Introduction to Microstock Photography – Keywording 101
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Keywording is immensely important if you want your images to sell. Once in awhile I receive e-mails from photographers mentioning that their pictures do not sell. When I take a look at their portfolios, I see beautiful pictures with horrible keywords. Put simply, keywording is more important than workflow. Many photographers spend hours editing a single picture only to give it horrible keywords. In this post I’ll attempt to provide some guidance on keywording.
Without proper keywording, buyers will never find your picture. No matter how beautiful it is, buyers will never see it. Therefore, you need to make as full use of the keywording space as possible. Most sites allow you to use up to fifty keywords and I suggest that you reach this limit for many of your photos. This does not mean you should keyword spam. Many sites automatically catch keywords such as “teen” and “sex” and ban you if you are found keyword spamming. Your keywords must also be relevant to the specific picture. Choosing a large number of relevant keywords people would actually use is as much of an art as a science.
First, do not even think of adding keywords on the individual stock sites. All microstock sites have the facility where you can add keywords when you submit the picture. Do not do this. Instead, add keywords before you upload the picture in Photoshop, Lightroom, or in whatever software package you prefer. When you submit your picture, you often just have to click a single button to transfer these keywords over – with a notable exception being IStockPhoto.
The title and description of your photo are also important but not as much as keywords. Often the title and/or the description will influence whether your photo is considered relevant for the designer’s uses. However at that point they can see your photo and often decide based on the merits of the actual photograph. To my knowledge none of the microstock sites use the description or the title when returning search results. If you intend to submit to Dreamstime, make sure your description is at least five words long and that the title and description are different (if you can’t think of any easy way, add the words “the” or “a”).
So how to you choose these keywords? The first thing I do is look up competing images on Shutterstock. Click on the most popular images and look at their keywords. Incidentally, Shutterstock also makes it very easy to copy the keywords for an image. Very often I do this, but then go through all of the keywords to make sure they are relevant and useful. Do not just blindly copy keywords. Usually I am able to think of some better keywords and I disagree with some of the keywords from the other image.
Another tactic is to look up synonyms for your keywords. I used to have a software package I wrote that automatically looked up synonyms on an Internet dictionary site. I was then able to choose which synonyms match. I believe there are software packages available that do essentially the same thing. This is a good way to build up keywords.
Always be specific in your keywords. If you have a picture of a sunset or gorgeous vista – always include the place where the photo was taken both in the title and the keywords. If you have an interesting flower, include the scientific name, common name, and hybrid if none. For animals and insects, always include the scientific name and any common names – which are often nonsingular. For instance pill bugs are called roly polies elsewhere. Also keep in mind regional differences. While most microstock sites will translate to/from British English, if the word is uncommon it is a good idea for you to do yourself. For instance, lady bugs are called lady birds there.
Keywording and IStockPhoto
In short, keywording at IStockPhoto is a pain. They have their own controlled vocabulary to which you must match your keywords. This means that, if you submit there, you must take a slightly different approach to keywords. Generally I keyword as normal for all of the other microstock sites, then change the keywords for IStockPhoto on their site – making changes to the original keywords as necessary. Since this is the only site that will reject for keywords, there are some gotchas you need to worry about.
Say you have a picture taken in the Middle East. For most microstock sites, you will want to include “Middle” and “Peace” in your keywords. You may also enter “Middle East”. Any some microstock sites, images with the keyword “Middle East” will only be returned when the search terms include “Middle East” surrounded by quotes. If you use the keywords “Middle” and “Peace” the quotes are not necessary. The vast majority of search results do not contain quotes. However, when you submit your photo to IStockPhoto you will not be able to use the keywords “Middle” and “East”. As these two keywords are not relevant to the photo (taken individually) your photo will be rejected. The correct action for IStockPhoto is to use the full word – “Middle East”. This will map to their controlled vocabulary and your image will be accepted if all other aspects of it are OK. Therefore, on IStockPhoto’s keyword list you will want to cross of “Middle” and “East” and add “Middle East”.
Other tips
Do reuse keywords from other images that are similar. I do this quite often and it speeds up the process significantly. However, if I have time I try to think of some new and different keywords. After all, if searchers cannot find the original image they will not find one with identical keywords.
Always put all nouns in the singular. Most sites are smart enough to return search results from the plural. However not all microstock sites will convert plural keywords to their singular forms.
Do not put copyrighted keywords in an image. Many microstock sites will reject images that contain copyrighted keywords. Instead, break up the keyword (instead of “Indiana Jones” use “Indiana” and “Jones” – but not on IStockPhoto) if possible or choose a synonym.
When shooting travel shots, look up the history and details about the place where the photo was taken. Is there an architectural term or historical term for what you are looking at. I find Wikipedia to be a great source for keywords. Also consider what emotions the shot conveys. Do words such as “hard work”, “happiness”, or “sadness” have meaning in your photo? If so it is a good idea to add them.
I hope these tips will help improve your keywords. Keywording is definitely a skill you should spend some time improving and is the key to better selling images (or images that sell at all).
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Tags: IStockphoto, keywording, keywords, microstock, photography