Selling AI-Generated Stock Photos
Course 1 · Chapter 6 · Keyword Tagging & Metadata
Stock platform search is almost entirely metadata-driven, and the scale is genuinely bigger than any tag
system elsewhere in this subject — stock platforms typically allow dozens of keywords per image, far
more than Etsy's own tag limit or KDP's seven backend keyword slots. That scale makes thorough, accurate
tagging the single most important discoverability lever you have.
Three Layers of Keywords
Literal
What's physically in the image — "woman," "laptop," "office," "sunrise."
Conceptual
What the image represents — "productivity," "success," "teamwork." Especially critical for the concept/metaphor genre from Chapter 3, since a buyer searching for an abstract idea has nothing literal to search for instead.
Technical
Orientation, color palette, and style descriptors — "horizontal," "blue tones," "minimalist."
Ordering Matters
Most platforms weight earlier keywords more heavily in search relevance — lead with the most important,
most accurate terms rather than burying them behind less relevant ones.
Titles and Descriptions
A clear, descriptive title reads naturally, not as a keyword dump. A short, genuinely informative description
supports the keyword set rather than duplicating it word for word.
Worked Example — A Business Teamwork Concept Image
Literal: business people, meeting room, handshake, diverse team
Conceptual: teamwork, collaboration, partnership, success, trust
Technical: horizontal, natural light, warm tones, shallow depth of field
Thorough coverage, not just specific phrasing
This subject has repeatedly found that specific phrasing beats generic single words. Here that principle
extends one step further: genuine discoverability comes from covering all three keyword layers accurately, not
just picking one strong term. A buyer searching "productivity" and one searching "laptop" might both be
looking for the exact same image — only thorough tagging across layers catches both.
Irrelevant keywords are a policy violation, not just wasted space
Adding unrelated high-traffic keywords to try to game visibility violates platform content policies, the same
finding this subject already reached for KDP's own backend keyword slots. Every keyword should genuinely
describe the image.
Coming up next
Chapter 7 covers the actual submission and review process — how approval works, and what causes
rejections.