Google Images are now a blessing for those operating in the e-commerce Industry, as the search engine giant has partnered with Getty Images. You cannot see the ‘view image’ and ‘search by image’ button, which ultimately leads to more traffic to the publisher’s website, shares,
Dwayne Charrington, ProProfs.
Centuries back, we followed the barter system where goods were exchanged with one another. If you want to buy something, you negotiate with the seller and pay for it with a product you have. Then came money and a marketplace where buyers and sellers meet physically, and transactions were made instantly. The market place developed as technology made progress, and we were introduced to e-commerce in the 1960s!
Understanding e-commerce
In simple, e-commerce or electronic commerce is the activity of buying and selling of goods and services online, over the internet. It also involves transmitting funds or data over an electronic network. e-commerce refers to participating in an online marketplace or online business transactions that occur either as business-to-consumer, consumer-to-business, consumer-to-consumer, or business-to-business. It also includes business-to-administration and consumer-to-administration as well.
e-commerce also employs online shopping via websites and mobile apps, marketing to prospective customers via email, fax, or social media, conversational commerce via customer support tools like the help desk software, voice assistants, and chatbots. It also includes online financial transactions for trading purpose, engaging in retail for the launch of a new product or service, and gathering demographic data through social media and web forms.
Relationship Between e-commerce And Images
When it comes to online marketing, images create a positive experience for any potential customers. Imagine yourself as a potential buyer of any product. The product description helps you understand the product better; you know the benefits that are offered, the colors the product is available in, the size, and weight and many other aspects. There is a tinge of uncertainty that lingers around. This uncertainty is reduced by multiple professional images of the product. Experts believe that e-commerce product images reduce customer uncertainty and increase conversion rate. The product return rates are also lower when the online marketplace is accompanied by a product image.
Google Images to Drive e-commerce Sales
Approximately 26% of the overall search results in google images. Until now, we have been looking for images in any given online platform such as amazon, eBay among others, or google images for the product image. While looking for a product on google images, you also see several options such as ‘view image’, ‘visit site’, ‘share’ and ‘save’ along with other related images. Clicking on ‘visit site’ would either take you to an e-commerce site that sells the product, or to another site that gives you more information about the product. Though google images helped drive potential customers, it was limited. But recently, something changed with Google Images and made everything easier. But what changed?
Google partnered with Getty Images and paved way to a new experience for Google Images users through new search results. Two major changes were made to Google image search after the partnership.
- Change 1: Google removed the ‘view image’ button.
- Change 2: Google removed the ‘search by image’ button.
The ‘view image’ button was replaced by ‘visit site,’ and the traffic from Google Search is moved to the publisher site. Now imagine you click on an e-commerce product image and you are directed towards a website that sells it! Optimized product images drive potential customers to the e-commerce website, connecting them to up-to-date and accurate product information as well. This way, google images helped to drive e-commerce sales, and they became the key to completing a successful buying experience.
The change is a tremendous opportunity for e-commerce marketplace as this provides a channel for customer acquisition via Google Image Search. If you are an e-commerce marketing professional, then it is time you made some changes and take advantage. How can you take advantage?
- By optimizing your product images
- By optimizing your e-commerce site
How can you optimize your product images to drive traffic?
There are three simple ways in which you can optimize your e-commerce product images. By optimizing your product images, you can get indexed in Google search for high-quality prospective customer traffic with purchase intent. Imagine you are a marketing professional working with an e-commerce website. How would you increase the traffic into your website?
- It’s time you nail the image optimization basics!
The easiest way in which you can get your product images found is by using descriptive file names along with the optimized alternate text. An alternate attribute provides alternative information for the product if for some reason the user fails to view the image. These are the basics of image optimization that every e-commerce platform should adopt to drive traffic into their website.
- Schema markup is the key!
Schema markup is a code that is put on a website that helps search engines return more informative results for users. When you use structured markup, it enables rich product images and product attributes. This attracts potential searchers to your website while they search for items to buy on Google or images. It is important to maintain the accuracy and freshness of product information so that customers find it relevant and current.
With structured markup, you can make Google Images your storefront window. Also, adding a markup to the product pages provides detailed product information in rich search results, including Google Images, which in turn helps in increasing traffic.
- Let the product information be shown in Google Search and Google Images!
When an image is accompanied by a description, it has more weight than any normal product image. As a marketing professional, having your product image accompanied by rich text show up in Google Search and Google Images is priceless. It not only helps increase traffic but also helps to acquire new customers. After recent updates to product feeds, product information can now be changed in real-time. This helps to resolve queries pertaining to high intent searches or buyers. On Google, the product information such as an image is ranked based on relevance to search queries from the user. Constantly updating product feed based on search queries will be helpful.
How to Optimize Your e-commerce Site for Visual Search?
Visual search is nothing but a search by image instead of text. Visuals are powerful selling tools, especially in e-commerce sites where a customer does not get to see the product in-person. e-commerce customers rely on visuals which helps to build trust. Google images is already a major player in visual search. With the introduction of Google Lens, users can process information in real life as well. For example, assume you like a teacup at a café. Input a photo of the teacup using Google lens, and you will be provided with every detail related to the product as well as similar related products.
How Can you Optimize Your Visual Search?
An image has a lot of influence on the purchase decision of any potential buyer. To improve the conversion rate, an e-commerce professional must
- Use high quality, multiple images, and showcase the product clearly.
- Optimize image-associated text. This includes keywords, title tags, captions, and file names.
- Include images in the sitemaps
- Make use of image badges. Badges are overlay labels on an image that indicate what type of image one is seeing.
- Learn and apply image optimization tips that are encouraged by Google
Google images and visual search has changed the face of e-commerce. Though visual search is still in its development stage, it has a lot to offer. As for Google Images, it is a blessing in disguise to e-commerce.