Let’s pretend you’re a dentist. Or pretend you’re the webmaster for a dentist. And you know you need to build some good content on your web site, preferably content that both describes your business and matches what people search for. Don’t you think it would be valuable to know that these are the Top 10 dental-related searches on Yahoo in a recent week?

That list comes from Yahoo! Buzzlog. It’s the blog associated with Yahoo Buzz, a service that tracks search trends on Yahoo. Since it’s a blog, the value of the content is hit-and-miss, but at times could be incredibly valuable to a small business. If you’re a costume retailer, for example, you might like to see the Top 20 “baby costume” searches on Yahoo in a recent week.

Maybe your small business is actually a new blog you hope to monetize. Okay, so you might be interested in the Top 20 “checklist” searches from a recent week, or the Top 20 “how to” searches. If that blog covers the TV industry, the Top 20 most-searched network programs would be great to know … or if it’s a sports blog you want to turn into a small business, a list of all 32 NFL teams ranked by search interest would help you decide who to cover most.

When I began at my current job almost a year ago, someone in the office asked if I used the Yahoo! Buzzlog for keyword research. Well, no … I don’t. We had a little discussion about keyword research for SEO purposes, and I stuck to my belief that tools like Keyword Discovery, Wordtracker, etc., were the things we should be using, and that Yahoo Buzzlog had no benefit at all to an SEO project.

I still stand by that, at least where traditional keyword research is concerned. But I’ve also come to the realization that Yahoo Buzzlog is something search marketers should be reading. And I think anyone who generates content should be keeping an even closer eye on it. After all, the first step in search marketing is knowing what people are searching for.