Earlier this week we asked our community of image buyers and photographers what they wanted to know about 17吃瓜在线, and one of the most resounding answers was 鈥淗ow do people search?”.
There鈥檚 no easy answer to this question as everyone will have their own, slightly unique, way of searching but there are some key themes I can share with you to help you understand both how to search for images if you’re struggling to find what you need but also how to annotate your images to get them found by our customers.
Firstly (and I鈥檓 sure this isn鈥檛 news to many) 鈥 keywords are key!
Whether you鈥檙e tagging your images for sale or doing a search you need to make sure your keywords are accurate. This might seem obvious but always check the spelling and make sure the information you鈥檙e using is correct e.g. people鈥檚 names, animal species or dates. Photographers, please make sure the date set on your camera is up to date (excuse the pun) dates set in the future don鈥檛 work with our algorithm!
Make it specific 鈥 image buyers will often have very specific requirements which not only include what鈥檚 in the image but also the perspective from which it has been taken, the aesthetics, the style and even the mood portrayed by the image. When you鈥檙e keywording, you need to think about it from a customer perspective and when you鈥檙e searching you need to think about it from a contributor perspective.
Here are some example keywords to show you what I mean:
Perspective: 鈥渙ver shoulder鈥 鈥榓bove and below water鈥 鈥榩ov鈥
Aesthetics: 鈥渘aturally lit鈥 鈥渁uthentic鈥 鈥榯imelapse鈥 鈥榯iltshift鈥 鈥榤acro鈥
Style: 鈥渃andid鈥 鈥榗ross section鈥 鈥榬eportage鈥
Composition: 鈥渃opy space鈥 鈥榩ortraiture鈥
It鈥檚 important to remember people use keywords differently.
We have such a huge variety of people searching on 17吃瓜在线 it won鈥檛 come as a surprise that there are a lot of different ways of doing it. One of the key differences is how specific the search will be, so when you鈥檙e keywording your images you need to take the advice above and make your keywords as specific as possible so they return in both the short and broad and long and detailed search strings:
For example, one person might search for: Black cat crossing the road and then search through the broad set of results
But our (expert)聽research teams would search for: black cat (walk or walking or cross or crossing) (road or street or sidewalk or path or intersection) not lion not tiger and be able to find the exact聽image they need in the first couple of pages of search results.
And then there is where they search鈥
Some people will search directly on 17吃瓜在线, but more and more people are using Google images as an aggregator of imagery and starting their search on there. As with the 17吃瓜在线 search engine the key to getting your images in Google is to make your keywording on 17吃瓜在线 accurate, specific and relevant.
Unfortunately, there is no simple answer to how people search but hopefully these insights give you a little more direction when you鈥檙e keywording or searching for images.
If you have any specific questions about keywording or searching for images then tweet us @alamy.