One of the least exciting things that you will do as a microstock photographer is keywording but it is also one of the most important tools available to you. Images with good relevant keywords will turn up more often in searches and therefore have a greater potential to sell. Never underestimate the value of good, relevant keywords.

Most microstock agencies accept up to 50 keywords per image, they also require a title and description of more than 7 words. It is essential to keyword your images prior to sending them to microstock agencies. This will save you time by not having to copy and paste your keywords from one agency to another. Most photo editing software allows you to edit the IPTC data. In Photoshop the way to find this is to click on file and scroll down to file info. Many other programs offer ways to edit this data, Adobe Bridge is a favorite among most professional photographers.

Tips

Make your keywords relevant to your image. There is nothing more frustrating for a buyer than searching for “business man” and seeing the search return results containing “man in Santa costume” (see my example here). You will sell more if you make sure that your keywords directly relate to your image.

A good way to go about keywording is to break it down into categories. I will run

through them for the image featured above.

Who?

Who is in your image? Keywords describing your subject – Caucasian, man, woman, boyfriend, girlfriend, female, male, couple, attractive, adorable, people, cute, young, brunette

Where?

What is the setting, where are they? (not very clear with this image due to the crop and DOF – outdoor, park

Action

What is your subject doing? – reading, looking, posing, cuddle, share, relaxing,

Concepts

what concepts or emotions are conveyed? – love, romance, relationship, togetherness, lifestyle, leisure, cheerful, happiness

Objects

What else appears in your image that is relevant? – book, novel, literature

Once you have done the initial keywording, do yourself a favor and read through your list again, adding in any synonyms that comes to mind. Someone who searches for a couple in love might include “lovers” as a keyword. You want to have as broad a reach as possible without adding in irrelevant keywords, commonly known as keyword flooding.

Now your image is keyworded. The next step is to add a accurate title and interesting description. You can do this in the IPTC data edit. An interesting description will help your image stand out when the buyer is comparing and choosing which image they want to purchase. Try and stay away from boring titles and descriptions.  For the above image something boring may read “couple read book”. A more interesting title would be “Attractive couple happily read together outdoors”

These are the keywording practices and skills that I’ve learnt and adopted, I hope sharing this has been helpful and that your images appear in more search results in the future.