How Visual Search Will Impact the Future of SEO
This article was written by one of our amazing contributors! Content may include promotional links.
Pinterest Lens and Google Lens are leading the development of visual search technology. Right now, visual search is most useful for people who are shopping around for a specific item. Shoppers like visual search and report that it helps them find what they’re after better than text-based searches and search results.
Many online stores, including Wayfair and Amazon, have released their own visual search engines. While these may not be particularly robust, they do serve as an easy way for customers to try out and experience this new type of search. Once visual search becomes more widely adopted, the way many businesses organize their SEO efforts may be entirely upended.
Pictures Will Matter Just as Much as Text
Right now, most SEO efforts are centered around text. This could mean articles and transcripts or keywords and tags. Either way, it’s text. With this new visual shift, the text will still be a key indicator of image content and context, but the image itself is what will be shown to potential customers.
Image Quality Will Inspire Competition
While consumers will be after a particular product, they will be more likely to click on an image they find of excellent quality or containing additional information about a product. Setting, background, and other factors may also influence their choices. Overall, the most attractive images will get the most attention and rank better.
More Content Will Have a Visual Component or Option
Creating a visual to go with any content or articles (beyond stock photos, etc.) will give those that can a competitive edge as long as they can make it relevant. If you need an example, look at how Pinterest operates. They’ve been an image-based for quite some time and may be the best way to see how any projected strategy might work out.
Video and Animation Will Be Easier to Index
Visual search is becoming smarter all the time. Images won’t be the only thing it can understand. Soon video may be well on its way to being analyzed for content and appearing in visual search results. This includes everything from live streams to an animated explainer video.
As stated above, the text will still matter but the content will be recognized for what it is in addition to how it is described. Whether this will be integrated with pictures in visual search or sorted into an entirely different category remains to be seen.
Visual Search Matters Most for Apparel and Home Good
Not every category or industry will be affected equally. While maintaining the best SEO practices possible is vital to anyone that wants to be found online, visual search will matter most to those in specific categories. In specific, if you sell things that rely on visual appeal, developments in visual search and its particular best practices may weigh heavily on your future success online.
Visual Search (and Image Searches) Will Come First
Right now, video and images earn about 5% of all Google search clicks. However, once image searches begin to catch on and separate themselves that number is likely to change. How search results themselves are presented is also expected to change. These changes will, for some time, be unpredictable.
If you plan to use visual search to get ahead and want to be one of the most visible brands, creating more visual-type content is never a bad plan. Once your content is out there, you can always update your SEO strategy and employ new, updated tactics.