slot that emerged as a consensus winner, but as a very general rule of thumb, weekdays between 9-5 appeared to perform best.
\nThis seems to track. The CEOs and decision-makers who you want to be reading your posts are specifically carving out time in their workday to seek out this kind of content: 54% of executives dedicate more than an hour a week to consuming thought leadership.
\nCan being a member of the paid LinkedIn Premium service improve the reach of your thought leadership? The short answer is yes (but stick around for the slightly longer answer!).
\nOne of the benefits of LinkedIn Premium is increased visibility. LinkedIn Premium Business subscribers average 13x more profile views, and Premium All-in-One subscribers are 60% more likely to get replies from suggested prospects.
\nHowever, LinkedIn Premium is not essential for an effective thought leadership strategy.
\nWhile the platform does list visibility benefits for Premium users, it does not say that paid subscribers actually get their individual posts boosted (unlike on X). And although some people have anecdotally observed better reach for posts from Premium users, there is no clear evidence to support it.
\nThe Premium badge may well attract executives to your profile, providing more avenues for your thought leadership to be seen. But if you genuinely manage to start a conversation, there’s nothing to stop your post spreading natively as a Basic user.
\nLinkedIn Premium starts from $29.99 per month. There are multiple plans to choose from.
\nPremium Career ($29.99 per month)
Premium Career is aimed at job-seekers. Subscribers are 39% more likely to hear back after applying for a job.
If you’re looking to become a thought leader in order to improve your personal employability, then Premium Career may be a worthwhile option.
\nPremium Business ($69.99 per month)
\nIf your goal in becoming a thought leader is to reflect prestige back on your business, Premium Business is probably the right plan. It’s designed to showcase your business and expand your network.
\nPremium All-in-One ($99.99 per month)
\nPremium All-in-One is a relatively new tier that offers all of the benefits of Business with some added perks. This plan allows you to actively boost your posts via a $50 monthly advertising credit.
\n[cta:trends]
\nReal thought leadership takes time and effort to produce. But the payoff can be massive.
\nAnd with LinkedIn, at least the publishing stage does not pose an additional hurdle. Once you’ve created something you’re pleased with, you have total control over when and how you put it out into the world.
\nYou don’t need any special software to be a thought leader. You don’t need to rely on ChatGPT, and it’s not imperative that you “pay to play” with LinkedIn Premium.
\nNevertheless, as long as you use them well, there are tools that can help you. When used responsibly, AI can be great for tightening and refining your arguments.
\nAnd Exploding Topics is great for getting Linkedin-specific data. You can find out exactly what people are talking about on the platform, and get inspiration on how you can add to the conversation.
\nSign up today for a free trial to help you get started on your journey to becoming a thought leader.
","summary":"Whether you’re looking to establish a personal brand or seeking to build corporate credibility, thought leadership is a powerful medium. And LinkedIn is the backdoor marketing channel you may be guilty of totally neglecting. When you hear thought leadership, you might think of op-eds in leading publications. But with zero ...","seo_title":"How to do Thought Leadership on LinkedIn","meta_description":"Build genuine authority on LinkedIn without plugging your product or outsourcing your thinking to AI. A practical guide to real thought leadership.","featured_image_alt":"Thought Leadership Blog Post Image","url":"https://explodingtopics.com/blog/thought-leadership","featured_image":"https://cdn.buttercms.com/output=f:webp/ockZgvuRJWuGm81qjaFA","author":{"bio":"James is a Journalist at Exploding Topics. \r\n\r\nAfter graduating from the University of Oxford with a degree in Law, he completed a Diploma in Journalism through Press Association Training. He won the Premier League award for the best sports exam script. \r\n\r\nNow in his second spell with Exploding Topics, following three years covering Liverpool Football Club, James has a keen interest in the latest trends. He has been published in areas from AI to the commerce industry, with bylines including The Independent.","slug":"james-martin","email":"jamescmartin98@gmail.com","title":"Research Journalist","last_name":"Martin","first_name":"James","facebook_url":"","linkedin_url":"https://www.linkedin.com/in/james-martin-117bb8171/","instagram_url":"","pinterest_url":"","profile_image":"https://cdn.buttercms.com/GCm7FjDRlG3oU5UIrwjw","twitter_handle":"@JamesMartin013"},"tags":[],"categories":[{"name":"marketing","slug":"marketing"}]},{"status":"published","created":"2022-08-22T10:39:39.583181Z","updated":"2026-05-18T14:27:27.640970Z","published":"2026-05-04T01:39:00Z","scheduled":null,"title":"Top Trending Topics (May 2026)","slug":"trending-topics","body":"This is a list of the top 100 trending topics in the US right now.
\nNote that the topics in this list aren’t fads (like new movies or video games).
\nInstead, these are long-term trends that are likely to see upward growth throughout 2026.
\n\nThe data from this list was generated using our proprietary algorithm and trend curation process.
\n| # | \nTopic | \nSearch Growth | \n
| 1 | \nCold Plunge Tub | \n1,850% | \n
| 2 | \nShoe Washing Bag | \n5,800% | \n
| 3 | \nTumble Rug | \n3,500% | \n
| 4 | \nAI Robot | \n2,400% | \n
| 5 | \nBoneless Couch | \n8,300% | \n
| 6 | \nViwoods | \n7,700% | \n
| 7 | \nWanderlog | \n4,900% | \n
| 8 | \nAI Personal Assistant | \n2,900% | \n
| 9 | \nSuri Toothbrush | \n6,900% | \n
| 10 | \nBoucle Bed Frame | \n6,600% | \n
| 11 | \nMilky Toner | \n99x+ | \n
| 12 | \nFluted Glass Cabinet | \n4,400% | \n
| 13 | \nDog Dental Powder | \n3,300% | \n
| 14 | \nPrequel Skincare | \n7,600% | \n
| 15 | \nNon-Alcoholic Wine | \n194% | \n
| 16 | \nOwala | \n6,600% | \n
| 17 | \nAirplane Phone Holder | \n4,700% | \n
| 18 | \nPDRN Toner | \n5,600% | \n
| 19 | \nTalking Flash Cards | \n2,200% | \n
| 20 | \nPDRN | \n7,200% | \n
| 21 | \nJumping Spider Enclosure | \n1,088% | \n
| 22 | \nSalmon DNA Microneedling | \n2,400% | \n
| 23 | \nHealth Tracking Ring | \n5,500% | \n
| 24 | \nAI Earbuds | \n8,400% | \n
| 25 | \nPlaud Note | \n6,800% | \n
| 26 | \nCold Plunge Sauna | \n6,400% | \n
| 27 | \nPeptide Lip Balm | \n99x+ | \n
| 28 | \nBooktok | \n938% | \n
| 29 | \nBeehiiv | \n4,300% | \n
| 30 | \nPermanent Jewelry | \n1,725% | \n
| 31 | \nWifi 7 Router | \n2,650% | \n
| 32 | \nPupsicle | \n1,340% | \n
| 33 | \nWalking Pad | \n7,700% | \n
| 34 | \nAI Story Generator | \n3,800% | \n
| 35 | \nBuldak Ramen | \n1,100% | \n
| 36 | \nAI Mirror | \n2,800% | \n
| 37 | \nAI Image Enhancer | \n3,250% | \n
| 38 | \nWorkwhile | \n700% | \n
| 39 | \nINNBeauty Project | \n1,500% | \n
| 40 | \nDUPR | \n4,450% | \n
| 41 | \nJellycat Charms | \n3,800% | \n
| 42 | \nCloud-Native | \n433% | \n
| 43 | \nAI Due Diligence | \n2,200% | \n
| 44 | \nBarrel Leg Pants | \n99x+ | \n
| 45 | \nBirch Juice Sunscreen | \n4,600% | \n
| 46 | \nGender Affirming Care | \n2,150% | \n
| 47 | \nAI Translator Headphones | \n99x+ | \n
| 48 | \nAlgae Cooking Oil | \n1,700% | \n
| 49 | \nAI Voice Detector | \n5,000% | \n
| 50 | \nFastmoss | \n6,900% | \n
| 51 | \nDocuclipper | \n4,500% | \n
| 52 | \nHigh Speed Hair Dryer | \n9,000% | \n
| 53 | \nMomcozy | \n99x+ | \n
| 54 | \nPetfolk | \n9,500% | \n
| 55 | \nPilates Outfit | \n2,175% | \n
| 56 | \nSteamdeck | \n6,600% | \n
| 57 | \nPanthenol Moisturizer | \n2,400% | \n
| 58 | \nPenpot | \n3,000% | \n
| 59 | \nCuripod | \n6,300% | \n
| 60 | \nTuta Email | \n5,900% | \n
| 61 | \nTheraFace | \n6,000% | \n
| 62 | \nMofusand Blind Box | \n4,600% | \n
| 63 | \nIonic Thermal Brush | \n2,900% | \n
| 64 | \nPrompt Engineering | \n3,200% | \n
| 65 | \nNon-Slip Shoes | \n7,600% | \n
| 66 | \nNon-Toxic Perfume | \n867% | \n
| 67 | \nTiphaus | \n7,200% | \n
| 68 | \nPartiful | \n9,100% | \n
| 69 | \nCarsized | \n4,300% | \n
| 70 | \nPrezi AI | \n5,800% | \n
| 71 | \nOled Gaming Laptop | \n7,000% | \n
| 72 | \nWorkflow Automation Platform | \n2,500% | \n
| 73 | \nAI for Teachers | \n4,200% | \n
| 74 | \nAgricultural Marketplace | \n2,100% | \n
| 75 | \nNoise-Cancelling Earphones | \n162% | \n
| 76 | \nNoteGPT | \n8,900% | \n
| 77 | \nBaby Bottle Washer | \n6,600% | \n
| 78 | \nAI Mini PC | \n99x+ | \n
| 79 | \nYemeni Coffee | \n4,500% | \n
| 80 | \nPistachio Perfume | \n5,500% | \n
| 81 | \nAI Air Fryer | \n99x+ | \n
| 82 | \nRed Light Mask | \n6,600% | \n
| 83 | \nTranslation Earbuds | \n3,900% | \n
| 84 | \nMagnetic Power Bank | \n5,900% | \n
| 85 | \nAI Mouse | \n4,300% | \n
| 86 | \nPadel Shoes | \n3,250% | \n
| 87 | \nAI Music Generator | \n5,500% | \n
| 88 | \nAlgorithmic Bias | \n2,075% | \n
| 89 | \nMagnesium Glycinate Supplement | \n2,700% | \n
| 90 | \nBarrel Fit Jeans | \n99x+ | \n
| 91 | \nLash Clusters | \n6,600% | \n
| 92 | \nProbiotic Soda | \n1,567% | \n
| 93 | \nAI Shoes | \n99x+ | \n
| 94 | \nLow Rise Sweatpants | \n5,800% | \n
| 95 | \nHigh Speed Hair Dryer | \n9,000% | \n
| 96 | \nLaptop Screen Extender | \n2,250% | \n
| 97 | \nPickleball Grip | \n1,275% | \n
| 98 | \nGigpro | \n158% | \n
| 99 | \nAI Robot Dog | \n4,900% | \n
| 100 | \nBarefoot Boots | \n729% | \n
Pro Tip: Semrush is invaluable for analyzing competitors and boosting your topical authority around new trends.
\n[cta:keywords]
\nWith that, here is a collection of trending topics worth keeping an eye on:
\n5-year search growth: 729%
\nSearch growth status: Exploding
\nDescription: Barefoot boots are footwear designed to mimic the natural movement of walking barefoot while providing protection and durability for outdoor use. They distinguish themselves with thin, flexible soles, wide toe boxes, and minimal cushioning, promoting natural foot mechanics and strengthening muscles. Barefoot boots are primarily targeted at outdoor enthusiasts, health-conscious individuals, and those interested in natural movement or minimalist footwear.
\n5-year search growth: 7,300%
\nSearch growth status: Exploding
\nDescription: A specialized treatment focusing on the health and relaxation of the scalp and hair. The process typically involves deep cleansing, nutrient-rich conditioning, and techniques to stimulate blood flow, promoting hair growth and preventing hair loss. This holistic approach is beneficial for individuals seeking to maintain optimal scalp health and achieve stronger, more resilient hair.
\n5-year search growth: 6,600%
\nSearch growth status: Exploding
\nDescription: Tools that use machine learning algorithms to automate the creation of video content. They can produce high-quality videos quickly and efficiently, making them popular for various applications such as marketing, entertainment, and education. AI video generators are particularly beneficial for content creators, marketers, and educators looking to streamline video production processes.
\n[cta:keywords]
\n5-year search growth: 3,250%
\nSearch growth status: Exploding
\nDescription: Advanced software solutions that utilize artificial intelligence and machine learning algorithms to improve the quality of images. These tools can automatically make adjustments and enhancements such as noise reduction, sharpening, color correction, and upscaling without requiring human intervention, thereby enhancing the overall quality and resolution. AI image enhancers are widely used in fields like photography, graphic design, and digital marketing to produce high-quality images efficiently.
\n5-year search growth: 6,600%
\nSearch growth status: Exploding
\nDescription: A baby bottle washer is a specialized appliance or tool designed to clean baby bottles, nipples, and other feeding accessories efficiently and thoroughly. It often features rotating brushes, high-pressure water jets, or compact designs for quick cleaning, ensuring proper hygiene and convenience for busy parents. Baby bottle washers are ideal for caregivers looking for a time-saving and reliable solution to maintain the cleanliness of baby feeding items.
\n5-year search growth: 5,000%
\nSearch growth status: Regular
\nDescription: Tools that use machine learning algorithms to analyze speech patterns and determine whether a voice is generated by AI or by a human. These detectors work by comparing the analyzed voice patterns to a database of known AI-generated voice patterns, providing a method to verify the authenticity of audio recordings and protect against deepfake audio. AI voice detectors are particularly useful for organizations and individuals concerned with audio security, fraud prevention, and the integrity of digital communications.
\n[cta:trafficanalytics]
\n5-year search growth: 5,800%
\nSearch growth status: Exploding
\nDescription: These are athletic footwear designed to improve running performance by integrating a carbon fiber plate within the midsole. This design feature enhances stiffness and energy return, thereby increasing running efficiency and speed, making them distinct from traditional running shoes. Carbon-plated running shoes are primarily targeted at competitive runners seeking to enhance their performance in races.
\n5-year search growth: 786%
\nSearch growth status: Exploding
\nDescription: Nicotine pouches are small, tobacco-less pouches that contain nicotine, flavorings, and sweeteners. Experts believe these pouches are safer than alternative nicotine products because they don't contain tobacco leaves and have fewer carcinogens. Zyn, the leading provider of nicotine pouches, brought in $446.8 million from nicotine pouches in 2025.
\n5-year search growth: 5,700%
\nSearch growth status: Exploding
\nDescription: Creatine gummies are a dietary supplement designed to provide the benefits of creatine in a convenient, chewable form. These gummies aim to increase muscle mass, improve muscle strength, and enhance exercise performance, differentiating themselves from traditional creatine powders and capsules by offering a more palatable and easy-to-consume option. They are primarily targeted at athletes, bodybuilders, and fitness enthusiasts looking for an effective and convenient way to incorporate creatine into their supplement regimen.
\n5-year search growth: 5,100%
\nSearch growth status: Regular
\nDescription: Technology that converts written text into spoken words using advanced machine learning algorithms. These systems, including tools like Google Text-to-Speech and Amazon Polly, are used in applications such as virtual assistants, audiobooks, and accessibility tools, with recent advancements focusing on improving the naturalness and expressiveness of the generated speech. The primary users of text-to-audio AI are developers, businesses, and individuals seeking to enhance user experience and accessibility through voice-enabled applications.
\nThat wraps up our list of current trending topics worth keeping an eye on.
\nThere are a few “big picture” patterns in this list. For example, many of the trends are related to beauty and natural health. And many others are tech-focused.
\nWe keep this list updated. Check back soon for updated data and trends.
","summary":"This is a list of the top 100 trending topics in the US right now.\n\nThe data from this list was generated using our proprietary algorithm and trend curation process.\n\nNote that the topics in this list aren’t fads (like new movies or video games).\n\nInstead, these are long-term trends that are likely to see upward growth throughout 2026.","seo_title":"Top Trending Topics (May 2026)","meta_description":"A regularly updated list of the top 100 trending topics in the US right now.","featured_image_alt":"Trending Topics Blog Post Image","url":"https://explodingtopics.com/blog/trending-topics","featured_image":"https://cdn.buttercms.com/output=f:webp/mRswz7EOToG5EN4jegIu","author":{"bio":"Fabio is a research associate at Exploding Topics.\r\n\r\nSince 2021, Fabio has researched, written, and edited articles for the Exploding Topics blog. Alongside this, he also manages social media content for X and LinkedIn.\r\n\r\nAway from his work at Exploding Topics, Fabio is Head Editor of the match report project at Flashscore.\r\n\r\nFabio has worked on thousands of articles and blog posts across a wide variety of industries including sports, technology, retail, and finance.","slug":"fabio-duarte","email":"fabio.p.duarte@outlook.com","title":"Research Associate","last_name":"Duarte","first_name":"Fabio","facebook_url":"","linkedin_url":"https://www.linkedin.com/in/fabio-duarte-b6996318a/","instagram_url":"","pinterest_url":"","profile_image":"https://cdn.buttercms.com/dIHDuu0QOWurzcpz0eD4","twitter_handle":"@FDuarteWriting"},"tags":[{"name":"semrush","slug":"semrush"}],"categories":[{"name":"market-research","slug":"market-research"}]},{"status":"published","created":"2026-04-30T12:48:45.379000Z","updated":"2026-04-30T13:15:46.829312Z","published":"2026-04-30T12:48:14.014000Z","scheduled":null,"title":"Inventory De-Risking: How I Separate Viral Fads from Stable Brands","slug":"inventory-de-risking","body":"A product starts trending on social media. Within weeks, it's showing up on every dropshipping blog and wholesale marketplace. You place an order, but by the time your inventory arrives, demand has already peaked and you’re left with dead stock.
\nWhile some dead stock is pretty much unavoidable, having too much of it gets really expensive. It ties up cash, eats warehouse space, and forces the kind of margin-crushing markdowns that are difficult to recover from.
\nBut in many cases, it’s preventable.
\nSeparating products that fizzle too quickly and those with durable, long-term demand is the most important skill of inventory de-risking. But what’s the secret to making the right call on more products?
\nIn this guide, I’ll show you how to read trend signals accurately and build a product research process that filters out fads.
\n[list=product number=5 category=all]
\nIt’s pretty clear why stocking fads gets costly: you buy and stock items, the fad fades, and you’re stuck with products you can’t sell.
\nRemember, though, that there are also carrying costs.
\nCarrying costs (like storage fees, insurance, taxes, and money tied up in inventory that could be invested elsewhere) keep adding up the longer your slow-moving inventory sits.
\nAnd in some product categories, unsold fad items can't be returned to suppliers, leaving you to absorb the full loss.
\nGlobally, retailers lose an estimated $1.73 trillion annually from the combined impact of stockouts and overstock, according to IHL Group—that’s 6.5% of total global retail sales.
\nA significant share of overstock problems trace directly back to buying into trends without vetting their durability.
\nBut don’t let that scare you off! The goal of E-commerce inventory risk management isn't to avoid trending products entirely. Instead, you just need to be able to distinguish the ones worth buying from the ones that will only amount to a passing fad.
\nThe most reliable indicator of a fad is the shape of its growth curve. Fads tend to spike fast and steeply. Interest jumps from near-zero to peak in a matter of weeks, often driven by a single viral moment.
\nDurable trends, on the other hand, show gradual, consistent growth over months or years, reflecting an underlying shift in consumer behavior rather than a burst of social attention.
\nA few questions you can ask to determine a product’s potential:
\n[cta:trends]
\nExploding Topics monitors and tracks emerging products with real-time growth signals and sales data, so you can stock what actually sells now and what will continue to sell in the future.
\nThis kind of product research tool is a vital part of your E-commerce inventory risk management plan.
\nWhen running product research with Exploding Topics, you can see a topic or product’s trajectory, assess how long popularity has been building, check its virality forecast, and identify the category context around it before investing in it.
\nHere's the workflow I use.
\nThis is something you’ll want to do regularly to keep up with trending products. Whether you’ve got a specific product in mind or not, head to the “Trending Products” tab and filter it by your category:
\nThis is such a powerful tool for trending product discovery. Once you sort by your category, you’ll see a list of trending products with various growth types.
\nLet’s say you run an E-commerce pet supply store. You want to invest in up-and-coming products, but you have a lower risk tolerance and want to make sure a product will truly be profitable before buying it.
\nUse the filters in the Trending Products dashboard to surface exactly those products. Set the Category to “Pets” and select “Regular” in the Growth dropdown:
\nYou’ll be left with products in your category that have shown steady growth over the past 5 years. Note that you can also change the timeframe if you want to find products that are growing more in the past year or other timeframe.
\nSelling on TikTok? If you have the TikTok Insights add-on, you’ll also see what products are popular on TikTok.
\nOnce you find a product you’re interested in, click on it to get more information, including a volume graph and growth forecast:
\nLook at how long the trend has been building. A product that has continued rising steadily over years carries a very different risk profile than one that shot up in the past 6–8 weeks.
\nA steep, recent spike doesn’t mean you have to discount the product altogether, but it is more likely to reflect a viral fad rather than a stable brand.
\nOn every product page, you’ll find a few different reports with important data to help you make decisions about whether the product will be a good fit for your store.
\nFirst, take a look at the “Top Sellers” tab to see which brands are currently the most popular on Amazon:
\nThis list can help you get a lay of the land in terms of price points shoppers are looking for, features that are must-haves, and where reviews are landing.
\nThe “Related Products” tab is next. Don’t skip this one—it’s a potential gold mine of products closely related to the one you’re interested in that are also exploding in popularity right now:
\n[list=topic number=5 category=all]
\nPro tip: when researching products, don’t discount trending topics that are related to your products. When demand for a product is driven by a larger consumer trend, that’s a big signal that it’ll be more than a fad.
\nThere are multiple ways to explore topics related to your products in Exploding Topics:
\n1. Use the Trends Database to Browse by Category
\nThe Trends Database is the best place to go browsing when you want to discover what's rising within a broader category.
\nHead to the “Trends Database” tab in the left navigation and filter by your product category. From there, you can sort by growth status, timeframe, and whether you're looking at brands or non-brand topics.
\nIf you're already filtering for \"Regular\" growth products in the Trending Products report, doing the same here gives you the full topic-level picture: what consumers are searching for and talking about, not just what's selling on Amazon.
\nThis is where you'll often find category trends you weren't aware of. A search for pet supply topics might surface \"freeze-dried raw food\" or \"enrichment toys,\" which are broader consumer interests that point toward product categories worth exploring.
\n2. Search Any Topic with Trend Analysis
\nAlready have a specific product or type of product in mind? Use the Trend Analysis tool to pull up a detailed report on thousands of topics.
\nType the product name or category into the Trend Analysis search bar:
\nIf the topic you searched has enough organic search history data, you’ll see a report of its search volume history, growth trajectory, channel breakdown (social platforms the interest is coming from), and related topics.
\nThis report is incredibly helpful for deciding what platforms you might want to promote the product on, finding related terms people are using to find the product, and finding products and topics that are adjacent to the one you’re considering.
\n3. Check Meta Trends
\nMeta Trends reports group individual products and topics into larger consumer behavior movements.
\nFind them in the left navigation under Meta Trends, then grouped by category.
\nIf you find a meta trend that relates to your product, you’ll see an inner ring of micro trends and an outer ring of other related trends. This report is awesome for getting a broader look at the way a certain category is expanding.
\nProducts embedded in a growing meta trend are generally safer inventory investments than standalone viral items. The meta trend tells you where consumer attention is heading at a category level, which helps you plan your buying calendar further out than a single product's data can.
\nExploding Topics gives you the trend trajectory. These additional tools can help you verify that the product would be a good investment for your store:
\nNo single data point should make or break your buying decision. These signals work best as a stack: when they all point in the same direction, you have a much stronger case for buying inventory.
\nEven with a solid vetting process, not every product decision will be clear-cut. Some products will show mixed signals. Others will look promising on trend data but haven't yet proven consistent sales velocity at your specific price point.
\nSo, for the best possible inventory de-risking scenario, a portfolio approach to inventory planning helps you manage that uncertainty. Instead of treating every product the same, retailers group inventory by performance and risk using ABC Analysis.
\nABC analysis organizes products into three categories based on their contribution to revenue and sales velocity.
\nFor many E-commerce sellers, a relatively small percentage of products generate the majority of revenue. Structuring your buying strategy around that reality helps reduce the risk of overinvesting in unproven items.
\nHere’s how that framework can guide your buying budget:
\nThis structure keeps your cash flow protected by a stable core while still leaving room to participate in emerging trends. Use the Exploding Topics workflow above to determine which tier a product belongs in, so your buying decisions are based on real data rather than gut feel or social media hype.
\nThe trend data exists before most buyers go looking for it. That's the advantage Exploding Topics gives you: visibility into what's rising before it peaks, so you're making inventory decisions based on real trajectory data rather than hype.
\nIf you’re an E-commerce store owner, Exploding Topics is an invaluable product and trend discovery tool for you. Sign up today for your free trial.
","summary":"A product starts trending on social media. Within weeks, it's showing up on every dropshipping blog and wholesale marketplace. You place an order, but by the time your inventory arrives, demand has already peaked and you’re left with dead stock. While some dead stock is pretty much unavoidable, having too ...","seo_title":"Inventory De-Risking: How I Separate Viral Fads from Stable Brands","meta_description":"Learn how to spot viral product fads before they become dead stock. A practical guide to trend signals, product research, and safer e-commerce buying decisions.","featured_image_alt":"Inventory De-Risking Blog Post Image","url":"https://explodingtopics.com/blog/inventory-de-risking","featured_image":"https://cdn.buttercms.com/output=f:webp/vKVRNF2JRFO72yysyplu","author":{"bio":"Jolissa Skow is a senior content writer and content strategist with a background in SEO, Google Analytics, and WordPress. She's been published on Search Engine Land, G2, UpCity, Salesforce, and more, and her Google Analytics tutorials have been shared by Google on their social media platforms. She loves to read and runs a book blog in her spare time. She currently lives in Minneapolis, where you'll find her zipping around on her pedal-assist electric bike.","slug":"jolissa-skow","email":"jolissa.skow@gmail.com","title":"Senior Content Writer","last_name":"Skow","first_name":"Jolissa","facebook_url":"","linkedin_url":"https://www.linkedin.com/in/jolissa-skow/","instagram_url":"","pinterest_url":"","profile_image":"https://cdn.buttercms.com/GYZYCKikRmeIz8F6odMV","twitter_handle":""},"tags":[],"categories":[{"name":"market-research","slug":"market-research"}]},{"status":"published","created":"2026-04-29T14:12:57.146964Z","updated":"2026-04-29T14:42:34.940108Z","published":"2026-04-29T14:11:16.272000Z","scheduled":null,"title":"My 90-Day Trend-Matched Editorial System for Content Calendar Planning","slug":"content-calendar-planning","body":"Content calendar planning is a task I genuinely enjoy. It requires creativity to come up with topics and write hooks that will capture people’s attention, but also strategic thinking, organization, and—especially if you’re managing a team of writers—balancing workloads.
\nAs much as I like to wrangle topics into a perfectly ordered plan, content calendar management comes with challenges. One I’m all too familiar with is missing the growth peak of a trending topic because I didn’t schedule it for the ideal publication date.
\nWhen you publish a topic after it’s passed its peak, you miss out on organic traffic. A lot of time and effort goes into researching, writing, and optimizing content, but timing is a significant factor in its success.
\nDeveloping a trend-matched editorial system for content calendar planning involves incorporating trend projection into your decision making when choosing publication dates. You can then write the content before the topic peaks and publish it while interest is still building.
\nWhen it comes to creating content around trending topics, there are two factors you have to keep in mind: how long it will take you to create the content, and the trend’s growth rate or momentum.
\nIf you can match your content production timeline to a trend’s momentum, you can publish it before it peaks and capitalize on its increased search volume.
\nYour production timelines will be specific to your team and the type of content you publish.
\nTrend momentum, however, can be defined by the following stages:
\nWith these stages in mind, you can strategically position topics on your content calendar according to when they will peak and how long it will take you to produce each piece.
\nAligning trend momentum and content production timelines sounds simple enough, right?
\nTo build a sustainable system, there are a few more steps to keep in mind. The guide that follows is my recommendation for how to set up your trend-matched content calendar and incorporate monitoring and analysis for continuous refinement.
\nI’ve included estimates for how long each step should take. The result is a 90-day plan to align your calendar with trend trajectories for optimal publishing.
\n[cta:trends]
\nBefore you can start looking into trends, you need to gather some information about your content production capacity.
\nFirst, look back through past content you’ve published and determine how long it takes to produce a piece of content from the time the writer picks up the topic to publication. This means you need to include the time it takes to edit and revise the content in addition to how long it takes to write the first draft.
\nChecking your project management app or other tools you use to manage your workload should help you track down this information.
\nIf you publish multiple types of content—blog posts, videos, newsletters, social media content, white papers—repeat this process for each. Consider the balance of content types as well. Social media content is usually published more frequently than blog content, which is usually published more frequently than research-heavy pieces like white papers.
\nThen factor in the size of your team. If you work alone, there’s no need to worry about this step. Otherwise, multiply what you can publish each month according to how many people you’re working with.
\nHere’s an example. Say you have a team of three writers, and your content production timelines are as follows:
\nWriter A will publish one white paper and two blog posts per month. Writers B and C will each publish one blog post and five LinkedIn posts.
\nThis brings your total monthly capacity to one white paper, four blog posts, and ten LinkedIn posts.
\nOnce you know your content production timelines, you can start looking for trends to produce content about.
\nHead over to the Trends Database and choose a category that’s relevant to your niche.
\nThen set the filters as follows:
\nComb through the results for trends that are relevant to your brand, or export all the results to a CSV file and sort through them that way.
\nOne feature I like to check when analyzing trends is the Trend Forecast.
\nThis is helpful for estimating when the topic will peak, which is valuable information when adding content to your calendar. Making a note of the likely peak of topics you’re interested in will help with the next step.
\nKeep in mind the timeframe of the calendar you’re planning. For instance, if you’re planning your Q1 calendar, you want to look for topics peaking in mid to late January through late April, or possibly a bit later.
\nYou might need to repeat this process a few times if you have multiple categories to cover and multiple content types to produce with different production timelines (and therefore requiring trends with different growth stages).
\nGoing along with our example from the previous step, I’d be looking for three white paper topics, twelve blog posts, and 30 LinkedIn posts. The white paper and blog post topics should be experiencing more moderate growth, while I would focus on exploding topics for the LinkedIn posts.
\nNow it’s time to actually fill in your calendar. It may take some tweaking along the way, so don’t be surprised if you need to step away and come back a few times before it’s ready.
\nThe easiest way to go about it is to work backwards. Start with your latest peak date and count back approximately two weeks—that’s the date you want to publish your content for that topic.
\nThen count back again however many days or weeks you need to produce the type of content you’ve planned for that topic. Going back to our example, for a blog post, this would be another two weeks. This is the date you want to start production.
\nRepeat this process to fill your whole calendar.
\nIf you’re planning content for a team, make sure to consider assignments carefully and keep them balanced. The amount of time between publication and peak can be flexible, and might be shorter for social media content compared to longform content. You can adjust it slightly to accommodate workloads or other conflicts.
\nYour calendar is planned, but there’s still work to do. Trends can shift quickly, so the next order of business is to set up some trend monitoring so you can pivot your content plan if needed.
\nIn the Exploding Topics app, go to Trend Tracking and create a new project. Name it “Q1 Content Calendar” or something similar that will be easy to identify.
\nThen add all the topics you put on your content calendar to your project so you can easily find them again. Check this project at least once a week, just in case a topic has experienced unexpected growth (or lack of growth).
\nYou can shift its place on your calendar or remove it if you feel it’s no longer a good opportunity for you. For topics that are already exploding, it may be beneficial to check in more frequently, as growth can spike suddenly.
\nAnother tack you might take is to change the type of content you produce based on adjusted peaks. For example, say a topic you had planned for a blog post starts to peak earlier than you expected. If you can quickly pull together a LinkedIn post about the same topic instead, you might still be able to benefit from its growth.
\nTo enhance this step further, you can also layer in competitor monitoring. Using Semrush’s EyeOn competitor monitoring tool, you can see when they publish new content. If that content overlaps with topics you have on your calendar, you can tweak your approach.
\nPerhaps your product review becomes a comparison post, or you spot content gaps in your competitor’s piece and make sure to cover the missing information in your own version.
\n[cta:eyeon]
\nAs you start to publish the content on your calendar, there’s some ongoing maintenance and optimization you’ll need to perform.
\nFirst, take this opportunity to track your production timelines and make sure they align with what you estimated at the beginning of this process. This will help you adjust your trend matching during your next calendar planning cycle.
\nNext, take note of the trend’s status and growth volume on its publication date.
\nThis will help you determine how closely you were able to align trend growth with your content production timeline. Did you publish as close to the trend’s peak as you intended? Did you publish too late? Use this information to inform your next planning cycle.
\nFinally, choose a set timeframe after publication (I recommend 30 days) and check in on your content’s performance metrics. As you repeat the trend matching process, you can experiment with publishing at different growth stages to see if it impacts traffic and engagement.
\nWhen it comes to content marketing, there’s so much that’s out of your control. Trend matching your content calendar can help you take back some control by accounting for a topic’s growth trajectory when choosing its publication date.
\nTo enhance your content planning process further, incorporating Semrush into your workflow can help you at every stage, from keyword research to monitoring search engine and AI visibility after publication.
\nSemrush Pro is the perfect plan to start with. Try it out today and pair it with Exploding Topics Pro to kickstart your trend-matched editorial system and find the perfect publication date for every piece of content.
","summary":"Content calendar planning is a task I genuinely enjoy. It requires creativity to come up with topics and write hooks that will capture people’s attention, but also strategic thinking, organization, and—especially if you’re managing a team of writers—balancing workloads. As much as I like to wrangle topics into a perfectly ...","seo_title":"My 90-Day Trend-Matched Editorial System for Content Calendar Planning","meta_description":"A practical 90-day system for aligning your content calendar with trend momentum—so you publish at the right time, capture peak interest, and maximize organic traffic.","featured_image_alt":"Content Calendar Planning Blog Post Image","url":"https://explodingtopics.com/blog/content-calendar-planning","featured_image":"https://cdn.buttercms.com/output=f:webp/zum7mTJcSHKlhgwmvMw5","author":{"bio":"Molly is a technical content writer with a passion for making technology easy for anyone to understand. She specializes in content strategy and implementing data-driven workflows that improve user experience. Molly holds an MFA in Creative Nonfiction from Northwestern University, and loves blending her creative writing background with her technical writing experience to craft narratives that inform and engage readers. In her spare time, she enjoys reading and spending time with her family, including their many, many pets.","slug":"molly-tyler","email":"molly.tyler496@gmail.com","title":"Writer","last_name":"Tyler","first_name":"Molly","facebook_url":"","linkedin_url":"https://www.linkedin.com/in/molly-tyler-writer/","instagram_url":"","pinterest_url":"","profile_image":"https://cdn.buttercms.com/oCdUgSWR3e8Fwq2zeMdX","twitter_handle":""},"tags":[],"categories":[{"name":"seo","slug":"seo"}]},{"status":"published","created":"2026-04-22T11:52:45.074610Z","updated":"2026-04-22T13:55:31.018790Z","published":"2026-04-22T11:39:23.992000Z","scheduled":null,"title":"How to Use Exploding Topics: A Quick Start Guide","slug":"how-to-use-et","body":"Exploding Topics enables you to spot and track trends to inform several aspects of your businesses. Product ideation, marketing strategy, and investment decisions all benefit when you back them with real user data from multiple channels.
\nTo keep all this valuable information at your fingertips, Exploding Topics provides a dashboard with the latest trending topics, products, and startups as well as specific trends you’re tracking.
\nWhether you’re new to Exploding Topics or an experienced user looking to get more out of it, this quick-start guide will introduce you to everything it’s capable of so you can enhance your business and take advantage of emerging opportunities in your industry.
\nBefore I show you how to use Exploding Topics’ available tools, it’s important to understand how it identifies trends.
\nFirst, Exploding Topics gathers data from multiple sources across the web, including search engines, social media, podcasts, forums, and e-commerce sites. Diversifying data sources instead of relying only on search performance helps Exploding Topics identify potential growth more accurately.
\nInformation gathering occurs in real time, so Exploding Topics is constantly updating its database with the latest metrics on all the topics it tracks.
\nExploding Topics analyzes this data using proprietary machine learning models. They look at historical growth patterns, current growth trajectory, and sudden surges in activity to recognize emerging trends.
\nThe trends found to have the highest growth potential are reviewed by experts from the Exploding Topics team. They add their own insights to these topics to provide more context around what’s driving interest in them.
\nAll of this sets Exploding Topics apart from other trend analysis platforms like Google Trends. Rather than reacting to growth after it’s already happened, Exploding Topics uses its unique combination of AI and human insight to predict trends before they take off, giving you the opportunity to be an early benefactor of growing interest in a topic.
\n[cta:trends]
\nUsing the Exploding Topics dashboard as a launch pad, I’ll walk through each of the features available. In addition to showing you the fast results you’ll get on the dashboard, I’ll also explain how to dig deeper for more detailed trend research.
\nI’m using the Exploding Topics Pro Business plan, so you’ll see all the paid features available. However, if you’re using a different plan or the free version, you’ll still have access to many of the options I’ve covered.
\nWhen you open the Exploding Topics app, you’ll see the Recommended Trends section of the dashboard.
\nThese are trends experiencing significant growth and may represent opportunities for you to expand your brand awareness. If you’re tracking any trends (more on that in a bit), the recommendations shown here are pulled from the same category or categories as the trends you’re watching.
\nYou can also set your preferred category using the Categories dropdown so this section displays the trends that are the most relevant to you.
\nIf you want to explore more topics, click the Browse Trends Database.
\nExploding Topics’ Trends Database holds over one million topics, products, and startups curated by a proprietary algorithm and updated daily. Search for topics you’re interested in, or browse by category.
\nUsing the filters, you can further narrow your results by timeframe, growth, type, and volatility.
\nEach listing in the database shows the trend’s Google search volume and growth. Clicking on a trend shows additional information, including its activity by social media channel and its search growth forecast.
\nLastly, you can export trends from the database to a CSV file. This is useful if you want to compare trends or build a strategy that incorporates multiple trends to maximize your brand’s visibility.
\nExploding Topics enables you to track trends over time. This is useful if the topic is highly relevant to your niche and you want to monitor it, or if you’ve spotted a topic that’s starting to gain momentum and you want to watch it for growth.
\nIn order to see trends in this section of the dashboard, you need to have first created a project and added topics to it. You can do this by going to the Trend Tracking tool and clicking the Create A Project button.
\nThen click the Add Topics button to search for topics in the Trends Database to track.
\nClick the Track Topic button and select your project from the list to start tracking.
\nYou can organize trends into multiple projects. This is perfect for planning marketing campaigns or tracking topics in different subcategories.
\nYou can see your projects in the Trend Tracking tool, or on the dashboard. If you have multiple projects, you can use the dropdown to filter trends by project.
\nTo see all the trends you’re tracking across projects, click the View All Projects button.
\nResearching trending products helps with product ideation, competitor analysis, and finding gaps in your existing offers.
\nExploding Topics shows trending products on your dashboard and enables you to easily track them for ongoing monitoring.
\nClick on View All Products to search all the products in Exploding Topics’ database and filter them by category, growth metrics, sales potential, and more.
\nYou can also export relevant products to a CSV file to analyze outside of Exploding Topics.
\nTikTok has become an important space for trends of all kinds to emerge and expand. The pull of influencers on the platform makes it great for generating buzz, and its e-commerce capabilities enable sellers to boost revenue and build awareness for their products, too.
\nTikTok’s cultural significance makes it an important data source for Exploding Topics as well as a crucial factor in trend analysis. The TikTok Insights add-on lets you see key metrics right in the app.
\nIn your dashboard, you’ll see the total TikTok views and posts for some of the top trends analyzed by Exploding Topics.
\nClick View All Insights to see more finds from TikTok. Search for specific hashtags related to your niche, or narrow the results by growth, timeframe, or category.
\nLooking into trending startups is useful for finding emerging competitors as well as scoping out potential investments.
\nThe Exploding Topics dashboard includes a section for trending startups. You can quickly add any of them to a project for further monitoring by clicking the Track Topic button.
\nOr, click View All Startups to refine your search. Use the filters to view startups by category, growth, funding, number of employees, and/or location.
\nIf you want to do some further analysis, you can export the startups matching your criteria to a CSV file.
\nExploding Topics Pro users receive a weekly trend report newsletter that includes analysis of startups and products with high growth potential.
\nIn your Exploding Topics dashboard, you’ll see links to the most recent reports with some of the featured trends listed.
\nIf one of the listed items catches your attention, you can read the full report for trend analysis written by Exploding Topics experts, including why the topic is trending and related trends to watch.
\nViewing old reports is useful if you want to compare past emerging trends with their current growth. The View All Reports button takes you to Exploding Topics’ full report library.
\nThe experts at Exploding Topics analyze the trends identified by its algorithm to create topic clusters by making connections between “macro trends” and “micro trends.”
\nMicro trends include specific products, brands, ideas, or concepts. These trends are narrow, like “rice water face wash” or “carbon credit trading.”
\nMacro trends, or meta trends, are broader trend categories that encompass multiple micro trends. Analyzing meta trends helps highlight opportunities to cross-reference micro trends and multiply your growth.
\nThe Exploding Topics dashboard includes a section for popular meta trends, where you can see some of these top-level trends.
\nClick View Analysis for more detailed information about a meta trend displayed in the dashboard, or View All Meta Trends to explore all the macro trends Exploding Topics has identified.
\nThe Meta Trends Library is divided by category to help you find relevant subjects. When you click on a meta trend, you’ll see a diagram of related micro trends.
\nThe inner ring closest to the meta trend are micro trends that are directly related to the meta trend, while the outer ring is made up of trends that are relevant to the meta trend, but don’t necessarily fall directly under it.
\nDetailed context about the significance of the meta trend and why it’s on the rise is provided under Background & Analysis, and if available, related meta trends are listed as well.
\n[list=topic number=5 category=business]
\nNow that we’ve concluded our tour of the Exploding Topics dashboard, I’ll show you a brief workflow for analyzing trends with Exploding Topics.
\nFirst, we need to find a promising topic. I’m going to use the Trends Database and search in the Technology category.
\nUsing the filters, I’ll look for topics experiencing regular growth over the past five years. These topics have sustained interest, but haven’t peaked yet. They’re also not exploding, which means they should be less competitive than other trends.
\nIf you have a specific topic in mind, you can use Exploding Topics’ Trend Analysis tool to gather data about it, even if it’s not in the Trends Database yet.
\nOnce I’ve selected a topic, the first thing I look at is the trend forecast. For this topic, Exploding Topics has projected it will peak a few months from now. That gives me time to take advantage of its current growth before interest starts declining.
\nNext, I can read a bit of background information about the topic to make sure it aligns with my niche.
\nThe channel breakdown is extremely helpful. This tells me that “Scrut Automation” is most popular on LinkedIn, so I’ll want to create some posts about it to share there. I can then allocate my remaining resources to other channels based on how much potential I think they have.
\nSince there’s no traction on TikTok, I’d want to weigh the potential of being an early advocate for the product on that platform against the risk of not finding any engagement there.
\nThe Key Indicators section verifies what I already knew about this topic being fairly reliable. The related topics listed give me some ideas for how to work this topic into a larger content strategy.
\nTaking all of this information together, I can determine:
\nThis was a short and simple example, but it gives you an idea of the kind of insights you can get from Exploding Topics to inform your own strategy.
\nThis guide has everything you need to get started with Exploding Topics. Once you get your feet under you, you can start learning how to level up your trend forecasting.
\nA feature I didn’t cover here is the Exploding Topics API, which gives you the power and flexibility to bring Exploding Topics data to you. Automate your content workflow, set up trend alerts, or even create detailed data visualization to help you understand your growth potential.
\nAll you need is an Exploding Topics Business Plan and the API add-on to start experimenting. Get access to current trend data that predicts consumer interest instead of reacting to it so you can be on the forefront of your industry’s growth curve.
","summary":"Exploding Topics enables you to spot and track trends to inform several aspects of your businesses. Product ideation, marketing strategy, and investment decisions all benefit when you back them with real user data from multiple channels. To keep all this valuable information at your fingertips, Exploding Topics provides a dashboard ...","seo_title":"How to Use Exploding Topics: A Quick Start Guide","meta_description":"Learn how to use the Exploding Topics dashboard to find the latest trending topics, products, and startups.","featured_image_alt":"How to Use Exploding Topics Blog Post Image","url":"https://explodingtopics.com/blog/how-to-use-et","featured_image":"https://cdn.buttercms.com/output=f:webp/ZyS4FNT2TuKXU1Cf21pI","author":{"bio":"Molly is a technical content writer with a passion for making technology easy for anyone to understand. She specializes in content strategy and implementing data-driven workflows that improve user experience. Molly holds an MFA in Creative Nonfiction from Northwestern University, and loves blending her creative writing background with her technical writing experience to craft narratives that inform and engage readers. In her spare time, she enjoys reading and spending time with her family, including their many, many pets.","slug":"molly-tyler","email":"molly.tyler496@gmail.com","title":"Writer","last_name":"Tyler","first_name":"Molly","facebook_url":"","linkedin_url":"https://www.linkedin.com/in/molly-tyler-writer/","instagram_url":"","pinterest_url":"","profile_image":"https://cdn.buttercms.com/oCdUgSWR3e8Fwq2zeMdX","twitter_handle":""},"tags":[],"categories":[{"name":"market-research","slug":"market-research"}]},{"status":"published","created":"2026-04-14T12:16:47.597252Z","updated":"2026-05-19T22:43:08.144951Z","published":"2026-04-14T12:15:59.203000Z","scheduled":null,"title":"E-commerce SEO in 2026: Grow Your Traffic Without Ads","slug":"e-commerce-seo","body":"Organic search can be a huge traffic driver to your store. And it can work for you day and night, whether or not you’re currently spending money on ads, creating content on social media, or sending emails.
\nOn average, organic search drives about one in three visits to E-commerce stores, according to Promodo. That’s 33% of overall traffic!
\nAnd although it takes some SEO work behind the scenes, that traffic doesn't stop the moment you stop spending on ads or posting on social media.
\nOrganic traffic, on the other hand, can compound. Pages that rank today can drive sales for a while without additional spend.
\nBut organic traffic doesn’t just come on its own. You’ll need a solid E-commerce SEO strategy—one that’s built for the way search works now, with AI Overviews and large language models (LLMs) answering searchers’ questions before you can.
\nIn this guide, I’ll cover creating a full E-commerce SEO strategy, including how to build and optimize the right page types and how to show up in both traditional and AI-powered search results.
\nPlus, I’ll include a bonus section on how to find products with growing search demand to kick off your whole SEO strategy a step ahead of the competition.
\nE-commerce SEO is not just a scaled-up version of standard SEO.
\nE-commerce SEO is the process of optimizing an online store to rank higher in search results and attract buyers without paying for clicks or impressions.
\nThe end goal is to get product pages, category pages, and supporting content in front of consumers who are actively looking for what you sell.
\nAn online store can have thousands of product pages, category variations, seasonal collections, and filtered navigation pages to optimize, so it usually needs a more expansive SEO plan than a typical website running standard SEO.
\nE-commerce sites also need to rank across multiple intent types simultaneously. Product pages target transactional queries from buyers who are ready to purchase. Category pages target broader browsing queries. Blog content targets informational queries from shoppers still in research mode. Each page type has different optimization requirements and a different role in moving someone from search to sale.
\nE-commerce SEO has three main foundations:
\nThis guide covers all three.
\nBut before we take a look at those, here’s how you can set yourself up for success before you even put your whole SEO strategy in place.
\n[list=product number=5]
\nOther E-commerce SEO guides start with optimizing your existing product pages. That's cool if your catalog is already set in stone.
\nBut if you want to give your SEO a head start, stock up-and-coming products that are just about to have their moment.
\nAlready do that? Great! Then you can use search trend data to decide which products to prioritize before investing in SEO.
\nIf you hop on a trend before it goes mainstream, you can build your topical authority and really dial in your technical and on-page SEO for that product or product category before your competitors even stock the product.
\nBut how do you find trending products to stock and optimize before they hit it big?
\nWith Exploding Topics, you can find products or product categories whose search interest is gaining momentum across search engines and social platforms.
\nMomentum equals opportunity.
\nExploding Topics has a dedicated Trending Products report that filters trend data specifically to emerging products.
\nTo find the best, most relevant trending products for your store:
\n![\"Exploding](\"https://cdn.buttercms.com/grKtprosTs2Q7tu7tamQ\")
![\"Exploding](\"https://cdn.buttercms.com/F1xZRfTeSu2DUBAK3fMr\")
Start your free trial of Exploding Topics Pro now.
\nOnce you know which products are worth prioritizing, the next step is making sure you're building the right pages to capture how people actually search for them.
\nKnowing which products to stock and work on optimizing first is only half the E-commerce SEO equation. The other half is building the right pages and the right content to capture each type of search query and topic your products generate.
\nStart by mapping intent.
\nTake one of your trending products, type it into a keyword research tool and get a feel for how people are searching for it. Queries like \"buy [product]\" or \"[product] price\" are transactional. Queries like \"how does [product] work\" or \"best [product] for [use case]\" are informational.
\nEach query type belongs on a different page, and assigning them correctly before you build out your content is incredibly important.
\nE-commerce stores need three distinct page types to cover the full range of how buyers search, and each one has to be optimized differently. Getting this wrong is one of the most common E-commerce SEO mistakes. If you don’t map out your plan beforehand, you may end up optimizing multiple pages for the same keyword or topic, causing them to cannibalize each other.
\nThat just means you’ve confused search engines and LLMs, so they don’t know which page or content is right to serve to searchers and end up avoiding your content altogether.
\nSo, keep your SEO work focused, not disjointed.
\n| Page Type | \nQuery Type | \nExample Query | \nFunnel Stage | \nSEO Focus | \nPrimary Goal | \n
| Category page | \nBroad, high-volume | \n\"men's trail running shoes\" | \nMid-funnel (browsing) | \nPrimary keyword in H1, title tag, and URL | \nCapture browsers comparing options | \n
| Product page | \nSpecific, transactional | \n\"Brooks Cascadia 18\" | \nBottom-funnel (buying) | \nProduct name, model, and variant keywords | \nConvert shoppers who have decided | \n
| Blog / buying guide | \nInformational | \n\"best trail running shoes for wide feet\" | \nTop-funnel (researching) | \nTopic coverage, internal links to category and product pages | \nIntroduce shoppers early and build topical authority | \n
The three page types you need to optimize separately are:
\nThe three page types work as a funnel. Blog content builds topical authority and captures early-stage visitors. Category pages are for mid-funnel browsers. Product pages bring in buyers. Internal links should connect all three tiers, flowing authority from content down to category pages and from category pages down to products.
\nAt least, that’s how funnels are designed to work. These days, traditional funnels have broken a bit with the fragmented way searchers now research and discover products online. So although it’s still incredibly important to optimize your pages in the way I described, know that you need a well-rounded strategy that includes SEO, content marketing, and PR to drive traffic.
\nAlso, make sure that you’re researching and targeting complete topics, not just one-off keywords.
\nFor a deeper look at how to build a research process around topics and intent rather than individual keywords, see Why Keyword Research Doesn't Work in 2026 (And What to Do Instead).
\nOne of the biggest mistakes people make with E-commerce SEO is not paying enough attention to keyword cannibalization.
\nCannibalization happens when two pages on the same site target the same keywords or topic and split the ranking signals that should be concentrated on one. One of the most common versions in E-commerce: a category page and a blog post both targeting the same broad topic.
\nThe fix for this is intent alignment before you build. Make category pages own transactional keywords, whereas blog content owns informational keywords. Map each topic to exactly one page type, and you’ll eliminate the overlap before it becomes a problem.
\n[cal:comp_keywords]
\nWith your page types mapped out, the next thing to think about is how those pages connect—and how Google navigates between them.
\nA thoughtfully organized site structure tells Google which pages matter the most and makes it easy for shoppers to move through your website from discovery to purchase.
\nThe standard E-commerce page hierarchy is typically homepage → category pages → subcategory pages → product pages, with each level reachable within a few clicks. Pages buried too deep can get a bit lost both to search engines and to customers, so keep your products from sinking too deep down the line.
\nFor the best possible E-commerce SEO, URLs should reflect your hierarchy and stay human-readable. A URL like yourstore.com/womens-boots/ankle-boots/chelsea-boot-brown tells both Google and the visitor exactly where they are. Parameter-heavy URLs like yourstore.com/product?id=4872&color=brown are harder to index and don't communicate anything useful.
Some websites use faceted navigation—filtering by size, color, or price, for example. This can generate large numbers of near-duplicate URLs that dilute your crawl budget and fragment ranking signals.
\nTo fix that issue, use canonical tags to point filtered variants back to the main category or product page, or apply a noindex tag to low-value filter combinations. The goal is to concentrate Google's crawl budget on pages that actually have ranking potential.
Internal linking is one of the most underleveraged tools in E-commerce SEO, and one of the easiest to improve without creating new content.
\nEvery internal link passes authority from one page to another. In an E-commerce context, that means blog content and high-authority category pages can actively strengthen the rankings of product pages simply by linking to them. Category pages should link to relevant subcategories and top products. Blog content should link to the category pages it's most closely related to. The flow of authority should always point toward the pages that drive transactions, but don’t discount interlinking blog posts and category pages, too.
\nAnchor text matters as well. Use descriptive, relevant anchor text that tells Google what the destination page is about. \"Women's waterproof hiking boots\" is more useful than \"click here\" or \"these boots.\" Vary the phrasing across different links pointing to the same page rather than repeating identical anchor text each time.
\nFor large E-commerce catalogs, it's worth periodically auditing for orphan pages—pages with no internal links pointing to them. Google relies on links to find and rank content, so orphaned pages rarely get found regardless of how well optimized they are on the page level. A tool like the Semrush Site Audit can find these quickly.
\nFor a full walkthrough of internal linking best practices, see our Internal Linking Guide.
\nOnce your site’s structure is solid, the next E-commerce SEO layer is optimizing the individual pages within it.
\nEach product and category page needs a unique title tag that leads with the primary keyword/topic and stays under 60 characters. Meta descriptions likely won't directly affect rankings, but they may influence click-through rate from the SERP, so write them for the shopper, not the algorithm.
\nProduct descriptions are also important, and they’re where many E-commerce stores lose ground. Copying manufacturer descriptions creates duplicate content across dozens of retailers, giving Google no reason to rank your version over anyone else's.
\nIf possible, write original descriptions that address how the product solves a specific problem, naturally incorporate target keywords, and answer the questions a shopper would ask before buying.
\nStructured data (specifically Product schema) is one of the highest-impact on-page investments an E-commerce store can make. Product schema enables rich results in Google SERPs showing price, availability, and review ratings directly in the search listing.
\nThese rich results increase click-through rates and, critically, make your product data readable by AI systems evaluating purchase-related queries. Review schema and Breadcrumb schema compound this effect across your catalog.
\nImage optimization matters more in E-commerce than in almost any other site type. Every product image should have descriptive alt text that includes the product name and relevant topical information. Compress images to minimize page load time without sacrificing quality, as slow-loading product pages lose both rankings and conversions.
\nStrong on-page optimization improves how individual pages rank. Content marketing, though, improves how the entire site ranks.
\nProduct pages and category pages alone won't build the kind of authority your store needs to show up in search results. Informational content (like buying guides, comparison posts, and how-to articles) does that work by establishing your store as a trusted source on topics related to what you sell.
\nThis is topical authority at work.
\nWhen you cover a subject area widely and with expertise, Google and LLMs start to recognize it as a reliable source and will hopefully start to surface your content consistently across that topic.
\nFor more on building a content strategy, check out our Free Content Strategy Template With Tools & Examples.
\nOne of the absolute best things you can do for your content strategy in the age of AI Overviews and increasing LLM usage is jumping on search trends and building authority before your competitors can catch up.
\nYou've already identified trending products in your niche using the Trending Products report in Exploding Topics. Now, use the Trend Analysis tool to surface the informational topics forming around those products.
\nThink questions people are starting to ask, related concepts gaining popularity, and trending use cases that haven't been covered extensively yet.
\nCreating content around these rising topics now means you're building authority in a less competitive environment. So by the time the topic reaches its highest traffic point, your content has more age, backlinks, and engagement signals than all the newer content that’s popping up.
\nRemember to build your internal links from your new trendjacking content. Every informational piece should link to the most relevant category page, routing the topical authority it builds toward the pages that drive transactions.
\nLearn how to use Exploding Topics to build early authority in What is Trendjacking? How to Use it in Your Marketing.
\nThat content foundation also sets you up for the fastest-changing part of E-commerce SEO right now: showing up in AI-powered search results.
\nThe most rapidly changing part of E-commerce SEO right now is what happens outside of the organic results.
\nGoogle’s AI Overviews, AI Mode, ChatGPT, and Perplexity now all surface product recommendations directly in chat responses, complete with pricing, ratings, and links to purchase. For E-commerce stores, this is a crazy cool opportunity for a meaningful new discovery channel, but it operates by different rules than traditional search.
\n[cal:aio]
\nHere are three things you can do right now to make sure your store and your products are visible in these new search environments.
\nThe E-commerce AI search visibility starting point is crawlability. AI search engines use their own bots, and these need to be permitted in your robots.txt file. If you're inadvertently blocking them, no amount of content optimization will help.
\nBeyond crawlability, structured data is the highest-impact technical investment you can make for AI visibility. I mentioned Product schema earlier, but you’ll also want to think about adding others like Offer schema, AggregateRating, and Review schema. These make your product data machine-readable in a way that plain text descriptions don't.
\nPrice, availability, return policy, and shipping details should all be marked up clearly and kept consistent across your product feeds, on-site schema, and page content. Inconsistencies between these can cause AI systems to display inaccurate information, which may cost you the sale.
\nAI shopping recommendations don't rely on web content alone. Semrush research found that ChatGPT's product recommendations align with top Google Shopping results around 75% of the time, which means keeping your Google Merchant Center feed accurate, complete, and up to date is as important as any on-page optimization.
\nI already touched on how AI search platforms actively cite product review articles, buying guides, and comparison content when answering shopping-related queries. So keep going on that!
\nAlso, product descriptions and buying guides should be written in direct, specific language that addresses particular use cases, audience needs, and product attributes. AI systems match products to queries by reading feature labels and intent signals from your content, so clearly answer what a product does, who it's for, and why it's the right choice for a specific need.
\nReviews and user-generated content are important, too. Ratings appear prominently in AI product carousels. Products with poor ratings or thin review coverage are unlikely to be featured, regardless of how well optimized the product page is.
\nFor a full breakdown of how to optimize your E-commerce store for AI shopping features, see How to Optimize Your E-commerce Store for AI Search.
\nIf you'd like to dive deeper into the data on how AI is impacting online shopping habits, we at Exploding Topics conducted a study and compiled the data for you.
\nRead more: New data: 77% use AI to shop. Nearly 1 in 3 won't let it spend. (Exploding Topics original research, 2026)
\nOnce you've got all of this in place, the last piece is knowing how to tell whether it's actually working.
\nBuilding a full-featured E-commerce SEO framework takes real investment, so you’ll want to track the right signals to figure out if it’s actually working or not.
\nTracking E-commerce SEO performance starts with Google Search Console, which shows which queries are driving impressions and clicks to which pages. Monitor category pages, product pages, and blog content separately, since they serve different stages of the buyer journey and have different success metrics.
\nOrganic revenue and assisted conversions in your analytics platform help you figure out whether your visibility is translating to sales, not just traffic. Keep in mind, though, that this attribution can be tricky to measure. Today’s customers often have multiple different interactions with your brand through multiple different channels before converting.
\nCore Web Vitals scores, crawl coverage, and index status are also important metrics to keep an eye on. Google Search Console surfaces these directly, and addressing issues as they appear is more effective than treating technical SEO as a one-time audit.
\nFor visibility tracking and competitive benchmarking beyond what Search Console provides, Semrush One gives you the full picture of traditional rankings together with AI visibility.
\nThe real key to E-commerce SEO is consistency. Treat it as an ongoing priority to build up and keep both organic and AI visibility as high as possible.
","summary":"Organic search can be a huge traffic driver to your store. And it can work for you day and night, whether or not you’re currently spending money on ads, creating content on social media, or sending emails. On average, organic search drives about one in three visits to E-commerce stores, ...","seo_title":"E-commerce SEO in 2026: Grow Your Traffic Without Ads","meta_description":"A complete E-commerce SEO guide covering product research, page structure, on-page optimization, technical SEO, and AI search visibility for online stores.","featured_image_alt":"E-commerce SEO Blog Post Image","url":"https://explodingtopics.com/blog/e-commerce-seo","featured_image":"https://cdn.buttercms.com/output=f:webp/HfiP5LtFTYmwkIH6zhd7","author":{"bio":"Jolissa Skow is a senior content writer and content strategist with a background in SEO, Google Analytics, and WordPress. She's been published on Search Engine Land, G2, UpCity, Salesforce, and more, and her Google Analytics tutorials have been shared by Google on their social media platforms. She loves to read and runs a book blog in her spare time. She currently lives in Minneapolis, where you'll find her zipping around on her pedal-assist electric bike.","slug":"jolissa-skow","email":"jolissa.skow@gmail.com","title":"Senior Content Writer","last_name":"Skow","first_name":"Jolissa","facebook_url":"","linkedin_url":"https://www.linkedin.com/in/jolissa-skow/","instagram_url":"","pinterest_url":"","profile_image":"https://cdn.buttercms.com/GYZYCKikRmeIz8F6odMV","twitter_handle":""},"tags":[],"categories":[{"name":"seo","slug":"seo"}]}]}![\"Related](\"https://cdn.buttercms.com/dsIq0c70R56oBrzmzRwU\")
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