Out of all the money making ideas floating around online (and even on this website), stock photography is one of the most creative. You get to be creative with your photos, how you present them, and even how you sell them using keywords. Now that you’ve decided to earn some extra money with stock photography, you’re obviously interested in ways to maximize your profits. One way you can do so is through choosing the right keywords to describe your work.
What is a keyword? A keyword is the word (or phrase) your potential customers type into the search box as they look for images. Within mere seconds, they’ll be rewarded with a flood of suggestions. Your goal is to be one of these–the closer to top of the first page of results, the better your chances are of making a sale. If your pictures stay buried on page 18 of the search results, chances are no one will even bother to look, much less buy. To ensure that doesn’t happen to your photos, choose your keywords with care. Here are ten suggestions to help!
1. Avoid generic terms.
If you’re posting a photo of a Golden Retriever, don’t tag it as “dog,” and be done with it. The microstock photography business has grown over the past few years; you have plenty of competition. Chances are good that your “dog” photo will simply be overwhelmed in an avalanche of “dog” photos. Your buyer, who really did want a great picture of a Golden Retriever saving the life of a young boy who was about to go over Niagara Falls, is going to give up in disgust after scrolling through the first 5 pages of dog results, and buy a “good enough” photo of a wet spaniel. Make it easy for people to find your work.
2. Be Specific
You do this by being specific. Look at every aspect of your picture. In the example mentioned above, you could use “Golden Retriever,” “boy,” “child,” “Niagara Falls,” “lifesaving,” “waterfalls,” “heroes,” “rescue,” etc. Which season is portrayed in your picture? Is there a dominant color scheme? What is the orientation of the picture: vertical or horizontal (these things matter to a web designer)? The more specific your keywords, the more likely your photograph will be presented to the people most likely to buy it.
3. Describe the Mood
This is one of the most downloaded pictures on fotolia.com with over 10K downloads. What keywords can you think of when you see it? Bet you didn’t think “thirties”, “countryside”, “generation x” or “family activities”, did you? Check out all the keywords here.
4. Location!
Don’t neglect to use your photo’s location as a source for keywords. Some locations are obviously a plus, such as Paris, Timbuktu, Antarctica, or the planet Saturn. But add keywords that narrow it down a bit, such as Sacré-Coeur, “tree-lined suburb,” “New York City brownstone,” and so on. Again, the idea is to provide enough information that the person who is really looking for your image will be able to find it (and buy it) quickly.
5. Use a Thesaurus
Let’s face it: we’re not all English majors, and even if we were, some days the words just aren’t there. How many other words can you think of for “sunrise”? Using this online thesaurus I can bet you can come up with at least 20 different keyword you can use to describe that perfect surise shot you captured. Even if they’re not all suitable for your photo, they might inspire a train of thought that will help you find the word that is.
6. Ask for Help
As an artist, you know that sometimes what you really need is a different pair of eyes. When you’re at a loss for keywords, give the photo to a friend or family member and ask them to come up with ten terms they would use to describe the subject. This method can be invaluable. After all, not all people think alike; your uncle may come up with a word you’d never have imagined, but which will deliver that photo to a whole new group of prospective customers.
7. Scope Out the Competition
As you’ve probably already noticed, there are a lot of aspiring stock photographers out there. Don’t let this discourage you. Instead, learn from the competition by examining the keywords they use. Search for photos with the same subject as yours, and then look at their keywords for ideas. Some microstock photo sites also provide a list of their most popular search terms; after all, they want to make a sale almost as much as you do!
8. Use SEO tools
Yes, the same tools that Internet Marketers use for coming up with keywords to market their site can help you find the keywords to market your photographs. The most popular free tool is the Google Keyword Tool which you can use for getting ideas of new keywords that are related to the keyword list that you have already put together. A paid tool, which we use a lot for our own SEO research is the Market Samurai tool. You can plug in one term, see a list of hundreds of related terms, and then pick any of these terms and continue looking for terms closest to them and so on.
9. What’s My Motivation?
Remember, the people searching for your photo are doing so, not because they like pictures of fluffy bunnies, but because they need your image to achieve a purpose. Find a keyword that describes how your photo might be used, such as “instructional,” or “motivational,” and add it to your list.
10. Never Tread Water
You’ve spent time and effort choosing just the right keywords. You’ve uploaded your photo, and you’re done. Nothing to do now but sit back and wait for the dollars (or cents) to roll in, right?
Not so fast! Make it part of your work routine to go back and tweak your photos’ keywords every so often. Affiliate marketers know that one way to propel their website to the top of Google is to continually add new, relevant content. Adopt this strategy by changing a few keywords. Add new ones, get rid of underperformers, and check the “most popular” lists to get ideas on what’s currently garnering sales. By doing this, you’ll ensure that your image will appear in new results lists, attract new eyes, and find new buyers, making you new money.
Money making ideas, such as selling stock photos, are a great start; however, making money in any business requires time, effort, and attention to detail. By working hard to find the right keywords for your stock photos, you’ll attract the right buyer, at the right time, and ensure that your photographs can keep on bringing you money even for a long time to come.
These ideas you’ve shared on how to market your photos are really helpful. I do agree that whenever you would want to sell your photos or product you need to find right keywords so your clients could find you easily and the photos should be pleasing to your buyers eyes for them to purchase whatever you are offering.
When you are to market your photo make sure to add alt tag to it as it will help search engines to crawl accordingly and display while any such searches are made.
Thanks so much, I have a lot of photos that I took while travelling and so I am thinking of monetizing them by selling them to stock photography sites, so your tips will be helpful!
Louisa recently posted..Finding Real Paid Surveys The Right Way
The old adage that a photo is worth a thousand words is certainly borne out by this article: a photo is just like an article – sometimes even more so – and thus deserves all the SEO bells and whistles available. The surprise is that we have waited so long for someone intelligent to explain it simply and clearly. Thanks!
Often a photobuyer (or a consumer) wants to puy a photo of a location in a certain town or city in a certain part of the world. The reasons are varied but what is certain, the photo editor or consumer doesn’t want to search through hundreds of photos and agencies. A keyword search is easier and faster. The PhotoSourceBank is the place to go to for a Google keyword search of millions of text descriptions of images.
Your article gave me an insight to select keywords to market my photos. Thanks for sharing.
ReviewGates recently posted..Nokia Lumia 800 Smart Phone Full Review
I had no idea that stock photography could really be a potential money earner as long as you do the right SEO for it – very interesting
Photographers could start a business online using these tips. They can sell their taken photos successfully if they can use proper strategy on it.
Excellent post but it will take time to implement these tips and get results and you need to be have technical know how about the Blog and SEO. We appreciate if you can share some Good marketplace websites as well to sell photographs ?? Photography is my passion and I have hundreds of excellent photos and it would be great if I can monetize them.
Austin recently posted..Changi Airport Singapore
Some great information. A couple I would add:
Always think about plurals of key words and also different spellings – for example colour as well as color – as your buyers may be searching from a country that follows the english way of spelling.
Also, try to include some key keywords in your titles and descriptions of the images as those are often part of the search function.
If you are really keen to get going on selling your images, I keep an active blog on the “how to do it” process. I can’t tell you what will sell, but I can help you with the mechanics.
Steve
Steve Heap recently posted..Weekly examples of microstock images February 20th
Photos help in attracting people. Moreover, with an interesting caption, you can encourage more people to check what is all about. All the above tips can really be helpful in achieving your goal to get the attention of others.
Beth recently posted..College Grants For Single Parents
This is a very helpful tip! with proper use of keywords it will be easier for my photos to reach its target audience/ market.
“Describe the Mood”. Agree. The meaning of a picture contains not only in the picture itself but also in the caption you give. This is the one will make your picture stand out and different from others.
Thanks for the advice! What I would add is that you should always add an alt and title tag, to make it easier for search engines to scroll them.
I completely agree with your points. If people want to promote their photo’s across the globe then they really need these creative information to make better promotion. According to me, social media play vital for promoting ptoho’s effectively across the globe. Keep sharing such more valuable information in future.
I never thought that photography can be included in internet marketing. I just realized that with more photos of different niche, mood or whatever it is, it can attract more visitors. And I never thought of selling photos. Great tips!
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I agree with you. The meaning of a picture contains not only in the picture itself but also in the caption you give. social media play vital for promoting photo’s effectively across the globe. Keep sharing such more valuable information in future.