What Is Predictive SEO?

Search engine optimization (SEO) can be tricky. With so many companies already dominating the search engine results pages (SERPs) for the most popular keywords, it can be difficult for new content to rank in one of those coveted top spots.

Unless you can tap into certain keywords before they become popular, that is.

With predictive SEO, you can create content for future trending topics in your niche and rank on the SERPs before your competitors get the chance.

Read on to learn more about predictive SEO, why you should use it, and some best practices to incorporate it into your content marketing strategy.

Key Takeaways (TL;DR)

• Predictive SEO uses past data to predict future trending search queries.
• It enables you to plan your content calendar, allocate resources efficiently, monitor algorithm changes, and gain a competitive edge.
• To get started with predictive SEO, analyze past data with Google Analytics, use it to plan future content, and employ tools like Google Trends to determine when to post for best results.
• Though it can help with data analytics, be cautious when using AI for content creation.

What Is Predictive SEO? A Definition

Predictive SEO is a process that uses past data and analytics to predict what people may search for in the future. 

A 2024 Forbes article defined predictive analytics for SEO as a way to “anticipate future changes to search engine algorithms, find keywords that are starting to trend and predict traffic based on changes in search behavior.” 

Essentially, predictive SEO helps marketers prepare for upcoming trends or search engine changes, as well as identify opportunities to improve traffic based on search patterns, making it an excellent way for marketers to optimize content and get ahead of the competition.

One of the foundational aspects of predictive SEO is historical data. Historical search data can offer insights into what readers, clients, or customers are likely to search for in the future, whether that’s based on trends or even seasonality (think holiday shopping for e-commerce).

This enables content marketers to create or optimize content about particular topics and start ranking on the SERPs before the topic becomes popular.

Example: Applying predictive SEO to content marketing for a record company:

• When you review past analytics or historical data, you find blog posts about millennial-era artists are starting to trend higher than topics about artists from other eras. 
• This data enables you to predict that more posts about millennial artists will increase traffic to your site.
• As a result, you decide to focus future content creation on them.

Why Use Predictive SEO?

A better question here may be why wouldn’t you use predictive SEO? Sure, it adds another step to the content creation process, but there are several advantages to anticipating consumer demand and providing them with information before they need it.

With predictive SEO, you can:

• Strategically fill out your content calendar.
  • Take the previous example of a record company: 
  • Based on past search behaviour, you find that posts about heavy metal artists typically boost traffic around Halloween.
  • So, you prioritize planning heavy metal content months before October.
• Put your time, money, and effort where you need it most.
  • Again, consider the record company example:
  • Are posts on pop music gaining traffic? 
  • Does data suggest that a particular pop artist is rising in popularity? 
  • If so, it may be worth allocating more resources to this topic.
• Anticipate and adjust to algorithm changes.
  • By adjusting to Google algorithm updates before they happen, you can monitor the effects on SERP rankings.
• Stay ahead of the competition.
  • Many content marketers only react to the latest trends. 
  • Predictive SEO enables a more proactive approach to SEO that can help you gain a competitive edge.

Now, let’s get into some best practices for working it into your content strategy.

How to Implement Predictive SEO Into a Content Marketing Strategy

To get started with predictive SEO, try these best practices:

Look into past data on your website

To predict the future, you need to first look into the past. Tools like Google Analytics can be helpful here, as it offers insights into how users interact with your website.

With Google Analytics, you can:

• Check out visitor demographics.
• See how users interact with your site.
• Analyze which channels drive the most traffic.

You can then use these insights to make more data-driven decisions about where to direct your SEO efforts for the best results. 

Example: Let’s say you analyze your content and find that blog posts with infographics tend to drive the most conversions. To optimize your content strategy, you can then analyze and use this information to determine the correlation between infographics and conversions.

Plan future content

Of course, creating quality, people-first content is key to any successful SEO strategy. Instead of creating content in reaction to what’s trending, though, the goal here is to take a proactive approach and analyze historical data to see what keywords people may be searching for in the future.

Fortunately, you don’t need to do this all by hand. AI content marketing tools can help streamline the keyword research process.

Predictive AI tools enable you to:

• Analyze a ton of historical search data quickly.
• Find keywords that are rising in popularity before they become overly competitive.
• Identify trends that may cause certain keywords to become popular in the future.

By incorporating emerging trends and keywords into your content early on and optimizing it using a content optimizer, you put it in a great position to climb the SERPs when they start gaining traction.

Now, it’s important to note that while AI can be great for finding effective keywords for your content, you should use caution if you plan to use it for content creation. 

Google may penalize websites with AI-generated content if it seems unhelpful or doesn’t comply with spam policies. If you’re unsure of how much AI content is on a site, perform a site scan to identify potential instances of AI-generated content.

Pinpoint when to post content

When it comes to predictive SEO, timing is everything. AI may give you some insights into future keyword trends, but you need to post them when they’re actually trending to see results. Google Trends is an excellent tool for this, as it gives you real-time insights into what people are searching for online.

With Google Trends, you can:

• Track emerging topics and keywords.
• Identify seasonal trends and patterns.
• See how people search for your competitors and identify gaps in your strategy.

Example: Now, let’s go back to our record company. 

• You’ve gone through past data and figured out that blog posts with infographics drive the most conversions and that the keyword “heavy metal records” usually trends around Halloween. 
• You can now use Google Trends to find the best time to publish that content.
• When you look at the historical data, you may notice that demand peaks around mid-October and starts to drop off after the end of the month. 
• So, you decide mid-October is the best time to publish this content.

Get Ahead of the Competition With Predictive SEO

Many content marketers take a reactive rather than a proactive approach to SEO. 

By predicting the keywords and topics your audience will search for in the future, you can create and optimize content to rank on the SERPs before they become popular. While your competitors rush to catch up with trends, you’ll be one step ahead.

So, why not get started with predictive SEO today? It could be just what you need to gain that competitive edge you’ve been looking for.