Using Tags to Sell More Stock Images

If you like taking photos or creating images, you can sell them on stock image sites. You can make images of almost anything. For instance, there are hundreds of categories of images, including pictures of animals, glamour images, business women, money, eco friendly light bulbs, cars, water bottles, you name it. All you have to do is create the image and submit it for approval on a stock image web site. Once your image is approved, you'll need to tag it. Tags are words that describe an image. They are usually single words, and they provide links that lead to images that are associated with that word.

You can choose how to tag your image.  That means that you can figure out what words can be used to describe your picture.  You can use nouns, verbs, or adjectives.  For instance, if I were describing a picture with a woman in a dog park, dressed in workout clothes and drinking from a water bottle, I'd use words like: woman, girl, drink, lips, jogging shoes, sweat, happy, exercise, bottle, water, run, bench, trees, park, or sky.  That way, when a potential customer performs a search on one of these words, your image is likely to come up.  Let's say, however, that the customer places the word  "dog" in the search box.  If you've included the word "park" as a tag word but not the word "dog", your image will not be presented to the customer, and you will lose that potential sale.

Here's another example, using a picture that I saw on one stock image site.  You have a picture of lions attacking a giraffe in the middle of a busy street in Africa.  (Apparently the attack caused a two hour traffic jam.)  Possible tag words to describe the picture are: lion, attack, claws, giraffe, dead, Africa, cars, scary, afraid, angry, smoggy.

Selling images on stock image sites can be fun and profitable.  Tagging images properly can make the difference between selling many photos or just a few, even if your image is professional quality.

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