This just came across my desk today. PicNiche, the Online Stock Photo Market Analysis website just posted this on their blog. When you click on the link below you will see a list of the 1000 most frequently searched stock photography terms. Let’s give them a big fat thank you for publishing this great list.
Click here to get to the article.
Why is this relevant to any photographer? There are actually several reasons:
- Metadata standards are evolving and it is recommended that keywords are embedded in the image.
- It is vital to your success to know what the search terminology is. For example are buyers looking more often for woman, women or female?
- If you know what buyers search for you may actually want to produce more of that (but you knew that).
This kind of information is for sure very important but hopefully will not be abused. While its great to know what concepts or image types people are searching for, this can lead to people keyword spamming their image metadata in the hopes they come up in more search results. That is a lose lose for both agency and photography. Thanks for sharing.
I agree with the first poster. I wouldn’t focus on making sure the top keywords are describing your photography unless they’re appropriate. I would think of this more as a a tuning guide rather than a source. I would focus more on building your photographic brand. Become known for a certain style or genre. This is what will increase your sales, not trying to surf the most popular keywords.