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I am not a keyword expert, but over the last few weeks I have been doing some research to try to improve my keywording on FAA. I know that many others will find these tips helpful, so here they are. Feel free to comment or add your own tips below.
Redundancy
Did you know that some keywords are redundant? FAA automatically adds certain keywords, and if you add them too, you are actually just wasting space. Some redundant words include:
photo
photos
photograph
photographs
print
prints
photography
posters
painting
picture
greeting cards
FAA adds all of these words automatically where they are applicable. In other words, FAA automatically describes the type of work it is. It knows whether it is a photo or a painting. You do not need to describe the medium of your work with these words. FAA does that for you. The only thing you need to describe is the contents of your work.
I was surprised to see that in fact these are popularly used keywords, as can be seen on the Popular Keywords page. By the way, this can be a great resource for keyword ideas. Remember though, that these are not the most searched kewords, these are the words most used by artists in tagging their work.
Just to prove my point about the above keywords being redundant, I will give you a few examples of what happens when you use them to search. If you type “j.d. grimes photos” in the search on FAA, you will get the following page. It displays all of my work, because they are all photographs, even though I have not added this word to my recent uploads. It automatically selects the medium “photographs” because I included “photos” in the search words.
http://fineartamerica.com/art/photographs/j.d.+grimes/all
Now let me show you what would happen if I search for “paintings” I get the message Page Not Found .
Some notes on the popular keywords page: Remember that this is the most used tags, not the most searched. So although many of them are good tags to use, you also want to use other similar tags that are not so popular with the artists but which people may search for. One way to find other similar words to use is to use a site like this one. This one apparently does not do nouns, so it really won’t be much help for me.
http://www.synonym.com/
Each word only needs to be used once!
This can be a good think to remember if you are running out of space. Each word needs to be used only once for your image to come up in a search for that word. You do not need to use the same word twice in different phrases. Each word is stored as just a word in the database. The only purpose of the commas is to separate the words for making the keyword search links that appear under your image on the page for that image. They have no other purpose, and do not affect the search. So save space by using each word only once. This is straight from Sean (FAA’s creator) somewhere in the discussions, and if you doubt it you can test it yourself, as I already have. I think using a word multiple times may actually cause your image to be sent to the back of the search results on an external engine. (I don’t remember whether external engines have access to the keywords or not, but I think they do. I will find out for sure soon).
Synonyms
Another thing that is good to remember is that some things are treated as synonyms on both the internal and external search engines. By using only one of the phrases, you save space for other keywords. An example of two synonyms are “close-up” and “close up”. You only need to add “close up” in your keywords in order to come up in a search for “close-up” too. Here is an example. I did not add “close-up” to these images, only “close up”.
Search for j.d. grimes crocus close-up
In other words, you do not need to add the hyphenated versions of phrases for your image to be found. Also, “u.s.a.” is synonymous with “u s a”.
No Spaces
Another way to save space is to omit spaces between your phrases. Example:
flower, flowers, wildflower
flower,flowers,wildflower
In this way you save spaces when you need them. Many of you may have no fear of using up the entire 500 character limit in the keywords. But your aim should be to use every single character. Add every keyword that you can think of to describe your image. That is the only way that people will find you on the internal search.
Themed Lists
Keywording can take time, and remembering all of the appropriate words to add can be difficult. A good way to save time and ensure that all of the proper words are added to your image is to create themed keyword lists that you can simply copy and paste into the keyword box.
Here is how to build keyword lists:
What you need to include:
-Your name. Including your name is not always necessary, but is usually a good idea. Some people realize that if you search for your name on FAA, all of your images will be displayed whether you have added it to your keywords or not. But this is only true when you search for you full name. But if someone only remembers your last name, they will not find you through the artwork search on FAA unless it is in your keywords. (They can through the artist search if they now how). Also, I always include my name “j.d. grimes” in the keywords, because otherwise you will not find my unless you search for “jd grimes”. By adding “j.d. grimes” you will now find me by searching for “jd grimes” (even though I don’t have “jd” in my keywords) “j.d. grimes” or “j d grimes” or just “grimes”. You would not find me on the latter three searches on FAA unless I had “j.d. grimes” in my keywords.
-Words describing the contents of the image. For a photo of a flower, I have this list: j.d. grimes,flower,flowers,flora,floral,bloom,blooms, blossom,blossoms,blooming,blossoming,flowering,plant,plants,botanical,nature,natural beauty,. Other words would be applicable given various different situations. Where was the flower growing? You could add “garden”, or “woods”, etc. Don’t forget to include plurals. Don’t just put “flower” for a photo of a flower. Add the word “flowers” too. If someone is searching for images of flowers, they are likely to type in “flowers” even if they want an image with only one flower in it.
-The names of the objects contained in the image. If you have a photo of a car, don’t just put car, put the type of car. For the example of the flower above, I would add the common and Latin names. Many times a species may be known by multiple common names, so try to add as many of these as possible.
-The colors in the image. If your flower is yellow, add yellow to the keywords. Add all prominent colors in the image, especially those of the subject.
-Where. Add where a photo was taken. Add the country, provence, and also the city especially when some aspect of the image is recognizable as from a certain place, such that someone who lived there would recognize it. Some people like to have photos taken in their state or near their city.
-The color format of the image. Is it in color or black and white? Note that in the keywords. Don’t forget to always add both the American and International (British) spellings of color: color, colour.
-Other. Among other things, you should always add the words “close ups,closeups,closeup,close up” to your close-up images. Add “extreme” and “macro” when appropriate. Another thing that you may want to add to your keywords is the physical format of the image. Is it vertical format, horizontal format, square, panoramic, etc. Adding appropriate words like these can be useful. I always tack these words on the end, because although there is a way to have the internal search filter according to whether an image is square, vertical, or horizontal, without using keywords, people may not know to use that. So I add these on the end in case I run out of space.
Making your lists.
If you take a lot of wildflower photos like I do, you will want a list that would apply to any wildflower image that you would upload. Remember to always title your keyword lists so that you will know what list applies to what sort of image. Never put words in a themed list that would not apply to every image that you would upload which would fit that theme.
Here is the order that I do my lists in:
1. my name
2. image contents
3. names of objects contained in the image
4. colors
5. where
6. color format of the image
7. close-up
8. physical format of the image
1, 2. Here is how I do my lists. First, I have my themed lists that describe the contents of the image. Like the example I gave for a flower image above. I always simply include my name on the beginning of these lists for convenience.
3. I am going to make separate lists to add after these with the common and Latin names of the species in my nature photos.
4. Next I manually add in the colors.
5. I have separate “where” lists that I paste in next.
6, 7, 8. Next I copy and paste from other separate lists for different combinations of color, physical, and close-up format. Examples:
vertical,color,colour,close ups,closeups,closeup,close up,sepia,vertical
horizontal,color,colour,close ups,closeups,closeup,close up,sepia, horizontal
I do not copy the entire list, only the applicable part of it. Obviously I have some other combinations, these two are just examples.
Note that unfortunately you cannot see how many characters you have used up when copying and pasting into the keyword box. That is why you should add things in order of importance.
Also, don’t forget to add detailed descriptions, because the external search engines search your description too.
Here is the Tutorial on Keywording and Descriptions for FAA. It is not as detailed as this, but I thought some might find it helpful.
If you have any tips to share, please do below!!
Very nice article JD! Thank you!
Wow, JD! Thank you for taking the time to put this together. It is so helpful. We'll be going back to work to refine our tags!! Thanks again!
Thank you so much JD. Fantastic tutorial.
Thank you all for your kind words! I'm glad that I could share something of help.
Thank you for your counsels, JD! They're very helpful and I'll surely use them from now on.
I also try to include the following in my keywords; if it is a specific style; landscape, still life, wildlife, or night photography. Yes, I do know that will cause one redundancy when it come up with photograph twice. Although, when FAA adds canvas or acrylic that redundancy is not there.
I also think it is important to mention the main object in the keywords; Pine tree, marbles, cat, etc. Keywords (or tags) are a challenge at times. The more often you think about how those words help in searches for your art, the better you become at using the keywords.
Great advice, Douglas!
A member from one of the groups that I administrate shared this site:
http://microstockgroup.com/tools/keyword.php
It is a really great tagging tool, and I will certainly be using it in future!
It is simple to use. Simply put in a word or two that describe your image, and it will show you a page of various images from microstock agencies that have that in their keywords. Simply select all of the ones similar to your own, and then it will show you a page listing all of the keywords for those images. You simply select all of the ones that apply to your image, and it add them to a box that you can copy and paste from. Simple and easy. I think it is a really great tool!!!
Very helpful! Thank you!!
Really useful info, JD! I'm never satisfied with my keywords -- this will serve as a great guide when I get around to revising them. Thank you!
You are welcome!! Now if we only had a way to bulk edit key words, we could update them much more easily. Maybe Sean will do that one day. I'm know it would take a lot of coding...
If FAA allowed bulk editing it could open the way to even more misuse of the tagging system :|
I know that Beth, that's why I realize that it will probably never happen. It's a shame. :(
Excellent tutorial, J.D.!
most informative, thank you
What a helpful, informative post! Thanks so much. This will help us all be much smarter with our tagging!!
Thank you for this. Particularly like the microstock tagging link. :)
Thank you for taking the time to help!
Great!
Thanks to share!!
Excellent summary. Will use it!
Thank-you J.D. for your great help with learning how to manage with key-words, there are a lot of newbie's that need this advice. I am one of them! Thanks again!
Thank you all, I am glad that it helps!
Thank you. This has been helpful!
I'll add that a thesaurus or a good vocabulary helps a lot. Those rocks in your photo, are they hoodoos or gargoyles or gravel, or sandstone or granite or concretions or masonry or cliffs or escarpments or tufas or monoliths, etc etc.
In addition, use google maps, find locations near where you did your image, and be sure to add village, town, city, and state and state abbreviation to your photos.
Thanks JD! Informative and helpful. I was surprised to learn about adding colors to keyword - I just assumed the FAA color swatches took care of that. I'll revise my keywords now. Thanks again!
Another tip: If you aren't sure if you have gone over the limit on the number of characters, then submit the image and then go back and edit it. You can see a live character count when you are editing the keywords on an existing image.
Is this correct or not? Was told years ago, when adding keyword ,"grand canyon", it is for searches where users enter "grand canyon" so it will only bring up links with the words Grand Canyon. That this excludes a lot of others from the search....
I'm not sure what you are trying to ask, Nadine and Bob.
On FAA's search, if you search for "grand canyon" it will bring up any image that has the words "grand" and "canyon" in the key words.
On google or other external searches if you search for "grand canyon" it will bring up any web page that has the words "grand" and "canyon" in it, only it will do advanced sorting. I think that one of the things that can add relevance to a page is if the search term is contained in the URL. So Grand-canyon.com would likely be close to the top.
Does that answer your question?
Yes, thanks. Was wondering if it was a waste of time in FAA.
When I search on the Internet I always use "search words" so its not necessary to look through ten or more pages to find what Im looking for. Also noticed when I use it, FAA inserts into the keywords /s where the quotes are. So have to allow for them. If there are too many, the it adds too man // and you have too many characters. IF you do not remove all of them, before you save again, it just adds even more // so you can wind up with six or more around each work, gradually reducing the available useable characters. So I just remove them all, delete some lesser keywords, and save again.
Yes, I have noticed the glitch with the slashes / being put in where you use an apostrophe '. I don't know exactly what causes it, but it has to do with the html code. I have had the same experience and the only thing you can do is remove some keywords. I think that the word still works correctly in the search though....
Very helpful article, thank you!
Another beneficial idea for searching, make sure that when you write your description of the artwork, that you include some of the search words. Google also searches the "content" of the page, and puts more weight on what is written than just the search words. So it can push it ahead of other items in the list found in a search... So if your content contains some of the same words, you will get more hits. As there are a lot more people searching Google, than FAA website, this is important.
The second item in my list order of things to do for keywords,
The Title of painting or photo. It goes first in the keywords, then separately each word used in the title.
Another thing I do, over the years have kept lists of search words on certain paintings or photos. Like for Nadine Messianic paintings, whenever I find an appropriate word, have added it to the list. Then, when she creates a new painting, I pull up the list and copy the whole list into the keywords. Then go through and delete the inappropriate ones for that painting.
Excellent article!
Thanks JD for this tutorial...Your article saved a lot of space in my allowance...I was shared this tutorial by Wendy J St Christopher. Thanks both of you..:) I believe my tags are enough relevant now to come up on search engine..thanks once again..
Kasana
So very helpful - thank you!
Thank you JD! I appreciate your taking the time to put this together. I'll going to get busy and remove photo as well as the related words from my all of my tags!! ... Elaine
I know I am late (just joined) but, isn't the plural of a word also redundant? In other words if I search dog, dog will show up in dogs. If I search dogs in will not show up in dog.
So am I wrong in just listing the singular of keywords?
Jim, in many external search engines, like google or yahoo, the plurals would be redundant, but at present in the internal search on FAA, if you search for "dogs", only images with "dogs" in the keywords will come up. "Dog", "Doggie", etc., would not be recognized. This could change in the future, because artists would like to have it work like the other search engines where the plurals are redundant, so that we can add more keywords. But right now, if you want to come up on FAA's internal search when someone searches for "dogs", then you must have "dogs" in your keywords.
Two other free sites for keywording were mentioned in one of the FAA community threads
http://www.arcurs.com/keywording/
http://dusegard.se/PhotoKeywording.aspx
These are both being used by members of FAA. Guess you could try each, plus the one JD mentioned earlier, and see what works best for you. We played with the first one, just to see how it worked. It delivers a list with commas and spaces between each word. Depending on how extensive your list is, you may need to delete the spaces.
We need to use each some more to see what we like best, and then go back and put it to use on our images!
JD, we thanked you further up in the thread, but want to thank you again for all your help with this important function!!
Thank you, Bob and Nancy for sharing those sites. I will have to go have a look. I am sure that people will find them helpful.
Have been using this link for a couple of years..
http://microstockgroup.com/tools/keyword.php
Like it, because it is quick and simple. It does the same as the two links posted, at one time. Believe they take the data from Microstock, but then hide that fact... The keywords shown as Bold Letters are the most frequently used. BUT, it also has in the lower right corner a rating system. If you try the bold keywords, but then look at others, watching the ratings, you can find some which are SELDOM used by those posting images, yet are higher in search ratings. Takes a bit more time, but worth it.
An example is one word Ive found that is way down in listings of photographers using it. Like ,national park, gets a score, where ...
,national, park, ... as seperate words do not. Then, if you choose a really bad one, the entire rating panel turns red, a good one turns it green. In many cases it does nothing, but some words you click LOWERS your score. In these other links, it just gives you words to pick.
ohhhhh Yessssss you guys have no ideas of how much tags are my total nightmare..when english is you second language..and you have a hard time coming up with the right name and you must come up with all the tags or words you never seen in you life..lol! Thank you so much that I am printing and will re read again and try to do my home work better ..lol! Great work ..JD and thanks for the other tips as well Nadine and Bob..every little bit help!
Danielle :-D
Thanks for posting this wonderful article. My biggest problem is actually coming up with the tag works. I literally draw a blank every time I see that space. Ugh.
I can relate Michelle lol! Now I juist sent my self an email with all the great information and links and taged..(on gmail tags) so I can find it later..that is my tip of the day! and you want redundancy for this one so I send this to 2 diffent adresses just in case I can not access on I can access the other! :-D
This is wonderful, thank you for the share.
Update: I was reading through this again, and noticed that I said that I would find out whether external search engines like Google can see your keywords. Well, I now know that they can. The first so many keywords appear on the artwork's page, right below the image. More appear at the bottom of the page, and still others are hidden from you, but Google (or Yahoo!, etc.) still sees all of them.
I would edit the post above to include this, but posts cannot be edited after 24 hours of posting. :)
Just add any changes to a reply JD. Good idea Danielle. I've been looking through people's work that is similar to mine checking out what they are using for tag words. I was trying to do what you suggested JD, by creating a file that had my general tags so I can just pop over to it when I upload a file and copy/paste. It is much easier. However, I was getting ver creative with my tags and ended up using too many characters and had to delete several since you can't go over 500.
When you go over the limit then you have to delete some. Ask yourself which ones somebody searching for an artwork like yours would be most likely to use, and delete a few of the less likely ones.
Am making "Lists" of keywords, for particular subjects or locations of subjects. Like Ive got one for Arizona, Grand Canyon, Monument Valley, Red Rock State Park, Sedona, Organ Pipe, Yosemite, Sequoia, etc. by doing that, do not have to delete them from one subject.
Thank you for the wonderful advice!
Thanks for this JD
Thanks. This is helpful and very informative. I never realized so many things could be used as keywords.
very very helpful, thank you J.D.
Great article J.D. I learned something new today :)
Thank you J.D
Well I stumbled across this and what a find. Thank you! I have been wasting time on some of my key words. Hope I get a sale based on this information.
bumping this up for the Keywording Curious!
Thanks a bunch!!!
Thank you sooooooooooo much!!... Outstanding information :)
Bumping this up!
Thanks all for information.....
Great info... of course, now i have even MORE behind the scenes work to do... ;)
JD, thank you so such a detailed explanation on how to tag your photos. This is really very helpful and I will be using this tool as I move forward. THANK YOU!!!
Excellent advise! THANKS VERY MUCH TO ALL WHO SHARE!!!
This is the best article I have read on FAA...thanks so much for the advice and info!
Wow,Wow,Wow,WOW,WOW,WOW,OMG,OMG,wow,wow,wow,
Just stumbled on to this. WOW! Thankyou,ThankYou,THANKyou,thankYOU etc...
-JB
Useful info.. THANK YOU!!!
http://gynt.fineartamerica.com
Thanks JD. Huge help!
Great article, thank you so much !
Thank you for sharing this detailed and valued explanation. An excellent guide to listing keywords!
Great information. Thank you so much.
Very interesting thank you!
As a new member to FAA, I found this extremely useful and although I thought my 'keyword' list was fairly comprehensive before, I have now realised that there is a lot more that can be done.
Thank you very much, very useful article.
Excellent article and supporting comments.
thanks so much.
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