1. What is good keywording?
2. What is a good caption?
3. Are there any restrictions for captions?
4. What do I need to ask my distributor when submitting images to their library?
5. Does the search engine affect my keywording and if so, how?
6. How do I keyword an image? Where do I start?
7. What are the pitfalls of keywording?
8. If I don’t know the model’s ethnicity can I guess?
9. How do I approach the conceptual and emotional content of the images?
10. If I’m not aiming for the North American market do I need to include American spelling?
11. How many keywords should I apply?
12. Isn’t it better to add as many keywords as I can think of as this will increase my chances of selling the image?

In order for images to be found, sold and used they should be easy to retrieve and logically accessible from as many needs and perspectives as possible. Good keywording characterizes broad as well as specific descriptions of the image without being speculative or too detailed.

For commercial and creative imagery captions should be concise, literal and accurate. Concentrate on the main message and elements and avoid describing the entire contents. For editorial images captions can be longer; the classic rule of thumb for journalistic images is ‘Who, What, Why, When, Where and How’. Captions for fine art images normally include the name of the artist, work title, year of creation and material.

Aside from possible character limits of your agency, you shouldn’t include a model’s ethnicity, or brand, model or collection names for creative imagery.

Ask for their guidelines and, in particular, find out if there is a character limit for captions and keywords; if captions are searchable; how compound terms (terms consisting of more than one word), diacritics (a mark above a letter denoting a specific pronunciation, e.g. café) and punctuation are handled; if a thesaurus is used; and if so, is this used in the search engine. There is no across-the-board industry standard so make sure you ask these questions of each of your distributors.

The main thing to find out is whether the search engine employs a thesaurus or not. In other words, does the search engine automatically expand search terms to narrower and ‘back-up’ terms: synonyms (words meaning the same thing, e.g. automobile and car), lexical variants (e.g. pants, US, and trousers, UK) and common misspellings? For example, if you search for ‘car’, are terms such as cars, automobile, automobiles, convertibles and vans included automatically? A thesaurus enabled search engine will generally make your keywording easier as you only need to add the most specific term and only one variation.

If the search engine doesn’t have a thesaurus you need to find out if stemming is employed (i.e. ability to include variations of a word based on its stem or root) and if so to what extent it does this. Does a search for ‘dog’ bring up the same images as a search for the plural ‘dogs’? If you search for ‘swim’ will you also retrieve images with ‘swims’ and ‘swimming’?

If stemming is used you should add the longest possible word including the stem. For the above ‘swim’ example, add only ‘swimming’. Note: for irregular plurals (e.g. women) and plurals requiring –es’ (e.g. babies) you should also add a singular.

If none of the above are employed you obviously need to include all the possible variations as appropriate.

Start with a concise and accurate caption that describes the main elements of the image. Transfer all the significant information from the caption to the keywords. Then look at the image and think about the specific depictions as well as the broad overall content. You may add ‘streets’ and ‘skyscrapers’ to a cityscape but the broader terms such as ‘city’ and ‘urban scene’ would also be relevant. Next, consider the concepts and essential messages of the image. What is the image about? Perhaps ‘city life’ is the key idea? Try stepping out from the original context the image was taken for and think about the many ways in which the image can be used. Could the image also be used for illustrating an ‘urban sprawl’? However, avoid weak concepts and depictions and confine the keywords to well-depicted, strong elements. Put yourself into the picture searcher’s shoes and ask if she or he would be happy to see the image when searching for the particular term. For example, is a birch tree depicted well enough to warrant the corresponding species term or would a general ‘tree’ be more appropriate?

To ensure consistency create a checklist of broader categories such as technical aspects, composition, anatomy, topography, attributes and people. Go through all categories one by one and add keywords as appropriate. When you get to the end of the list you know you have covered all aspects.

The two common mistakes are to add too many keywords and speculate on the possible end-users. For example, a teacup on a table in the background is not necessary important to the overall message of the image of a young couple having breakfast. A portrait image of a woman with trees in the background doesn’t necessarily warrant the keyword ‘tree’ but perhaps a more generic word describing the setting, e.g. ‘rural’, would suffice. Adding ‘doctor’ to a still-life image of a stethoscope is a classic example of speculative keywording. The image may be related to healthcare and medicine but ‘doctor’ refers to a professional occupation and should therefore be applied to people instead of objects.

No. Add the broadest known ethnicity keyword if known, otherwise leave it out.

Look at the image and ask yourself if any concepts stand out. Don’t try to make concepts fit images — if the concept doesn’t hit you at the first glance the chances are that it is not appropriate. Very few creative images have more than 4–5 conceptual keywords.

Unless you are solely aiming for the UK market including American spelling is recommended. Many European customers would use a mixture of UK and US English so it’s best to include both. Conversely, if US English is your standard, include UK English variants to cater for international audience.

This depends on the type of image. Images of people often warrant the most keywords and still life images the least. Most stock photographs have about 10–30 keywords per image, excluding variants and broader terms (about 30–100 with the expanded keywords).

No. Adding too many keywords can be as harmful as too little. Some libraries penalize for adding irrelevant keywords so you should try to add only the terms that are applicable to your image. Wading through irrelevant search results is frustrating and time-consuming and is likely to deter potential buyers.