Selling images

4.5 Metadata guidelines Taking a wonderful photo is one thing, making sure people will find it is a whole different story. To gain maximum exposure for your work and to maintain site standards at the same time, here are some guidelines on describing images. Use IPTC metadata You can save a lot of time if you use the metadata editor of your favourite photo editing software. Stockxpert (among many other sites) reads image metadata automatically, and you won't have to deal with annoying forms every time you upload your work somewhere. Titles Titles are very short descriptions of what's actually visible on the image. They should be as short and as accurate as possible. Try avoiding artistic titles as they often include words that are unrelated to the real subject of the image. Descriptions You can go into more detail about the subject here. Ideally the description should be one or two sentences long but we leave this up to you. Keywords Proper keywording is the most important part of describing your images. Since most people use the search function to find images and search engines rely on keywords you really have to put some effort into this. Stockxpert requires you to provide at least 10 but no more than 25 keywords that accurately represent your image. Keywords can consist of either one word (eg. London) or multiple words (eg. Tower Bridge). Keywords have to be separated by commas (eg. London,Tower Bridge). Let's get started. First of all, try to think a little bit with the head of a potential customer. If you wanted to find your own image, what would YOU be looking for? Also, are there similar words or expressions that describe the same thing? Try using a thesaurus to find out what people might also be looking for. It's extremely important to only use relevant keywords. Make sure you only describe items that are related to the main focus of the image. If there's an object in the corner that's not really related to the main subject, do not include it. For example if there's a photo of a sandy beach with a barely visible boat somewhere, you can use the words "sea", "waves" and "sand", but you shouldn't add "boat" because those who are looking for pictures of boats won't be too happy with this one. Beside making a list of things you can see on the picture you have other options as well. You can also describe colors, moods, concepts (peace, quality, danger, power etc.), actions (smiling, flying). Depending on the image, you can add seasonal information (spring, Easter, Christmas) or mention where it was taken if that's the main focus of the image. Also, if the subject of the image is in front of a white background add "isolated" and if there's a lot of space available for text on a certain part of the image you may add "copyspace" to your keywords. Of course there's a lot more to tell about keywording, but these basics are enough to get you started. If you want to learn more, read our detailed Keywording guidelines or simply search for "keywording photos" or "keywording guidelines" on Google. You will find plenty of articles on the subject. If you still find keywording too difficult, there are several services on the web that can help you! Categories Categories are similar to keywords, they help users find what they are looking for. You can select up to 3 categories per image from a few dozen predefined choices. Make sure you read through all the available options before you make a decision to ensure that you select the most relevant categories. Selecting categories is not mandatory, but without them less people will find your images. Currently Stockxpert's search functions are based on keywords only, but this will likely change in the future. Please make sure you fill in all the fields accurately, and only with relevant information! Let's keep Stockxpert tidy and help our customers find what they need as quickly as possible! Related topics Getting started | Upload methods | Photo upload rules | Graphics upload rules | Managing images | Royalty details / Payments