Graphic Designers, Do You Make These Keyword Mistakes?

Do you make these keyword mistakes? It’s not enough to do excellent work. It’s not enough to be visually creative. When promoting yourself online, the right keyword selection is critical.

I used Wordtracker to find variants of the keyword phrase “graphic designer” and the traffic to those phrases. I’ve eliminated a lot of keywords for brevity’s sake, but the phrases here are representative of the traffic. Take a look.

The first column shows the keyword phrases. The second column is the number of daily searches on Google (probably an average) and the third group is the number of pages competing for that keyword phrase.

My main phrase “graphic designer” only gets about 151 searches a day on Google. But there are a whopping 2.7 million pages competing for that phrase. I don’t need to tell you what that means. But I will anyway.

If you expect your website to pop up on the radar when somebody types in “graphic designer,” you’re dreaming. But don’t lose hope. I have advice!

Target an Industry Niche

Take a look at this set of phrases targeting industry niche terms. Ok, maybe not the terms for your particular specialty, but you get the idea.

The difference really stands out. In this case, I chose keyword phrases related to medical illustration and design. Although the daily searches on Google are fairly low, the competition, with one exception, is also low.

(If you’re trying to break into the medical animation field as a freelancer, I’ve got to say you are up against a lot of competition. There are only 132 Google searches a day with three-quarters of a million competing pages for “medical animations.”)

However, if you’re interested in designing for the medical field, medical device, biotechnology, or related fields, focus on optimizing your web copy for the other terms in the table above, especially “medical graphic design.” You have some opportunities there.

Target Product Niches

Check out this example of targeting certain types of graphic design products. I looked for “free business card templates” and here are the best phrases, IMO, that Wordtracker found for me.

The number of searches is reasonably good and the competition is fairly low. Perfect!

Of course, some of you are thinking, “Well, that’s great if I want to design free business cards for people. But how can I make a living doing that?”

You’re missing the point.

These are the phrases people type into Google. The fact that there are a reasonable number of searches and low competition means that’s a phrase you can use and, if you use it correctly, expect to get some hits to your site. Once people are on your site, it’s up to your web copy and any offers you provide to help convert those visitors into customers.

So, how can you use those phrases about free business cards and business card templates to your advantage?

Why not create a set of ten really cool business card designs that people can use to print their own cards or can use to upload to one of the online print services? A two or three page PDF is all you need (or some downloadable JPEGs).

In your PDF, you explain that these designs are free to use and are meant to showcase your design work. You also tell the reader that hand-printed or online printed cards rarely have the impact of cards created by working directly with a design professional.

Make it easy for them to get to you. Give them a discount if they click the PDF link to your order page (you can track this using your website analytics).

You also explain that by the time they do all the work to upload the cards, add their personal information, and wait for the print companies to ship their cheap cards (about an average of 4-6 weeks these days) they could have worked with you, created a truly unique card, and had it in their grubby little hands already for just a little bit more cost.

That’s how you can use these keyword phrases to your benefit. Now, get going!