Visual Search: Looking Beyond Image SEO Marketing

I want to tell you a story about a young Google algorithm.
He was born blind, in a world where a picture is worth a thousand searches. This little algorithm had one dream. To be able to see. So he got his friends to describe him images, but still he couldn’t see.
He built magical Google Goggles, but these didn’t work. Then one day, he built a learning machine and finally, after years of struggle, he could recognize images.
That little algorithm who could is named visual search and has taken on a job as the world’s personal shopper.

Image Searches Are Now Commonplace

asked that question to consumers. 74 percent of them replied that text-based keyword searches are inefficient in helping to find the right product online.
A 2017 report by Jumpshot & Moz further supports that discovery through pictures is alive and well, with around 27 percent of all searches being for images. MozCast reports image blocks in around 11 percent of Google results. While Jumpshots’ data shows images earn 3 percent of all Google search clicks.

Image SEO: The Early Years

Let’s be honest, image optimization is the dinosaur of the SEO world. Sure you sayyou implement image SEO for additional ranking opportunities in Google image search, but in most cases, you don’t truly believe this will have a significant impact on your KPIs.
When is the last time you looked at the sessions from image search in Google Analytics? Did you even notice years ago the change from the referral path /imgres under google.com referral to a fully fledged source medium as images.google.com?
Most of the image SEO best practices are more for user experience than search engines rankings. Take a critical look at common image optimization tips:
Primary Reason Behind Common Image Optimization Tips
User Experience
  • Rankings OtherShy away from stock to use original, high-quality images
  • Shy away from stock to use original, high-quality images
  • Context is key, be relevant to surrounding text
  • Appropriate file format so images are crisp
  • Optimize image file size for web page load times
  • Use standard image ratios
  • Use image dimensions large enough to be clearly visible on any device
  • Add descriptive captions for users who scan
Rankings
  • Descriptive image file names
  • Descriptive alt text
  • Descriptive image titles
  • Submit an image sitemap
  • Schema markup
Other
  • Open Graph tags
  • Twitter cards
  • Beware of copyright
And one can argue descriptive image file names, alt text, and image titles are used as an opportunity to add a keyword in order to rank the page, not necessarily the image itself.
Not to say the image optimization tips above are not valuable. You should still do these things.
The hard truth is SEO professionals often neglect image optimization as an afterthought to page-level optimization, if it’s considered at all. And this level of image optimization alone is not going to be enough to win users.
So why are you reading about it…

The Rise of Visual Search

In the past there was image search, where search engines took a text-based query and tried to find the best visual match.
In the present there is visual search, where search engines, social networks, ecommerce powerhouses, startups and many companies in between take an image as the query.
A change in consumer behavior is happening. In the words of Jeffrey Gitomer “people don’t like to be sold to, but they love to buy.”
When you see something you’re interested in, whether it’s online or offline, you want a fast an easy way to get more information.
For example, you see a pair of shoes in a magazine. With image recognition, you can take a photo and find similar item for sale online.
This see-snap-buy behavior is becoming commonplace and has opened up opportunities for companies to enter the purchase cycle with the photo as the search query. This places them higher in the conversion funnel than a text-based search query.
Visual search is fast becoming a staple of shopping apps. And with the impact on KPIs, it’s no surprise why.
BloomReach found that visual search is associated with 48 percent more product views. Consumers are 57 percent more likely to make a return visits and spend on average 9 percent more on mobile than those who do not use it.

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