Use the Top Searches to ID what’s Soon to Be Hot

"If you want to see how a society thinks, look at what it searches for."

—George Bernard Shaw


Allow me to slightly rewrite Shaw’s wise counsel: “If you want to know what a society is thinking about, look at what it searches for.”

As writers of nonfiction books, magazine articles—even novels—it behooves us to be on top of whatever is about to break into the collective consciousness. In other words, to be able to predict what a majority—or at least a large segment—of us are going to be interested in next week, next month, or next year.

Easier said than done
I don’t know about the rest of you, but it seems to me that, by the time I notice a trend exists, it’s already fading.

So how do you figure out what will be hot and thus what you should be pitching to editors? Check out the "Top Searches" lists supplied for free by the many Internet search engines. Most of them keep the lists updated, and archives of past lists are even available.

Check out more than one list. The searched-for items that appear on each list are undoubtedly what people are interested in at the moment and these subjects may be old news by the time you do your research and write about them, so look for subjects that are just beginning to show up here and there on these lists. Editors love fresh and new.

I was going to include a list of search engines with links to their locations for you, but Wendy Boswell’s article on About.com “How to Find the Top Searches on the Web” does a superb job of it and saves me the time. Thanks Wendy.

By the way, George Bernard Shaw is the only person to have been awarded both the Noble Prize for Literature and an Oscar.

Merry Christmas.