Keywording is a popular subject (or point of contention depending on your point of view), and it's been discussed here in the past. One thing that causes problems for many people is coming up with logical and meaningful keywords for their images. After all, not all of us look at the same subject and think of the same terms. For example, when you see this photo, what keywords do you associate with it (no fair looking ahead).

I'll give you a few hints - the shot is from Bodie, a ghost town in California that was a big mining town in the Sierra mountains.

I'll confess right now that I had help with selecting the keywords for this image. I'm using a structured list build by David Reicks at Controlled Vocabulary. This is a hierarchical list of some 11,000 terms that can be imported into Lightroom by choosing Metadata > Import Keywords. The list will be shown in the Keyword Tags panel in Library Mode, or as you type keywords in during either Import or in the Keywords list existing matches will be displayed.

My typical workflow is to type in the obvious keywords which will often show me a few additional options I hadn't considered. After this I'll scan through the Keyword Tags list. Here you'll see which keywords have a hierarchy. Selecting one of these child keywords will insert the parent as well.

I've found that my stock sales have increased since I've started using standardized keywords. As much as I'd like to think it's because my images have improved, in reality I know that it's because I've made it easier for potential buyers to find my images.

Oh - my keywords for the image shown here? Abandoned, bed, bedroom, Bodie, California > United States of America, Ghost Town, Home, Mining, Sierras, State Park