Popular Keyword Trends on Shutterstock

What is more popular: summer or spring? Cats or dogs? In the last few months, since the introduction of the new tool Keyword Trends (I think this is a better translation than the literal “Keyword Trends Tool”), we have had a lot of fun comparing the words that buyers are searching for.

We also discovered interesting seasonal trends that will help authors determine the best time to upload images to Shutterstock.

Top 5 Trends on Shutterstock

Here are our top five favorite trend graphs created using words suggested by the Shutterstock contributor support team and what we found out about them.

1. Dogs Beat Cats

Have you heard how people talk about the popularity of cat images online? But, damn it, the people who like buying images through Shutterstock are definitely dog lovers, as they preferred “dogs” over “cats” week after week. Woof!

2. Buyers Prepare for Winter Much Earlier Than Other Seasons

The peak search season occurs when the season starts, with one exception: winter. The peak search for “winter” happens in the last week of November — three weeks earlier. So start uploading your winter images in November to optimize their visibility. Other seasons are more predictable, starting to sell after they begin. The peak searches for “spring” occur in the third week of March. For summer, it’s in the third week of June. Fall is most searched in the third week of September.

3. Customers Need Happy Images, Especially in December

Emotions are popular search terms. Comparing some of them, we saw that positive words like “happiness” and “fun” easily outweigh gloomy words like “sadness,” “anger,” and “seriousness.” It makes sense, right? After all, the demand for images of people expressing all kinds of emotions is always there, but most companies want to associate their products with happiness. However, we were surprised to find that the peak searches for “happiness” and “fun” occur at the end of December. It’s unclear why people search for images of positive emotions at this time of year more than ever.

4. Most People Search for “iPhone,” Not Phone

Here’s a striking example of the popularity of Apple products in our country. In the fourth quarter of last year, the popularity of the search term “phone” yielded to the keyword “iPhone.” In addition, even more people are searching for “iPad.” The search for the term “tablet” has a steady upward trend, probably due to people looking for tablet computers. The term “smartphone” is still popular, and by the way, it’s more popular when written as one word, but its popularity isn’t growing as fast.

An important note: Apple and other manufacturers strictly control the design of their products, so we only offer images intended for editorial use, in other words, news photos. However, images of phones and tablets in general terms are acceptable for non-editorial use.

5. Start Creating Snake Images NOW

At the end of last year, we saw a significant increase in searches for the term “dragon.” This is because the Year of the Dragon began on January 23 of this year according to the Chinese calendar. We can bet that this will repeat next year when buyers start storming us in search of images illustrating the Year of the Snake, which will begin in February. Want to be ready for the influx of buyers looking for snake photos? Then start creating them right now and be ready to upload them later this year.

We hope you find this information as useful as we do. What interesting discoveries have you made using the Keyword Trends tool? Share in the comments!

Author: Shutterstock
Link: http://www.shutterstоck.com/buzz/keyword-trends-highlights