Google doesn't say "what is hot" in their eyes. Pretty much provide good original content, target your keywords, have your keywords in your domain and use them in your H1 tags.
There are scripts that show google bots different things that what the user sees that can help your
seo but its a grey area and could get a google slap for it or de-indexed all together.
A good plug-in if you plan to use wordpress is All-In-One-
SEO. You can edit your links to be
seo friendly and
here are a list to the plug-ins that are worth you time.