Suggestions for Keywording Your Photographs
Keywords are terms that describe the content of an image to make it easier for the image to be located by potential photo buyers. There are no universal keywording guidelines and every search engine deals with keywords a little differently. While experts may disagree on the best methods of keywording, they agree on the goals: Your keywords should make your images more likely to show up in search results, and keywords should also be accurate enough to help buyers find the image they need easily.
To assist you, LicenseStream created the following suggestions—listed in no particular order—to help your images be found and purchased.
1. Visual elements
Only describe the primary elements of your photo focusing on what is obvious or prominent in the image. There's no need to keyword every detail of an image. Also, don't include keywords of things that aren't in the image at all, even though they might be referenced in the caption. For example, the caption might say "a barn in a field near Oklahoma City", but "city" should not be a separate keyword, nor should "Oklahoma City". More information on when to keyword the location follows in number 4.
2. Granularity
It's not necessary to keyword every element of a larger whole. For instance, you wouldn't describe a portrait of a person by using the keywords "eyes", "ears", "nose", and "mouth." "Portrait", "face", or "head" would make better sense.
3. Modifiers
Qualifying your keywords can be effective, e.g., "old" barn, "rusty" fence, etc. Be careful to choose terms that express a quality easily seen in the image. Keywording a barn or fence as "Excellent" will not work, as the term "excellent", in this case, is too subjective.
4. Location
Be sure to enter general city, state/province, and country information in the appropriate metadata fields. More specific location terms like "SoHo" or "Bronx" should be entered in the keywords field if they are appropriate to the image. Broader location terms like "Europe" are also fine if used carefully. Ask yourself: Will the continent on which the photo was taken matter to a buyer? Someone looking for travel pictures of Europe might not need to be any more specific in their search. So when should geographic keywords NOT be included? For most interiors, portraits, and still-lifes, geographic information will probably not be relevant. Include geographic information if is fitting to the image it needs to be more specific than what you provide in the city, state/province, and country fields.
5. Image type
You should keep in mind how your images are most likely to be used. Creative images need more concept words, while more literal, concrete terms would be useful for editorial images.
6. Plurals
There's no need to include the plural form of a word in addition to its singular form, unless the spellings differ substantially. Some examples: goose/geese and mouse/mice.
7. Synonyms
Well-chosen synonyms are an effective way to increase the appearance of your images in search results. Choose carefully. Emphasize the core ideas and concepts of the image, or you risk alienating buyers with an image they weren't looking for.
8. Misspellings
Make sure to proofread your keywords for misspellings. Do not add intentionally misspelled keywords.
9. Variations
You do not need to use every possible variation of a key phrase into the keyword field. That said, however, variations can be useful in cases where they differ substantially from each other. For example, both "President Obama" and "Barack Obama" would be relevant.
10. Actions/activities
Stay away from describing potential actions or activities that might take place in an image. Describe only those actually depicted or obviously related to the picture.
11. Quantity
One of the great debates in keywording is about how many keywords is enough or too many. While it may be true that hundreds of keywords will statistically increase your photo's chance of appearing in more search results, that many keywords will also increase the chances that your photo will have nothing to do with what a buyer is looking for. To avoid alienating photo buyers, limit the keywords you use. About 30 keywords are ideal, as long as they're all relevant.
12. Title and caption
Use important words and phrases from the title and caption fields as a starting point for keywording your images. Just be sure thatthe words you choose are relevant to the content of the image. This is an effective way to identify the key ideas or features in your photo. Avoid using image ID numbers, dates, or other secondary information in your captions as keywords.
13. Concept keywords
Concept words describe the underlying theme or idea of your photo. They can do wonders to describe the more emotional aspects of an image. They can also lead a buyer astray if they're not used carefully. If you use the term "cold", for example, make sure you're not describing a summer beach scene that includes a refreshing beverage. Concept keywords are meant to capture the primary feel of your image—its essence.
14. Ethnicity
Keyword ethnicity in your photos only if it is true, accurate and relevant to the image.
15. Capitalization
Only capitalize keywords that describe the name of a place or a person. All other keywords should be lowercased.
16. Technical details
Keywording technical details can be useful to buyers who are looking for a specific type of image. Examples include "aerial", "wide angle", and "motion blur". As well, images that have been significantly manipulated or composited should be keyworded as such.
17. Gender and Age
Only use gender or age keywords if their subjects are primary elements of the image. Examples include "male", "woman", "teenager", "child", and "elderly". Demographic keywords like "18-30" and "30-39" should also be included.
18. Groups
Group keywords describe gatherings of people. Examples include "crowd", "audience", and "passengers".
19. Relationships
Relationship keywords describe the relationships between people. Examples include "family", "team", "partner", and "band".
20. Usage
It's not a good idea to guess what your image might be used for. Only the buyer knows for sure if your image will be used in a magazine or advertisement. Keywording such potential usages only limits your potential customer base.
21. Batch keywording
Applying keywords to multiple images at once can be a timesaving measure. This is known as batch keywording. The thing to remember is that once you've applied a batch of keywords, you then need to remove terms that do not apply to each image. Likewise, it's important to add terms to individual images wherever necessary. Tweaking your batch-keyworded images in this manner will increase the relevance of your images in search results.
A Note About Keyword Spam
Often, in an attempt to make their images appear in more search results, a photographer will deliberately misuse keywords. Improper use of keywords, however, undermines search results meaning buyers will have a harder time finding the images they're searching for. Ultimately this results in buyers wading through irrelevant pictures and becoming frustrated.
You can steer clear of keyword spam by avoiding the following:
1. Repetition
Don't repeat terms multiple times. Using "cat" nine times will not rank your cat image any higher in search results.
2. Broadness
As with other keywords, broad terms can be useful for searches as long as they describe something that is actually contained in the image. For example, you can use "people" or "person" in an image where people are actually shown. But it should not be used in a still life, even if it's a still life of something a "person" might use or own. "Sports" can be used for an image of a game being played or an athlete but not for a skyline of a city that happens to be known for its sports teams.
3. Opposites
Don't use opposite terms in hopes of covering more ground in search results unless they are accurate for the image. For instance, "young" and "old" only make sense if the image depicts an older and younger person.
4. Synonyms
As mentioned above, synonyms can increase the relevance of your image in search results. Be careful, however, not to use too many synonyms. Just because the meanings are similar doesn't mean they're all accurate descriptors of your image.
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