It's my birthday!!!
This is the song I'm dancing to, in case you want to celebrate with me: Listen HERE!
(I became obsessed with the entire soundtrack after the movie.)
For my special day, I'm sharing 6 Stock Footage Title / Description Q&As with you!
(I became obsessed with the entire soundtrack after the movie.)
For my special day, I'm sharing 6 Stock Footage Title / Description Q&As with you!
I'm asked each of these questions frequently.
Next time you hear someone ask these, please share this blog with them if you found it useful.
These are the Qs I'll cover:
Next time you hear someone ask these, please share this blog with them if you found it useful.
These are the Qs I'll cover:
- Do keywords in your title matter?
- Add location or keep it general?
- Name famous landmarks or not?
- Add "4K" or "1080"?
- Does capitalization matter?
- Describe POV or not?
IMPORTANCE: Do the keywords in my title matter?
Yes, the keywords in your title DO matter, although for different reasons on different agencies.
The titles ARE searchable on Pond5 and now on Adobe as well. I would recommend you put the most important keywords at the beginning of your title for buyers who are skimming.
Titles are NOT searchable on Shutterstock. Buyers find your clip based on which keywords you use in the keywording section. The title is mostly there to leave a good impression on potential buyers and is still very important.
LOCATION: Should I include the location in my title, or leave it general?
This one is a grey area and I've heard arguments for both sides and don't have an official agency recommendation. Personally, I usually include a mix of both—if I have multiple variations of a location, I'll play the odds and add location data to some titles and exclude it from others.
Writing the location in the title may set you apart from the rest of the similar clips out there and it may help buyers who are looking for that specific location to find your clip. On the other hand, having a more generic description could potentially appeal to a wider base of buyers who could potentially be turned off by a location name that doesn't match what they have in mind, even if the image is perfect for their needs.
Specificity is a good rule of thumb because if you're talking to everybody, you're talking to nobody—ESPECIALLY when your subject is an oversaturated subject like “waterfall”. I would absolutely advise you to include the location data to the title in those cases. If I only had one clip of a very niche subject, like a rare animal, I might go ahead and write a more general title while including the specific details in the keywording section.
LANDMARKS: Should I include the name and location of famous landmarks in the title and/or in the keywords?
(The original example given was Haystack Rock at Cannon Beach, Oregon)
Yes—for a major attraction like Haystack Rock, I would definitely include that info in both the title and the keywords!
If you have multiple shots, then you could play with putting the official name, "Haystack Rock", in some titles while using a variety of other keywords to simply describe what it is in the others. For example, "sea stack" and "ocean rock". That way, a wider variety of buyers might find your clip. You can include all those variations in the keywording section for each clip as well.
If a buyer finds one clip and clicks on it, the similar clips you uploaded should show up beneath the first one on the agency page!
RESOLUTION: Should I add “4k” or “1080” to my descriptions and keywords?
If you upload through BlackBox, they currently do not allow numbers to be included in their descriptions.
In your keywording section, “4k” is an example of one of those keywords that may not help you (since the agencies also list this info along with your clip, buyers can filter by resolution, and they can also clearly see the “buy in 4k” option), but it also shouldn’t hurt you since it’s not incorrect or misleading. Some buyers may actually search for “4k” in the search bar before they use the filters. It's up to you!
I wouldn’t include “1080”, though, since I strongly doubt that would help you and would most likely just take up space.
CAPITALIZATION: Does capitalization matter?
Is it important to follow correct capitalization? Can I just use all lowercase?
Should I capitalize every word in the descriptions that I write?
Capitalization should be purely aesthetic.
I play around with capitalization and often capitalize words I want to draw more attention to for buyers who are skimming quickly. It shouldn't affect SEO, but could influence buyer psychology and first impressions. If you're going to add extra capitalization, I would just ask yourself "why?" first and have an intention behind it!
I wouldn’t recommend using all lowercase, since that looks lazy and might leave a negative impression.
On Pond5, they have the description and the title, which are two separate things (other agencies may use the term synonymously). In the title, they will automatically capitalize the first letter of each word for you. The description will appear however you originally submitted it.
POV: Should I describe the POV in my title?
(Original Q: The clip was shot from a boat while moving forward. In the title, should I write, "POV Boat", "Boat POV", or just "POV"?)
In my opinion, it depends on whether part of the boat is visible or not. If part of the boat IS visible and is very easy to identify, then it might be something helpful to include.
If the boat isn't visible at any point in the clip, then I probably wouldn't add it to the description. If I had a large batch, I MIGHT write "boat POV" in the description of one single clip, but not in the rest to play the odds.
Even if you don’t mention the boat in your description, you could tag “boat POV” in your keyword section.
If you have any questions about how to optimize your stock footage titles, feel free to leave a comment!
Have an awesome day—I'm about to get some delicious birthday tapas!
If you haven't had a chance to check out my keywording course yet, How to Write Killer Keywords for your Stock Footage, you can check it out on Udemy!
I'll teach you all the best practices you need to know to write professional titles and keywords for Shutterstock, Adobe, and Pond5. As a bonus, you'll get my second course with my personal brainstorming methods included for FREE!
Comments
Post a Comment