Sometimes, words fail us. What’s blue to you may be green to me, short is relative, and wouldn’t it just be easier if you had a picture? Personal shopping has a new name and it’s visual search. BloomReach found that visual search is associated with 48% more product views. It’s even led to the rise of mobile apps such as CamFind. People love the convenience of using an image to find out more about an object or business and they really love the ability to shop through pictures.

Give Me Some Examples

An image search uses a text-based query and finds the best match. With a visual search, the image IS the query. Using an image to conduct a search gives more specific results. It’s is like a QR code on steroids. Here are some of the ways a visual search is uniquely useful:

• You’re reading an article touting the benefits of eating tofu. You’d like to try cooking with tofu but you aren’t sure what to do with it. Snap a pic of that bean curd and get linked to recipes, maps to nearby groceries, and maybe even a coupon.
• A poster in the subway has your favourite celebrity advertising a new smoothie. Use your smartphone to take a picture for nearby stores that are stocked with all the flavours and check out which flavour that movie star prefers.
• At dinner, you see a woman with a dress that would be perfect for an upcoming party. Use a visual search to find all the details. One note: maybe ask before you take her picture?

Google Lens

Of course Google has a horse in this race. The most popular search engine in the world needs to adapt to how users are conducting searches. Google Lens was announced in 2017 as a kind of better version of Google Goggles. This visual search technology uses your smartphone camera to make your life easier. It can recognize objects, landmarks, labels and more. Then Google Lens puts a search into context by offering image-related options. Here are a few of the possibilities explained.

The Ecommerce Breakthrough

Pinterest has always focused pictures, so in 2015 the website launched visual search as an option to look for ideas without text queries. Then in 2016, Pinterest came out with object detection to find the objects in a pin’s image and related results. This technology has built Pinterest’s user base and increased its revenue as an advertising platform. For example, Pinterest teamed up with the Target app in a deal that had benefits for both companies. Has Pinterest Lens been successful? The website reported more than 600 million combined monthly searches in February 2018 alone.

Bing

Bing Visual Search is another opportunity to let pictures do the talking. It uses your phone’s camera to enable searching, shopping, and learning. Zoom in on part of an image to focus your search. Point your camera at a butterfly or building and Bing will work to identify the object, plus give you additional information including related links.

Visual Searches and Business

As a business, especially an ecommerce business, your best bet is to optimize your website-related images. First of all, post plenty of pics while paying attention to quality, format, and sizing. Second, the text related to those pictures is important and can affect SEO—don’t ignore this important opportunity to increase your ranking. After all, what’s faster and easier: Seeing a shirt in a magazine and typing a description? Or taking a picture of the shirt? Take advantage of visual searches and connect with your customers.

Picture This

Our digital world is always evolving, making day-to-day tasks easier. As internet users, the way we act often dictates those improvements. When we use our phones, computers, and tablets, we’re providing useful information for the companies looking to get our attention. Even when a new technology is introduced to the public, the way we use it affects its evolution. As a video production company, we’re not surprised that visual search applications continue to be refined. We understand the power of the visual and its ability to communicate beyond words. If you need product images for your website, we do that! Call us today for a free quote.