Visual search truly is the next frontier in SEO in NZ, as it allows businesses to reach a wider audience and improves their visibility in search results. It really is an example of how far technology has come and how it can benefit our daily lives.
We’ve all used search engines like Google to look for information on the internet, and many of us have used voice search to ask our questions aloud to gain insight in a hands-free way. But visual search? This innovative search message is almost futuristic, and many of us are only just starting to realise its potential for businesses and consumers alike.
So, let’s start at the beginning – what exactly is visual search, and how can you optimise your site for it?
What Is Visual Search?
Visual search is an advanced type of internet search that allows users to find products or information by uploading or taking a picture of an object. It’s becoming increasingly popular as people are becoming more comfortable using images to interact with the internet.
Try to think back to a time when you were trying to look something up, but all you had to go off of was visuals. Perhaps you saw a cool product that wasn’t labelled, and you had no idea how to search for it besides entering a detailed, way-too-long query into Google.
Well, now you don’t have to do that – visual search lets you take a picture of whatever you’re looking at and search the internet using that photo. You should be able to find exactly what you’re looking for without entering a single word.
How Can I Optimise My Site for Visual Searches?
This technology is astounding, but it can also be rather confusing. How can you possibly optimise your NZ site’s SEO to account for visual searches?
Consider the following:
Use High-Quality Images. Your images should be high-quality and relevant to your content. This way, if anyone visually searches for anything close to your products or services, they should be led to your site. Blurry or irrelevant images may not show up in their search.
Additionally, high-quality photos with crisp images and a beautiful use of colour will make your site look more professional and trustworthy. Users are more likely to become intrigued by a site with gorgeous photos rather than a dodgy site with blurry images that don’t have anything to do with the site’s content.
Every image on your site should be gorgeous, relevant and have a reason for being there.
Another good thing to do for your NZ site’s SEO is to compress your image files. Images are often one of the largest files on a site, so compressing your images can make their file sizes smaller. This will help your site perform better and load faster.
Add Alt Text. Alt text, which is sometimes referred to as an ‘alt description,’ is very important for SEO. They help search engines understand exactly what your images are about.
Alt text is a useful HTML attribute that is used to describe the images on your site. They can be used to provide information about the image, such as its title and description. They’re basically a way to tell a search engine what an image is in a text-based way.
For example, let’s say you have a photo on your website of a yellow lab puppy running after a tennis ball through a green field. The alt text for this image could be something like ‘Labrador puppy chasing a ball in a field.’ It’ll help Google know what the image is, even if the image isn’t loaded.
Make sure you try to fit in relevant keywords when you write your Image alt text, as keywords are always a good thing to think about when boosting your NZ site’s SEO.
Additionally, try to be descriptive so that the alt text is clear. If you have a photo of a woman surfing, don’t write ‘woman surfing;’ write ‘Woman surfing on a green surfboard during the day.’
Use Image Captions. Captions are a fantastic way to add more context to your images and make them more searchable. Be sure to include relevant keywords in your captions if possible.
Image captions are the bits of text that appear below an image. They can be used to provide more information about the image itself. Just like alt text, they help a search engine identify your photos for what they are.
Upload Your Images to Image Sharing Sites. Although this may seem strange at first, as modifying SEO on an NZ site often involves dealing with your site itself, it can actually help. Uploading your photos to image-sharing sites like Pinterest, Imgur or Flickr can help you reach a wider audience and improve your visibility in visual search results.
When you upload to these sites, they will be indexed by search engines and found by more people searching for images related to your keywords.
Use Social Media. Just like sharing your photos on image-sharing sites, sharing your images on social media can also help you reach a much wider audience and improve your visibility in visual search results. As always, be sure you use relevant keywords and are descriptive.
Aside from capitalising on visual search, social media is simply a great way to connect with your customers and promote your business in a friendly and approachable manner.
Many of us use social media every single day to pass the time, connect with others or learn about cool businesses. So, having an active and positive social media presence can get you far.
Where Can I Go to Make Sure My Site Is the Best That It Can Be?
Call us at Kiwi Website Design if you want your NZ site to be more beautiful, more useful and have better SEO. We’ll gladly help you with our professional services!
We know that SEO, web development and visual search can be confusing topics for people who don’t know much about them. No worries, you can handle your business, and we’ll handle the web design side of things. Feel free to give us a buzz on XXXX or visit our contact page to reach us.
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