Optimizing for "Hot Keywords of the Day" – A Contrarian View

Here is a contrarian view on writing articles based on “hot keywords of the day”:
I believe in making our articles 100% Search Engine Optimized to get the maximum attention of the search engine bots. That’s a must. There is no question about that.
But I still cannot reconcile myself to start writing articles on the basis of the “hot keyword of the day.”
To me the best way to write articles is to start from what I know; what I’m passionate about; the things that I really care about. The problem is, the topics that fire me up are not infinite in number. There are perhaps 4 or 5 topics that I really care for and spent long years learning them and discovering them. When I write about those subject matters, people can usually tell the difference and they even sometimes write me back thanking me for the content. But when I tried writing in the past on other issues just because a “hot keyword” suggested that I should write about them, I got some traction (following) but then I didn’t know what to do with all that attention since it really wasn’t my field of specialization at all. Getting the traffic is one thing; monetizing it is another…
For example, one day, after discovering that “hair style” and “hair care” was a hot evergreen keyword, I sat down and wrote an article on “hot hair styles” and then posted it on a high-traffic article marketing web site just to see what would happen… Well, the expected did happen! All of a sudden there were hundreds of people reading the article. Two years after I wrote it, it still is one of the most frequently read articles on that web site.
But the next question is — what did I do with all that traffic?
Answer: NOTHING.
Why? Because I’m not a hair stylist. Actually I know very little about hair care. I do not sell any hair products or any hair-related service. So really I have nothing to offer in that arena. And I certainly wasn’t going to start a hair products business either just because my article got some high traffic. That’s why all that effort was just wasted. I could not follow up my article by offering a commensurate product or service without changing my lifestyle or my interests. It just wasn’t me. Period.
That’s why I quit writing on the basis of keywords and started to write about things that genuinely interested me; about things that I could follow up by products and services that were in line with the topic of my articles. That made more sense to me and still does today, despite my awareness that writing according to the “keyword of the day” is still something that a majority of article writing gurus recommend to their students.
Additional thoughts… I of course realize that one can use such hot-keyword driven articles to sell OTHER peoples’ products and services as their AFFILIATE. I believe that’s a totally different line of business, the affiliation business… I think that requires more of a MARKETER approach and identity than a WRITER and EXPERT identity. Since I first of all see myself as a WRITER and an EXPERT I do not feel comfortable with marketing things that has nothing to do with my main area of expertise.
When I do assume the role of an affiliate marketer it is always with offers that are very close to my core area. For example, I have no problems with marketing BOOKS written about technical, medical or hi-tech writing; books that I myself have purchased and read first, and liked. That way I can stand behind the product that I recommend my readers to buy. I can continue to be authentic, relevant and consistent. But I can never in all honesty ask my readers to buy an affiliate hair product (for example) that I do not use myself just because I happened to write a hot article on a hot keyword. That just simply isn’t me.