According to the Experts at PhotoFocus, there are 32 key words that will help you sell wedding, portrait, pet, and family photography.  The thought is that since Women tend to do the majority of household decorating, you should attempt to market to women and use sensitive words like love, passion, temptation, duke, moon, paradise, virgin, and bewitched.  While his theory holds some weight, and I haven’t spent much time selling prints (yet), I highly doubt that throwing a word like “hug” “hug” in my tag list is going to increase sales in any way.

Is it just me, or does this seem a little chauvinistic?  People buy pictures that express something.  While the pictures you took with your little pocket cam at the bar last St. Patrick’s day may be fun and memorable to you, nobody is going to buy it unless it expresses some profound emotion or detail that is totally original and seemingly unrepeatable.

Don’t use these words as a sales-pitch, use them as a guideline while out shooting.  No matter what words describe your photo, it will be the content that pushes it off the shelves.