You’ve uploaded a great shot and are ready to license it. But how can you be sure it will be seen by a potential buyer? Detailed keywords and metadata descriptions are essential for your content to appear during searches.
Tagging your image with the right keywords and metadata will increase the clip’s visibility and ensure that it appears in search results. The wrong keywords or metadata — or worse, too few keywords or metadata — might decrease your clip’s visibility or result in missed sales opportunities. Although it can seem tedious, effective keywording is a critical step in preparing your videos for licensing. By keeping it simple and factual, keywording and metadata can be an easy part of your workflow.
When keywording, do:
- Describe what you see and stick to the facts
- Use conceptual keywords (what is the emotion, mood, or bigger picture idea?)
- Check for spelling errors
When adding metadata, do:
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- Fill out as much as possible. The more you can add about the camera used, type of shot, motion control, etc. the more you help a potential buyer refine their search.
- While keyword options are practically endless, we do supply drop down menus for each category of metadata, to keep terminology consistent. Match the metadata as best as possible to the options provided. See below for example.
- Take advantage of our batch metadata editor or import metadata from your own database. To learn more about both of these options, refer to this earlier post about our metadata management tools.
To illustrate what a good set of keywords and metadata look like, we’ve included some examples below.
Example 1:
Title: Patagonia Timelapse
Description: Motion timelapse of clouds passing over Patagonia mountains and lake
Keywords: patagonia, 8k, chile, argentina, mountains, lake, andes, sunset, sunrise, time lapse, fitz roy, landscape, nature, calm, dramatic
Location: Patagonia
Camera: Pentax 645z
Composition: Wide Shot, Extreme Wide Shot
Focus: Back, Infinite
Light Source: Sun
Lightfall: Ambient
Medium: Time Lapse
Motion: Dolly, Pan, Tilt
Example 2:
Title: Cowboy riding galloping horse
Description: Close up of cowboy riding horse as it gallops
Keywords: cowboy, man, person, ranch, horse, farm, wild west, western, canada, alberta, plains, saskatchewan, running, galloping, powerful, animal
Camera: Red Epic Dragon
Location: Alberta, Canada
Composition: Close Up Shot, Medium Close Up Shot
Focus: Mid, Fore
Frame Angle: Neutral View, Profile
Light Source: Sun
Medium: Video
Motion: Movi, Dolly
Model Release Available: Yes
Example 3:
Title: Desert Buggy Race Aerial
Description: Track Eric Solorzano from the air as he races through the desert. Sun flare through the frame.
Keywords: Drone, aerial, 4k, offroad, off-road, buggy, desert, car, dust, race car, flare, dusk, dawn, epic, adventure
Camera: Inspire 2 x5s
Lens: 50
Location: Glamis, CA
Composition: Medium Shot
Focus: Infinite
Frame Angle: Birds Eye, 3/4 Rear
Light Source: Sun
Lightfall: Ambient
Medium: Video
Motion: Aerial
