In microstock you have to do your keywording yourself. You do this by applying the finished keywords to the IPTC data in the jpg file. You can do this in adobe bridge and other programs. Follow this link to a program especially designed to help you keyword your images. If you have never done keywording before then read the below to fully understand how it works, but if you are used to keywording, then trust me, this interface is so simple that I don’t need to explain it. Try it out and you will get the point.
Don’t ever underestimate the value of good keywording. Good keywording takes a long time, however, and is very time-consuming on your own. Thankfully there is help: I have had my programmers design a html interface that makes keywording your images with high quality keywords as simple as can be.
Use this program to find images similar to the one you are trying to keyword and select images like it, then proceed and refine your result. You can copy paste the result into the CORE IPTC data field in Adobe Bridge under “keywords” and there you go – finished.
Important notes and mistakes waiting to happen if you don’t read the below:
The agencies read your images IPTC data so you only need to do this once and your images will have the keywords showing when you have uploaded them. Below you will find a little guide to where to put your title and description:
The title that the agencies read must be in the CORE IPTC under “title” (not headline or document title)
The description that the agencies read should be put in the CORE IPTC under “Description”.
IMPORTANT: Your titles must not be longer then 30 Characters (Dreamstime rules) and your description must contain at least 7 words and not just be a duplicate of the title (Bigstockphoto rules).
This program/interface has been translated into Russian also. Go to here to get the Russian version.
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Related reading:
For the purpose of making a good keywording program which I was heavily involved in, I had to do a lot of research on keywording and search patterns from our buyers. I have done this based on some back end material that I cannot share in the public, but I CAN share my findings…:)
Use these results wisely.
General observations:
- People are inconsistent and non-decisive about using plural and do so randomly. The highly ranked keyword “groups” illustrate this very well. People may often search for “girls, fun, lifestyle” and end up buying a picture with only one girl.
- Search patterns are heavily dependent on stereotypical behaviour to a much more serious extent than first concluded. From a logical point of view it would have been good keywording to include the following keywords together: “multi-ethnic, multiethnic, mixed races, diversity, diverse, international, multi-national, multinational, multi, ethnic” but my research indicates that all these keywords combine to only one fourth of the search rank of one single keyword: “interracial”. This means that leaving out essential keywords can damage the sales at a much higher level than I thought.
- Search patterns are much more direct than common sense would dictate. People looking for a picture of three or more business people discussing can be found searching for “three, suits, business, table” and not “business people talking” or “businessmen interacting”. This means that concrete keywords like “faces, hands, table, sitting/standing” are much more important than secondary keywords. For example people will search for “face” when they are looking for a close-up and not search for “close-up”.
- People never use the “-“ when searching. No search pattern occurrences of “close-up” or “multi-ethnic”.
- Keywords longer than 8 characters counts for less than 10% of the total search rank from all keywords.
- The keywords: “splat, splatter, award, happy hour” are highly searched for but no one uses them.
- The keywords “adult” and “adults” are useless and almost never lead to sales.
- There is a 80% overlap between highly searched keywords and highly used keywords by a photographer. This means that one can use the public resources available on iStock, Fotolia, Shutterstock and Dreamstime and do not need back-end material on search behavior.
Istock buyers are no different than other buyers and will still do their initial searches without considering Istock phrases or categories. This means that the program me and my programmer have designed is still good for getting the right keywords as long as one does the disambiguatizing well.
I think it will help lot of people. I am a very bad keyworder because in the first place my english vocabulary is very limited. I think this tool can help me to pick up more keywords from a few entered. If i can add something, it would be nice to have an extra step. Once the tool gives you the list of keywords, wouldbe great to be able to get more via hyperdictionary or a similar site.
Probably the BEST approch to solving the keywording chore!
Very thankful for that.:)
Yuri,
I have to say your software and the fact that you are willing to share it is just amazing. I’ve always found the keywording side of my work time consuming and difficult to do – I’ve searched high and low for a good program like this. The design is brilliant! Searching via Microstock sites is genius! Quick and simple, THANK YOU, THANK YOU, TANK YOU!
I know you always find cynics when you share info like you do but you and your team should be commended and thanked profusely for your efforts. Yes! You will get more traffic and perhaps more affiliates signing up because of this software, and so you should, well done, you deserve all the success you get. Keep up the good work and thank you again.
Dean
I use this program daily, and can’t thank you and your team enough for producing such a powerful and easy to use tool. So very true about the dash – big waste of time using it in keywording.
Hi Yuri, as one of your biggest fans I feel you are playing down your ability. You have an eye, you can train everything else but an eye is something you have alone. Its the same as a musicians ear. A gift from the Gods. Although I sell stock, people like you, Andre, Lisa, have a gift for stock and though I try to learn, I don’t possess this gift. Its like doing a crossword, you will do in ten minutes what I could never do.
I have many original photos but they don’t get the success I think they deserve and this is because I don’t understand the buyers mind. However like my binary clock often my original ideas fail.
However I still enjoy the challenge and who knows one day something I create might become popular.
Recently I created an alphabet out of oil pipes total sales nil. I must be the only person not to make money out of oil wells.
Perhaps a tutorial on developing the eye for what sells. I often look at the best sellers but often a simple picture like your goldfish requires enormous skill to get right and an understanding of the buyers mind.
I try not to copy but I am inspired by you and others and hope to develop my eye.
Peter
I can understand where you’re coming from, Peter. On the opposite end of the spectrum, having been a full time graphic designer for years, it has helped me tremendously in knowing what might appeal to designers. I sort of have the inside scoop, as it seems. Still, I have many other areas to improve upon – I’m only an amateur photographer. About 50% of what I do sell are graphics and illustrations, however.
Getting sick and tired of working for other people in a stress-filled corporate world, I finally decided to go full time with stock. It’s been 4 month and has been going great. Tools like Yuri’s keywording utility along with Cushy Stock are a huge asset to my daily workflow.
I’m new to stock photography, but i’m a long time commercial photographer. Simply, never had time for that.
I made some initial shooting for stock, and my keyword strategy is little diferent.
When i plan my shooting, i write down all posible keywords and apply it during import in Lightroom.
When i chose the final photos from that batch, I just corect a word or two.
And Yuris software is great for preparing shootiong too, because you can see what kind of photos arew ofered from competitive photographs, so one could see if he is able to mach skill and scenes, to be able to even sell his work!
P.s. I type from cell phone, so i’m sorry for typos!
And thanks Yuri for that nice tool!
Your keywording utility isn’t working for me. Keeps saying “No results found for search term.”
🙁
Not working for me too….
Hi Yuri, I’am trying to find some keywords for my photos using your Photo Keyword Tool (which was working perfectly so far), but ther is no result even for such very common and popular words like pizza or food, or face etc. It is very strange because few days ago it worked perfect, but from yesterday on I just got the same answer (No results found for search term “pumpkin” etc…). I have tried the Kwyword tool on three different computers and the result was the same. What do you think is the problem? Thank you for your answer.
Tomo
Your tool is fantastic. Thanks form all of us! Just one thing: some other editor (like iMatch) uses semicolon (;) instead of colon (,) to separate the keywords. It would be nice to have the possibility to choose the separator to use (leaving the colon as default, of course). Ciao!
Great keyword tool, I suppose it is OK to “USE” other people’s keywords.
At the end of the day you can’t copyright keywords, but this tool would not be possible if Shutterstock used iStock technology, and therefore your tool would become obsolete.
Initially, I was thinking that you were “giving away” your keywords, but when I saw my photos in searches, I thought that your generosity had limits.
I think that it is nice that you are sharing your information, as Bill Gates is giving away all his money to charity…we are all GODS…
In any case I will use your keyword tool, as it will save me time stealing keywords directly from ShutterStock, and make my KEYWORD LIBRARY larger on Lightroom, which I will share, because I am a good person too, but don’t declare publicly…is this a public forum? oh
Anyway Yuri, I look forward to seeing more videos, cos I think they are cool.
I like your site and it is good to share.
Ciao
Paulp
http://www.paulprescott.com
I looked at your keyword tool. It says it uses words from iStockphoto and Lucky Oliver. Lucky Oliver’s been closed down for some time now, right? So, is it just iStockphoto? Just curious. Thanks for all your hard work!
This is amazing! Thanks a lot for this! 😀
yuri thank you very much for keyword software. you are my favorite stock photographer.
THANK YOU!
maybe now is the time to remove resting in peace luckyoliver from the dropdown list “search in”…
Yuri, I just stumbled upon your keywording tool. To date I have paid a service to keyword thousands of my stock images. I am astounded that you have been generous enough to share this tool with other photographers. But, are there no legal or moral implications in that you are essentially copying the work (keywords) of other photographers and then using it to your own benefit? Do the two Microstock sites you link to not have any problems with this? I would appreciate your thoughts on this.
Just an idea, but having this available as a plug-in to Lightroom would be excellent. Perhaps Jeffrey Friedl could help you. He’s already done a Zenfolio and Facebook exporter plug-in here: (http://regex.info/blog/2007-11-21/642). Love your site. Thanks for sharing your knowledge.
Your site was so interesting and informative I had to call a friend to tell her about it. Great work
Yuri, your an amazing person. Give to receive. I’m sure this spirit is one of the reasons for your success. Be blessed.
Hi, I made a similar tool a few months ago with the big difference it’s instant. No delays. It lacks the stats part. What do you think? It’s also free for everyone to use.
Thank you Yuri for the space.
Thanx for your Keywording tool! 🙂
It’s great! I’m really happy for now!
Ase
Great !
Thanx to you and your team
Rainer
Very good tool, functionnal and simple!
if at some time whants to do improvements you can add the possibility of taking words from more sites.
Does anyone know if there is such a thing as a LightRoom export plug-in to upload photos to the various stock agencies?
Also, is there a way to set the categories (in the IPTC) the photos are sent to at the stock agencies without doing that during upload into the agencies database.?
No plug-in for Lightroom only for Aperture i think and Apple i-photo 🙁
No way for categories only manual
they must do something for Lightroom!!
bummer, thabks tho.
When in Lightroom which panel would i use to insert the “description” “title” and “keywords”? When in Library Mode using the right side panel I have added keywords in the Keywording section and have added a title in the Metadata–> Status–> Title, and have also added a descrption in the Metadata–> Content–> Description Writer but when I uploaded to istock none of it showed. Any ideas?
Thanks for any suggestions.
In keyword panel “Keyword Tags” it must be “will Export” to showed to stock upload.
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Well, it’s a great tool but I found from my own (a bit disappointing) experience that every microstock (and traditional stock as well) site has its own audience with different search patterns. Which means that things that sell well on SStock will not necessarily do well on IStock etc. because for whatever reason people are looking for different things…
your back! what happend?
I’ve decided to out source my keywording to an over seas company due to the time investment needed for each agency I work with – they all work differently. However, trying to find the best titles for each image and agency is also a slog. This process is equally as important for the individuals searching via search engines – don’t you think?
Hello!
It doesn’t working for me?!
No results found for search term “girl” 🙁
Can you tell me why
Thanks a lot!
Agi
Hi – it isn’t working! Whatever I type in, it says “No results found”.. shutterstock really doesn’t have any images tagged “home” or “vacation”? Boy, I should get in there fast! 🙂
Just thought i’d let you know it isnt working for me, I’m on firefox 3.6, but it was working for me on this browser as recently as a day or so ago but now it isnt…
I haven’t been able to use the keyword program for two days. Just as the above person said, all I get is “no results found”. It has been a godsend recently. Only discovered it in the last week or so. Thank you!
Hi Yuri, me again. Its working again now, but has anyone noticed that the number next to the box that you ‘tick’, isn’t the same as the number in the photo? So when you’re saying ‘this photo looks like mine, I want its keywords’ – the photo you’re actually ticking, isnt the same as the one you think you are… Its a bit of a problem!!
Usually I just copy keywords from somebody’s photo on stock site and then adapt it to my image. That’s really interesting tool. I’ll try =)
Usually I just copy keywords from somebody’s photo on stock site and then adapt it to my image. That’s really interesting tool. I’ll try =)
Link to russian version: 404 File Not Found.
Hi, I dont get any results when using Shutterstock keywords (Crestock is functional). Any idea what is happening? And thank you for an awesome application. 🙂
Hi! Thanx for a very useful tool. Please can you explain me, what does it mean “Retrival count out of more then 5 mil searches”. What data does this tool use? (what searches did you mean?)
thank you
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Why if I write “vector” in search space there is no results, but after finished search I can add it and it will appear like a very popular keyword?