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Does anyone out there have experience with this sort of problem and have any ideas about off-beat keywords that might just boost his business.
P.S. I have used overture and wordtracker to get the core keywords - I am looking for inspiration really.
There's also a giant reference book that librarians use that shows how things are classified for libraries and it's great because it shows what sub-categories are under major categories (i.e. books on b&w photography under photography techniques, for example). I can't remember what the book is called but if you ask a librarian they should know what I'm talking about. It's wonderful because it's based on years and years of librarians figuring out where to shelve things so that folks can find them.
Professional book indexers are a great resource, as are librarians, but if you don't know any (or are living in a city with budget cuts so bad the librarians are grumpy) then a book index is the next best thing.
(This tip gleefully provided by someone who earned college $$s working in the library "stacks" and who spent several years indexing books.)
I would assume that the photography market is pretty competetive- I hope that you've made it clear to the client- no need to back yourself against a wall.
I heard a statistic a couple weeks ago that the average search term queried (in Overture I believe) was 2.5 words in length.
Make sure to target localized searches, for example, if he is a London based photographer:
london photograpers
london photography
london wedding photographers
london children photographers
etc... you get the idea
Do the same for surrounding cities and areas