So how to appear in the visual search. The number of people shopping online has drastically increased over time. It is estimated that over 96% of Americans, buy their items from the internet. Shopping online may appear easy, but there are lots of challenges faced when trying to find specific things as opposed to buying from a local store
Enter visual search. Major sites such as Google, Pinterest and eBay have joined the visual search in recent times, it makes it easier to search for an item you so much admire from your colleague, friend or family member. Google Lens will use machine learning to transform such images into search results.
Sounds great right? Well although your business may not have what it takes to launch your visual search tool, you can standardize your website to fit into Google’s requirement. What does this mean for your business? This means that customers will be able to buy from you using a photo. These few tips will guide you to enable you to make your business ready.
1. INVEST IN HIGH-QUALITY IMAGES
Make sure your photos are not grainy or amateurish. Over the years, with the best ranking pages, Google displays, it has made it known that pages with high-quality images win when it comes to search rankings. Hire a professional photographer to take good pictures of your products. If your budget is not enough to pay for the services of a professional photographer, consider taking the pictures yourself, and then pay a professional editor to help you beautify those photos. Ensure your photos are not difficult to decipher. Make sure they can easily be matched with an uploaded image if not customers won’t be able to find it.
2. USE VISUAL PLATFORMS
With the gradual popularity of visual search, there are high possibilities of results being pulled out of social media giants in the like of Instagram and Pinterest. These platforms are already populated with marketers trying to sell their products so ensure to cross-post your products there as this increases the chance of your products being seen. Implore the use of hashtags and keywords to help customers locate your posts. Visual search has what it takes to make it easier for your products to be found online.
3. TAG EVERY PHOTO TO APPEAR IN VISUAL SEARCH
Make sure you tag all your photos; this is highly important. The first thing you should do is to choose a filename that matches your SEO goals. Research thoroughly on the importance of keywords and how to use them then proceed to put that knowledge to good use when it comes to tagging a photo. Have a good understanding of SEO and all that it entails enabling use tags that will boost up your Google ranking. An example of a suitable SEO practice is ensuring your photos don’t have a long loading time. If that is the case, consider making your image the right size according to your site specification. If your picture is part of a blog post, have a little text from the post surrounding the image in the form of a description. Provide an excellent summary of the photo if you’re going to upload it to your e-commerce store. The use of visual search is gradually changing the way most businesses sell their products. If you start preparing for this now, you will have quite a head start when compared to other company in your industry.
What are your plans to make your online activities befitting for image search? Share your thoughts with us.