Keywords. Who to trust.

[A_Fotografy]

Hello,

I'm baby and family photographer. I have done my keyword research. Used Keyword tool. According to the research tool it says that highest local search traffic for baby market would be keywords like cute babies, baby pictures.

I asked many of my clients what they would enter in search box if they were to look for baby photographer. Pretty much everyone has said that there would be some form of photographer word in search term with baby word. So like baby photographer, photographers, baby photo studio etc. Unfortunately these type of terms are under 10 searches per month.

I have only two relevant pages to target these baby keywords. I'm really wondering who actually uses terms like cute babies, baby pictures. I have a feeling that those searches are made by like photo agencies, newspapers, stock libraries etc. I don't think mum who looks for photographer is suing these search terms.

When you do your research, do you take in account metrics or go by more human element and try to look at it from clients perspective. What they would be searching for?

Thank you guys,

Just don't want to mess up with this and make sure I do the right thing.

[A_Fotografy]

Google suggest. I forgot about it. Thanks for reminder. Will have a look at that too.

Thanks,

A

[A_Fotografy]

Thank you Dmitrii. Yes I noticed that same keywords were also really high in search volumes nationally and same locally too.

I think I will have look into google suggest option. That could be interesting too.

Thanks,

A

[Fuel]

Hello There,

We tend to use a combination of both search engine research and market research - the human element.

There are plenty of articles available that discuss the inaccuracies and caveats of the Google keyword planner specifically, so we tend to take any data we gather there with a grain of salt. It is, unfortunately, one of the better / more robust free tools for keyword research available, though there are other alternatives. For us, it's a good starting point.

We would definitely recommend taking searcher intent into consideration. People searching for something generic like "cute baby pictures" are, most likely, searching for cute baby pictures and not necessarily a photographer to take cute baby pictures. Look for variations, as suggested by Dmitrii, and also try using Google suggest to find other search variations that you might not even be aware of.

[DmitriiK]

Hi there.

I always go with human element. But at the same time you also can use number data as well. So, the way you can approach it is to do research for those keywords nationally - since such keywords are not strictly local (unlike apple store near me), there is gonna be pretty much straight forward correlation between national and local amount of searches.

Meaning that if nationally "baby photographer" gets more searches than "baby photo studio", then the same will be happening locally. So, look at national results to find out the "human element", and then you also can check local numbers to see if you get better ideas.

Hope this makes sense.