How Tagging Helps Your Photos and Videos Get Discovered

Imagine a room filled from floor to ceiling with piles of books. Trying to find a specific book or knowing if that book is even in that room would be nearly impossible.

Now compare that room to a library of books that have been organized and cataloged. Not only would it be easy to know if your book is available, but you'd also be able to quickly locate it.

Why tagging is important

Pexels isn't just a website full of photos and videos — it's a library, and we've built systems to help make it one. When people come searching for your work, we want them to be able to easily find it. This is why tagging is so important.

Tagging your work on Pexels is basically cataloging your work in our library. It allows our search algorithm to know what's going on in your photo or video and whether it's relevant to what someone is searching for.

Tagging, though, can be a bit… tedious. Trust us we, we know. We have an entire team dedicated to tagging. They review every single tag that's been added to submitted work, so we fully understand how tagging can sometimes be a pain.

To help you and our team out, we also automatically generate tags for all photos and videos submitted to Pexels. But as you can imagine, automated tags aren't always that accurate. Incorrect tags can be added or important tags can be left out.

This is why tagging your own photos can make such a big impact. You know your photos and videos better than anyone on our tagging team. Help us help you get your work discovered.

Tagging 101

Are you my subject?

Let's start with the basics. When deciding which tags to use, begin by asking yourself this question: "What would someone search if they wanted to find this photo or video?"

The answer to that question will usually be the subject of your work.

• A person
• A place
• A thing
• Or several of the above

Example:

So... how would you describe me?

After you've tagged your subject, you can then add tags that describe your subject. To help you out a bit, here are some questions to help get you started:

If it's a person...

• What are they doing?
• What are they wearing?
• Are they showing any emotion?

If it's a place...

• What time of day is it?
• What's the weather like?
• What's the setting?

If it's a thing...

• What color is it?
• What kind is it?
• How is it being used?

Example:

Let's dive a little deeper

Now that you have your primary tags covered, let's take a look at some of the detailed and more abstract tags you can add. When you captured the shot…

What kind of story were you telling?

• Heroic
• Lonely
• Romantic

What themes were you trying to capture?

• Modern
• Minimal
• Wildlife

What feeling/emotion were you wanting to convey?

• Love
• Wonder
• Frustration

Example:

Some tips and tricks

• Adding tags is important, but adding too many tags can be harmful. When tagging, you want to stay concise and clear. A well-tagged photo has at least 10 tags, but no more than 25. It can be easy to get carried away and tag every small detail, but remember, tags are only helpful if your photos appear in relevant results.
• Double check your work. Make sure there aren't any spelling mistakes or incorrect tags that slipped through.
• Don't use hashtags (#). Hashtags are powerless on Pexels and we remove tags that include them, so we'd recommend ditching them entirely.

We're here to help

If you run into any trouble, have a clarifying question, or even find your photos appearing in the wrong search results, please let me know.

You can personally reach me (the Head of Content at Pexels) by sending me a Twitter DM or email to [email protected] and I'll do my best to help. I go through all the messages once a week, so if you don't get a response from me right away, know that I'll get back to you soon.

Got more questions about uploading to Pexels? See our handy upload guidelines for more details.