Are you familiar with visual search? Surely you have done several searches but did not use the keywords or queries that you typed directly into the search bar? This one search is certainly different from the daily searches you do. Using visual media, you can search for information according to your needs. So, is visual search important to know? Let’s see together the discussion about visual search below!
Table of Contents
- What is Visual Search?
- The difference with Image Search
- Visual Search for Business
- Visual Search and Image SEO
- Conclusion
What is Visual Search?
Visual search refers to a technology that relies on artificial intelligence (AI) to participate in helping users perform searches using an imaginary real world instead of using a text. You may be a little unfamiliar with this term, or even conclude it is the same as image search, search using images. However, visual search certainly has a significant difference.
Google Lens
The most powerful tool for this type of search. By using Google Lens, a user can capture an image of an object. Later, the image will be identified and provide users with certain information and search results. One platform that has implemented this type of search is Pinterest.
When performing a visual search, the algorithm will answer questions in the form of identified objects. Or, if interpreted into a sentence, the question that appears will read, “Show things like artificial intelligence but in a different form.” In other words, in some cases, users may not know what they are looking for but understand the similar meaning of the information.
The great opportunity of well-optimized visual search technology will greatly benefit e-commerce. The optimization process for related content, especially images with certain objects, is the main key to reaping the benefits of this one feature. When occupying the top position in a search query, a company can benefit greatly.
Along with the development of technology, taking pictures is not only useful for the satisfaction of mere beauty but to be stored as evidence of experience. Technology makes it more than just proof of experience or snapshots of memories, one of which is through visual search. Not only that, but this one search has also become a trend in terms of digital marketing lately.
Not only useful for a company, but the visual search is also useful for users who are searching. This type of search can make it easier for them to find information or when they want to purchase a product. In addition, visual search offers convenience in the form of specific results displayed by search engine algorithms.
Visual Search Technology Is Growing
The proof is the vision or algorithm that recognizes various kinds of information such as product details, public biographies of figures such as celebrities, a logo of a brand, and various other entities.
The difference with Image Search
When discussing the meaning of visual search, you must have been wondering what is the difference between the two? Next, we will provide an explanation related to the differences between the two types of searches.
Visual search falls into the category of sensory search, where the search involves not only images, but also sound, text, and sight. Both visual search and image search are indeed image-based. When doing an image search, sometimes we have to enter additional text to clarify the information so that search engines can display more accurate results. While visual search only requires an image.
As we have seen before, a visual search is a computer vision-based search, where, while processing the image you enter, the computer not only sees the image but can also assist in interpreting it.
Visual Search for Business
As we explained earlier that visual search will be very profitable for e-commerce or other business people. On a note, business owners can optimally optimize visual search. We present some tips for business people who use visual search.
- Make sure that you understand the audience you are targeting on a particular platform
- Create targeted ads that match the needs of the target audience
- Focus on advertising on multiple platforms with visual search
- Focus on optimizing your product image
- Make sure all aspects of the product image are correct and optimal
- Pay attention to the loading speed of your business site
- Use structured data
- Add alternative text
- Pay attention to the authenticity of the image you load
- Use descriptive document names
- Pay attention to the accessibility of your business site
- Pay attention to the content (make sure to stay up to date with trends)
- Focus on the performance of your business site
When you make efforts to optimize visual search appropriately and optimally, this one technology will certainly benefit your business. There are several advantages of visual search that can be enjoyed by your business and consumers, including;
- Can attract and retain more consumers, especially young consumers
- Can increase consumer engagement
- Offers convenient and seamless product discovery
- Save search time (for consumers)
- Uncomplicated or simple search forms
- Increase income
Visual Search and Image SEO
It is undeniable that visual search has a close relationship with images. Because images are one of the media that are useful in conducting visual searches. So that users or potential users can find your business easily, the step that must be done is to optimize the images on your site.
As discussed in the previous point, where the quality and components of an image are mentioned a lot in the application of visual search for the business. That means images that are of high quality and relevance can allow you to profit from visual search. Therefore, don’t miss out on optimizing every image your business site has, whether it’s product images or other supporting images.
Not much different from other important component optimization steps, which you should pay attention to in image optimization include;
- Use alt text to describe the images on your site
- Make sure the images you display on the site are of high quality, clear, and not confusing
- Place the pictures in the right places, according to the context of your respective pages. If necessary, also add text to make it clear
- Don’t forget to use a descriptive document name
- Add caption
- Don’t forget to adjust the size and compress your image
Conclusion
Technology is now constantly evolving. the various features may be foreign and new to you. The one form of technological development in terms of searching on search engines. It is not uncommon for businesses to use this medium to attract many customers. Several large platforms have adopted this type of search to implement. If your business has plans to take advantage of visual search, review the key points in the optimization steps.