Money Keywords on AdobeStock: Top Tags in Bestselling Vectors
One silent noun lifts portfolios from zero to payday — guess which?
One silent noun lifts portfolios from zero to payday — guess which?
AdobeStock pays contributors when clients download their art. Vectors with the right tags reach buyers first, so the right word equals cash. I scraped the public “Top Seller” feed between 16 June 2025 and 22 June 2025 and filtered the list to vector files. The batch holds 120 items. Each file lists its own keyword string. In total, those strings contain 1 695 unique words.
Why study this slice? The feed shows what buyers paid for last week. Fresh signals beat long opinions. If a tag rose to the summit on Monday, rivals will copy it by Friday.
Do keyword patterns repeat inside a single week? Yes, and the results surprise many new artists.
Inside the dataset
I kept six columns: title, keywords, category path, transparency flag, AI flag, and thumbnail link. I stripped punctuation, lower-cased every term, and counted repeats. That simple pass reveals the market’s loudest nouns and adjectives.
The top twenty tags, ranked by frequency
+------+--------------+-------+
| Rank | Keyword | Count |
+------+--------------+-------+
| 1 | vector | 107 |
| 2 | illustration | 81 |
| 3 | icon | 78 |
| 4 | line | 55 |
| 5 | set | 54 |
| 6 | graphic | 54 |
| 7 | design | 47 |
| 8 | background | 35 |
| 9 | art | 34 |
| 10 | shape | 34 |
| 11 | retro | 33 |
| 12 | element | 32 |
| 13 | business | 31 |
| 14 | abstract | 31 |
| 15 | texture | 30 |
| 16 | modern | 29 |
| 17 | symbol | 28 |
| 18 | us | 28 |
| 19 | outline | 27 |
| 20 | vintage | 25 |
+------+--------------+-------+Look at rank one. “Vector” sits inside nearly every tag string. You might ask, why list a universal term? Buyers still type “vector background” in the search bar, so the platform rewards redundancy.
“Icon” holds third place, while “set” and “line” cluster near the top. These four words often travel together. A buyer wanting “line icon set” finds dozens of hits, and the files above keep winning the click.
Patterns behind the words
Nouns dominate. “Vector”, “icon”, “shape”, and “symbol” drive structure. Adjectives add flavor. “Retro”, “modern”, and “abstract” speak to style, not content. That mix matters. Clients search first for object, then refine by style. Good tags give both layers.
Notice the geographic spike: “us” appears 28 times. Ten of those files show state maps or patriotic art. The run-up to Independence Day explains that bump. Season moves markets.
Counts drop fast after rank five. Long-tail terms still matter, but frequency shows a power curve. The first ten words soak up one third of all tags. A new contributor can ride that wave by mixing three high-volume words with niche phrases.
What about banned clichés like “innovative” or “unprecedented”? They never show here. Stock buyers need crisp filters, not hype. This feed proves the point in numbers.
Low-competition gems inside the feed
A gem, for this study, means a word that appears only two to five times in the 120-file sample yet sits on a product that sold last week. Fewer matches signal less crowding, while the recent sales prove real demand.
+------+-------------+-------+
| No. | Keyword | Count |
+------+-------------+-------+
| 1 | aeroplane | 4 |
| 2 | ambulance | 4 |
| 3 | blank | 4 |
| 4 | cartoon | 5 |
| 5 | chart | 5 |
| 6 | glitch | 5 |
| 7 | hat | 5 |
| 8 | label | 5 |
| 9 | monochrome | 5 |
| 10 | online | 5 |
| 11 | photo | 5 |
| 12 | scratch | 5 |
| 13 | television | 5 |
| 14 | typography | 5 |
| 15 | wind | 5 |
+------+-------------+-------+Look at “glitch” and “monochrome”. Both ride current design moods yet face only five rivals in the sample. “Aeroplane” holds four hits, but air-travel ads never stop. A single clear illustration can rank fast if you anchor it with such words.
Why do small counts help? Search logic gives extra weight to exact matches when supply stays thin. Clients see fewer pages, so a tight tag reaches page one without paid boosts. Does that guarantee new income? No, but the odds jump.
Seasonal spikes you can predict
July is close. That single fact turns words into money. The dataset proves the pulse.
+------+--------------+-------+
| No. | Keyword | Count |
+------+--------------+-------+
| 1 | holiday | 16 |
| 2 | american | 12 |
| 3 | flag | 9 |
| 4 | independence | 9 |
| 5 | july | 9 |
| 6 | travel | 9 |
| 7 | summer | 7 |
| 8 | sun | 6 |
| 9 | vacation | 6 |
| 10 | beach | 5 |
| 11 | patriotic | 5 |
+------+--------------+-------+“Holiday” tops the chart because buyers gear up for ads, banners, and party kits. “Flag” and “independence” rise together since United States Independence Day sits two weeks ahead of the scrape window. Retailers schedule art at least one month early, so your July files must hit the store in May. The same cadence repeats across the year: start Christmas uploads by October, push “spring” art by February, and refresh “summer camp” icons the moment snow melts.
Ask yourself: which dates drive your local market that global artists might forget? That single question can open a blue ocean. One clear answer can triple a small portfolio in one quarter.
A step-by-step tagging workflow
Follow these plain steps each time you export a vector. They keep your files searchable and future proof.
Open the keyword bank first
Keep a spreadsheet with two
sheets: high-volume staples and low-competition gems. Update counts every Monday using the public feed.
Mark
seasonal terms in bold so you remember when to fire them.
Write the literal subject
Add the object name, plural form,
and style. For a flat blue bus icon, start with “bus, buses, flat, blue, icon”.
Add three style adjectives
Pick current trends from the
bank: “minimal, line, modern” or “retro, glitch, grainy”.
Layer in usage context
Think about where clients place the
art. For UI icons, add “app, ui, button”. For prints, include “poster, t-shirt”.
Sprinkle two gems
Choose words with counts under six that
still match the piece. Gems lift rank without clashing with crowd favorites.
Check season tag need
If the file links to a date, add the
holiday, month, or weather term. Skip the step if no fit.
Trim fat
Delete repeats, obscure synonyms, and any word that
fails a quick buyer test: would a non-designer type it?
Sort by importance
Place the subject first, style next,
context third, and gems last. AdobeStock weighs early tags more.
Save to the bank
Copy new gems into the sheet with the date
and file link. Data grows portfolio IQ over time.
Run the list each time. The habit takes three minutes and keeps confusion away.
Putting it together
Low-competition gems protect you from crowded pages, while seasonal spikes deliver quick bursts of traffic. The workflow stitches both into a repeatable routine, so each upload leaves guesswork behind. You no longer gamble on luck; you steer with numbers.
What will you tag next? That choice now rests on data, not hope. Open your editor, pick one gem from the table, add a holiday word that fits, and publish before the rest of us wake up.