How to Make $200 Per Day With Google Trends and Trending Topics

What if a celebrity couple you never thought about could actually put money in your bank account? That is not a stretch. When Travis Kelce and Taylor Swift became the story everyone could not stop talking about in 2023, a group of smart sellers and creators used that exact attention to earn real money on Etsy, YouTube, TikTok, and through affiliate programs. Alston stumbled onto this himself when three videos he made about the couple pulled in over 5,000 views from an audience he never would have reached through his normal content.

The lesson here is not about Taylor Swift. It is about understanding that Google Trends surfaces opportunities like this every single month, and the people who move first are the ones who make the money. This post breaks down exactly how to spot these moments, what to do with them, and where the actual dollars come from.

What You’ll Walk Out With

How to use Google Trends to find rising topics before they peak
The Swift and Kelce case study: 19 million searches total, 1 million per month, and what those numbers mean for sellers
Three concrete monetization paths for trending traffic: affiliate marketing, print on demand, and content creation
How to cross-check Google Trends data against Etsy buyer demand before you invest any time
What the Alabama brawl and Britney Spears Playbook have in common with Taylor Swift as income opportunities
A step-by-step workflow for turning any trending moment into a product or piece of content within 24 hours
Not sure which income method fits your skills? Start at finder.platformproof.com to find your match.

Why Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce Are a Case Study, Not Just Celebrity Gossip

In late 2023, when Taylor Swift started showing up at Kansas City Chiefs games to support Travis Kelce, the internet went into overdrive. What was surprising was how quickly everyday creators and sellers turned that cultural moment into actual revenue.

On TikTok alone, a simple video of Taylor Swift looking excited at a game pulled 4.3 million views. A keyword research tool called HR showed that the two terms “Kelce” and “Swift” were being searched over 19 million times in total, with more than 1 million searches per month. Google Trends showed roughly 20,000 daily searches just for the phrase “Swift and Kelce.”

Alston noticed this while putting together content for his YouTube Master Class. He had made three videos about the couple almost by accident, and one of them topped 5,000 views. For a niche channel built around making money online, reaching an audience searching for celebrity content was a clear signal worth studying.

The point is not “make videos about celebrities forever.” The point is that this level of search volume appears around a new topic almost every month. The window for the Swift and Kelce opportunity was not there six months before it blew up. Three months before the peak, only a handful of people were paying attention. By the time the whole internet was talking about it, the smartest sellers had already set up shop and were collecting the traffic.

Six months ago nobody was talking about this. Three months ago a few people noticed. Last month everybody was talking about it. That is the cycle you want to learn to see early.

Google Trends: The Free Research Tool Hiding in Plain Sight

Google Trends is a free tool that shows you what people are actually searching for in near real-time. If you have never used it for anything business-related, you are leaving a significant research advantage on the table.

When Alston pulled it up during the night the NBA season started, he saw a spike forming in real-time. That kind of timing matters. The creators and sellers who moved within the first 24 to 48 hours of a trend catching fire are the ones who show up at the top of search results, Etsy listings, and TikTok feeds before the market gets crowded.

Here is how the research flow works in practice. Open Google Trends and look at what is spiking today, not what was trending last week. Trending searches show you the velocity of interest, not just the raw volume. A search term that has gone from 500 monthly searches to 50,000 in the past two weeks is far more useful to you than a stable keyword that gets 100,000 searches every month. You want the wave forming underneath you, not the wave that has already crested and is falling back down.

Once you find a topic that is climbing, the next question is whether there is actual buying intent behind it. That is where Etsy becomes a critical cross-check, and it costs you nothing to use it this way.

Using Etsy as a Demand Signal (Not Just a Marketplace)

Google Trends tells you people are searching. Etsy tells you people are buying. If you type a trending keyword into Etsy’s search bar and find multiple listings with real sales, recent reviews, and bestseller tags, you have confirmed that real money is already changing hands. That changes everything about whether to invest your time.

Alston checked Etsy for Swift and Kelce products during the video. What he found was significant: someone had a listing tagged “Swift 887” (Kelce’s jersey number) showing as a bestseller. PNG files of Swift and Kelce imagery were selling for $20 each. One listing for a “Chief Swifty Era PNG” was priced at $349. An instant download image was listed for $22.60 and showing real buyers.

PNG files are not complicated products. A PNG is a basic image file. Someone with access to Canva or any basic design tool can create one in an afternoon. The actual skill being rewarded here is not design talent; it is recognizing which trend to act on and moving before everyone else does. The buyers doing the purchasing are not looking for fine art. They are looking for a quick download that captures the cultural moment they are excited about right now.

The same search and cross-check approach works for almost any trending topic. When Alston typed “Britney Spears Playbook” into Etsy, he was testing whether people were not just searching but also spending. If Etsy shows active listings with sales, demand is real. If Etsy shows nothing or only low-quality listings with no reviews, the search volume might be curiosity-driven but not purchase-driven. That distinction tells you whether to invest time creating a product or move on to the next trend.

Three Ways to Monetize a Trending Topic

Once you have confirmed that a trending topic has both search volume on Google Trends and buying intent on Etsy, you have several different ways to move on it. Each one fits a different skill set, so pick the one that matches what you already know how to do rather than trying to learn something brand new under time pressure.

Affiliate Marketing Through Niche Program Alignment

If a trending topic connects to a product category, check whether there is an affiliate program you can tie it to. With Swift and Kelce, Alston pointed directly to the NFL Shop affiliate program. Taylor Swift’s fans were buying Chiefs merchandise at an extraordinary rate because of the relationship. If you had content pointing Swift fans toward Chiefs gear through an affiliate link, you would earn a commission every time someone clicked through and purchased.

The logic is simple. Taylor Swift’s fan base is one of the most commercially active in music history. When she shows up wearing something or rooting for a team, her fans follow. That is not an assumption; it is a documented buying pattern. Aligning affiliate content with what her fans are already going to buy is matching supply to demand that exists with or without you.

This affiliate approach works for any trending celebrity, event, or cultural moment that touches a product category. The NBA season starting? Sports equipment affiliate programs. A viral cooking trend? Kitchen tool affiliates. A new movie release? Official merchandise affiliate programs. The skill you are building is pattern recognition: spot the trend, find the product connection, and link them through content you create and publish.

Print on Demand Products on Etsy and Other Platforms

Print on demand lets you create products without holding inventory. You design the item; a fulfillment company prints and ships it when someone orders. For trending cultural moments, POD sweatshirts, tote bags, phone cases, and mugs are common high-sellers.

The Swift and Kelce moment generated enormous demand for Chiefs-branded merchandise with Taylor Swift crossover imagery. Alston saw these items actively selling on Etsy. But he also flagged an important risk: trademark infringement. Some of what was being sold on Etsy included NFL logo imagery and official team marks, which can expose you to listing takedowns or worse.

The safer approach is to design around the moment rather than around the protected marks. Fan art, cultural puns, original imagery inspired by the trend, and designs that capture the feeling of the moment without reproducing official logos are generally much cleaner from a legal standpoint. Trademark law is nuanced and varies by jurisdiction, so do your own research before selling at scale. But the opportunity to create original fan-inspired designs is real and meaningful.

YouTube and Social Media Content Creation

Content creation is the slowest path to cash but the one with the most long-term potential. Alston made three videos about the Swift and Kelce story, and one hit 5,000 views. For a channel focused on making money online, that is traffic from an audience he never would have reached through his regular content topics alone.

The strategy here is to connect the trending topic to your existing niche, not to abandon your niche for celebrity coverage. Alston did not become a Taylor Swift channel. He made a video about how to make money using the Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce trend. That framing kept the content relevant to his existing audience while pulling in new viewers who found it while searching for the celebrity topic.

TikTok showed the same dynamic playing out. A simple video of Swift looking excited at a game got 4.3 million views. If you were already in sports commentary, NFL merchandise, or celebrity fashion, a single well-timed piece of content could put your account in front of millions of people who had never seen your name before that moment.

Not sure which of these three methods fits your skills and situation?

Take the free quiz at finder.platformproof.com to find the income path that matches what you already know how to do.

The Alabama Brawl: Proof This Is a Repeatable System

The Swift and Kelce example might feel like a one-off because of how enormous both names are. But the same dynamic plays out with smaller cultural moments all the time. Alston pointed to the Alabama brawl as a concrete proof point.

A few months before this video, a brawl broke out in Alabama and went viral on social media. A specific detail became the cultural shorthand for the whole incident: the metal folding chairs. People made memes about the chairs. The chairs became a reference point that the whole internet recognized. And if you had created a print on demand design around that moment at the right time, you would have found real buyers on Etsy before the story faded.

Alston searched for metal chair products on Etsy while making this video and found sellers who had already done exactly that. They moved fast, created a simple product, and collected the wave of traffic before it dissipated. That is the system in its simplest form: spot the trend, confirm buying intent, create the product or content, publish it before the peak passes.

This pattern repeats every month without fail. New stories break through constantly. Not every trend will have the commercial scale of Swift and Kelce, but you do not need that level of attention to make meaningful income from this approach. A trending moment that generates 50,000 searches and has ten active Etsy sellers doing real volume can still be a worthwhile opportunity for someone who moves early and creates something genuinely useful or well-designed.

Building the Trend-Monitoring Habit

The biggest obstacle to this strategy is not skill. It is timing. Most people hear about trends after they have already peaked. By then the Etsy market is crowded, YouTube results are full of established creators who moved first, and the TikTok window has closed. Getting ahead of the wave requires checking consistently, not just occasionally when you feel like it.

Alston’s recommendation is to check Google Trends frequently, ideally daily or at least a few times per week. You are looking for two things: what is trending nationally right now, and what is rising fast from a low baseline. The first category includes obvious big stories that everyone will write about. The second category is where you find the opportunities before everyone else does, because the mainstream coverage has not started yet and the search volume is growing ahead of the noise.

Cross-reference what you find on Google Trends with Etsy to check buying intent. If the trend shows up on Etsy with active listings, also check YouTube to see whether anyone has made content about it yet. If search volume is high but YouTube results are thin or low-quality, that is a green light for content creation. If Etsy shows demand but product listings are generic or poorly designed, that is a green light for a better POD product that will stand out simply by being more thoughtful than what is already there.

You do not need to chase every trend. The goal is to catch one or two good opportunities per month and execute on them quickly rather than chasing everything and executing on nothing. A single well-timed Etsy listing or YouTube video can continue generating income for weeks or months after the initial surge fades, because some of the search traffic becomes semi-permanent as the topic settles into cultural memory.

Honest Drawbacks

This strategy is real and it works, but it has limits worth being honest about before you invest significant time chasing it.

Timing is everything and mistakes are costly. If you move too late, the opportunity is gone. If you create a product based on a trend that fades in three days, your product sits unsold. Unlike evergreen content or products that answer questions people have every year, trend-based work has a hard shelf life. Some moments last weeks and generate sustained income; others are dead in 72 hours. You cannot always tell in advance which category you are dealing with.

Trademark and copyright risk is real. Alston specifically called out that some of what he saw listed on Etsy was likely trademark infringement. Selling products with NFL logos, official team names, or celebrity likenesses without a license puts you in genuinely risky territory. The $349 Chiefs Swifty listing might make money for a few weeks before Etsy flags and removes it. Build your trend strategy around designs and content you actually own the rights to use.

Traffic does not automatically mean income. Getting in front of Swift and Kelce search traffic is the first step, not the last. You still need a product, an offer, and a way to capture the transaction. Views and clicks are inputs; revenue is the output. The connection between the two requires a functional monetization path that is already set up and ready to go before the traffic arrives.

Not every trending topic will fit your niche. If you are building a long-term brand, you cannot just post about whatever went viral today regardless of whether it connects to what you do. Alston made Swift and Kelce content because he could angle it toward his existing audience around making money online. If your channel covers personal finance or fitness, not every trending cultural moment will be a natural fit. Forced connections can confuse your audience and hurt your brand more than random trending content helps your numbers.

A 24-Hour Action Plan for Acting on a Trend

If you find a trending topic that checks out on Google Trends and Etsy, here is a straightforward sequence for moving on it fast without overthinking the process.

Confirm the trend is rising, not peaking. Look at the Google Trends graph. Is the line going up or coming down? If it peaked two days ago, you may be too late for content but could still catch Etsy demand for a few more days depending on the topic.
Check Etsy for buying intent. Type the keyword into Etsy’s search. Are there active listings? Are any showing recent reviews or bestseller tags? This tells you money is already changing hands on this topic, which matters more than the Google search volume alone.
Check YouTube for content gaps. Search the topic on YouTube. If the top results are from small channels or the existing content is thin and low-quality, there is room to enter and rank. If major channels have already saturated the topic with polished videos, content creation may not be the best use of your time in this particular window.
Choose your method based on your existing skills. Decide whether you are creating content, a POD product, or affiliate content. Pick one and move on it today, not next weekend. The window shrinks every 24 hours the trend is out in the world without your participation.
Publish and give it an initial push. Get the listing or video live. Share it to your social channels to create the early engagement signal the algorithm uses to decide whether to show your content to more people organically.
Track what happens and document it. Did the video get views in the first 48 hours? Did the Etsy listing get clicks? Save your data so you can recognize faster which trends have real commercial potential and which ones look bigger than they are from the outside.

Find Your X

The trend-riding strategy works best when you already have a clear income path and you are using trending traffic to accelerate it. If you are still figuring out whether affiliate marketing, print on demand, content creation, or something else is the right fit for your skills and schedule, the free quiz at finder.platformproof.com will help you find your match and give you a place to start that is built around what you already know how to do.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is Google Trends and how do I use it to find money-making opportunities?

Google Trends is a free tool from Google that shows you what people are searching for in near real-time and over time. You can type any keyword and see its search volume history, where searches are coming from geographically, and related rising queries. To use it for income, look for topics that are spiking rapidly and cross-check them against Etsy or YouTube to see whether buyers or viewers are already moving on that interest before you invest significant time creating a product or piece of content.

Do I need a large social media following to make money from trending topics?

No. Etsy listings do not require any following because they rely on search traffic from buyers already on the platform looking for something specific. YouTube content can find new viewers through search even if your channel is small, especially when a topic is trending and the existing content on that topic is thin. The advantage of trends is that the audience is already actively searching, so you do not have to build an audience from scratch first; you have to show up in the right place at the right time with something worth clicking on.

How much money can someone realistically make from a single trending moment?

It varies enormously depending on the size of the trend, how early you move, and what you sell. PNG files in the Swift and Kelce niche were priced from $20 to $349 per listing. An instant download at $22.60 is a volume play; a $349 listing is a bet on premium buyers who want something more distinctive. Alston’s YouTube video on the topic hit 5,000 views, which generates YouTube ad revenue based on your specific CPM rate and audience location. There is no single number that applies to every creator or seller; the outcome depends on execution, timing, and the actual commercial scale of the specific trend you are acting on.

Is it legal to sell print on demand products featuring celebrities or sports teams?

This is genuinely complicated and the honest answer is: it depends on what specifically you are creating. Selling original fan art is generally treated differently than reproducing licensed trademarks or official imagery. Using someone’s name or likeness on a product can implicate right of publicity laws, which vary by state and country. Using official NFL team logos or marks without a license is clear trademark infringement. Alston specifically flagged some of the Etsy listings he saw as likely infringement. The safer approach is to design around the cultural moment rather than copying protected marks, and to consult your own legal resources before selling at any meaningful scale.

How do I connect a trending topic to my existing niche if they seem completely different?

Look for an angle that genuinely bridges the trend to what you already cover. If you are in affiliate marketing, ask which products people excited about this trend are already buying and find an affiliate program for those products. If you cover personal finance, consider whether the trend has a financial angle, like how much celebrity endorsements shift consumer spending patterns. Alston made Swift and Kelce content because he could frame it as a concrete money-making opportunity, which fit naturally with his existing audience. Forced connections that feel like a reach tend to confuse your core audience more than the new traffic is worth.

What tools do I need beyond Google Trends to run this strategy?

The core research tools are Google Trends for trend identification, Etsy’s search bar for buying intent confirmation, YouTube search for content gap analysis, and TikTok search for social proof and view velocity. For keyword research at a deeper level, Alston mentioned a tool called HR. For design work on POD products or PNG files, Canva is the most accessible starting point and has a free tier. You do not need paid subscriptions to begin. The research workflow described here can be done entirely with free tools available right now.

How often do genuinely good trending opportunities actually come up?

Alston’s observation from running this strategy is that a new high-opportunity trending topic surfaces roughly every month. Some months produce one major cultural moment with strong commercial potential; others produce several smaller ones. Not every trend will fit your niche or have real buying intent behind it, so you will realistically pass on most of what you see and act on only a few per year. The value of checking Google Trends regularly is that you see the opportunities early enough to act on the ones that are worth pursuing, rather than finding out about them after the fact from mainstream media coverage when the window has already closed.

What if I miss the peak of a trend and find out about it late?

Sometimes acting after the initial peak still generates real returns, especially if the topic enters longer-term cultural memory rather than fading completely. Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce did not just trend for a single week. The story continued evolving for months and became a recurring reference point. YouTube content created after the initial peak can still rank for ongoing searches as the story develops new chapters. On Etsy, if existing sellers have rushed designs or limited selection, a better product can still find buyers even after the first frenzy passes. That said, for fast-burning moments like the Alabama brawl, missing the first 48 hours usually means missing most of the meaningful opportunity.

Sources

Google Trends: trends.google.com
Etsy: etsy.com
NFL Shop Affiliate Program: nflshop.com
HR Keyword Research Tool (keyword research platform referenced in video)
Platform Proof YouTube Channel: youtube.com/@AlstonGodbolt

Helping 1 million working adults make their first $3,000 online with the skills they already have. Alston Godbolt, Platform Proof.