Numerous factors influence the the success of your portfolio on Shutterstock, however there are three aspects that we feel are particularly important: content, customer need, and metadata.
Content
Both quantity and quality matter. Uploading new content on a regular basis will keep your portfolio fresh and relevant. Our customers are always looking for fresh content of high quality.
Customer Need
Ultimately it is only the customer who can determine whether to download your content or not. We invest heavily in technology to provide the best and most relevant search results to our customers. We also invest in marketing and advertising of our collection to attract new customers, as well as working with partner sites and affiliates all over the world.
Good metadata
When it comes to keywords and titles, quality will result in more downloads than quantity. It is better to have fewer effective and accurate keywords, than a multitude of keywords with little relevance to the image. Check out Title and Keyword Guidelines, Policies and Best Practices for additional information.
We also offer a variety of tools to help you succeed as a Shutterstock contributor:
Sets
Sets are collections of images or videos that enable you to organize, edit, and showcase your portfolio on the customer site, as well as track your earnings from these collections within your account. Sets allow you to curate your portfolio into groups of images or clips by subject, concepts, or trends and can be made either public or private. Learn more about sets.
The Shot List
Every month we compile a guide to the most requested content from our global network of customers. You can view the most recent guide here: The Shot List
How can I improve the performance of my portfolio?
Shutterstock's tools and tips for building a successful content portfolio.