Upgrade to Pro — share decks privately, control downloads, hide ads and more …

Image and Visual Search for Ecommerce

Image and Visual Search for Ecommerce

Image and Visual Search is a field that SEOs tended to neglect in the past. However, with the ever-growing importance of the visual elements in SERPs, the central part Lens is having in the Multimodal idea Google is developing for Search, and the completely established preferred behavior people have about Visual Shopping, ignoring Image and Visual Search is something that cannot be tolerated anymore.

gianluca fiorelli

March 16, 2023
Tweet

More Decks by gianluca fiorelli

Other Decks in Marketing & SEO

Transcript

  1. 3 Takeaways 1) Visual Search is the most natural search

    2) Images & Visual Search SEO is not only ’’Alt tag’’ optimization 3) The Devil is in the details
  2. “People have always been visual; our brains are wired for

    images. Writing was a hack, a detour. Pictorial languages are how we all started to communicate; we are coming full circle” - Kevin Systrom (Instagram Co-Founder)
  3. Visual Search is perfect for people, who have these common

    dilemmas : 1. Do not know what they desire, but know it ASAP they see it.
  4. Visual Search is perfect for people, who have these common

    dilemmas : 1. Do not know what they desire, but know it ASAP they see it. 2. Do know what they want, but they do not know how it is called.
  5. “In the English language there’s something like 180,000 words, and

    we only use 3,000 to 5,000 of them. If you’re trying to do voice recognition, there’s a really small set of things you actually need to be able to recognize […] So the problem of search in vision is just vastly larger than what we’ve seen with text or even with voice.” Clay Bavor (VP, Labs and Virtual & Augmented Reality at Google)
  6. However, SEO for Images & Visual Search tends to be

    considered a low priority because: 1. “It is time consuming” 2. “Image CTR is ridiculous” 3. “People search images just to steal them” 4. “We have to create 1000000 pieces of content with ChatGPT” 5. …
  7. Image & Visual Search can help us generating conversions in

    just one click from the image to the shopping cart eliminating intermediate steps, which could cause the loss of that same conversion.
  8. IMAGES SEARCH Search bar with Lens Merchant feed with product

    images carousel Image gallery of products listed in an ecommerce category page
  9. IMAGES SEARCH Organic Shopping (desktop) Query: Star Wars Legion miniatures

    Title from Title tag or H1 Structured Data Relevant text taken from the description of the product
  10. IMAGES SEARCH Organic Shopping (mobile) Query: Star Wars Legion miniatures

    If we mark up our product pages with Schema.org/Product, then Google presents the product tag and the availability (’’in/out of stock) If the product is available also in Merchant from other merchants, Google will indicate it.
  11. IMAGES SEARCH Organic Shopping (mobile) Query: Star Wars Legion miniatures

    If other stores present the same product, Google shows them under the main result. It is therefore essential to offer the greatest possible degree of information to make our Search Snippet so attractive as to ''to make'' users forget to click on the alternatives. The merger between classic research data and Merchant Center is increasingly present.
  12. IMAGES SEARCH Organic Shopping (mobile) Query: Star Wars Legion miniatures

    On mobile, then, we can create ‘’Collections’’, which we can recover to retake our Search Journey in a later moment.
  13. IMAGES SEARCH Organic Shopping (mobile) If we click on any

    of the images we saved, the Search Snippet is slightly different. In any case, it will occupy all the viewport of the smartphone. TL;DR • Our products images must be able to nudge the click or, at least, the searcher to save them in a Collections. • Images Search especially is a mobile experience.
  14. Keyword Research Project > Position Tracking Filter keywords to see

    those, which SERPS presents an Image Box and…
  15. … AdWords, Shopping, and Merchant search features. These are the

    keywords for which a Visual Shopping behavior is more evident, being their Search Intent clearly transactional. Keyword Research
  16. Rich Results – Images • Article • Carousel • Event

    • How To e HowToSupply / HowToTool
  17. Rich Results – Images • Article • Carousel • Event

    • How To e HowToSupply / HowToTool • Image Metadata
  18. Rich Results – Images • Article • Carousel • Event

    • How To e HowToSupply / HowToTool • Image Metadata • LocalBusiness (Restaurant)
  19. Rich Results – Images • Article • Carousel • Event

    • How To e HowToSupply / HowToTool • Image Metadata • LocalBusiness (Restaurant) • Logo
  20. Rich Results – Images • Article • Carousel • Event

    • How To e HowToSupply / HowToTool • Image Metadata • LocalBusiness (Restaurant) • Logo • Movie
  21. Rich Results – Images • Article • Carousel • Event

    • How To e HowToSupply / HowToTool • Image Metadata • LocalBusiness (Restaurant) • Logo • Movie • Product
  22. Rich Results – Images • Article • Carousel • Event

    • How To e HowToSupply / HowToTool • Image Metadata • LocalBusiness (Restaurant) • Logo • Movie • Product • Recipe (also in HowTo)
  23. Rich Results – Images • Article • Carousel • Event

    • How To e HowToSupply / HowToTool • Image Metadata • LocalBusiness (Restaurant) • Logo • Movie • Product • Recipe (also in HowTo) • Video
  24. Organic Merchant Feed Images required for each product! Minimum requirements:

    • Replace any symbols or spaces (i.e.: “&” = %26). • URLs must be indexable. • Submit only 1 value (image_link). Other images can be added using the additional_image_link attribute. • The URL must be stable. • Updated images can take 3 days to be crawled. • Enable automatic image improvements
  25. Organic Merchant Feed Images required for each product! Minimum size

    requirements: Non apparel > 100x100 Apparel > 250x250 Resolution > No more than 64 Megapixels Weight > No more than 16 MB Shot type > Display the entire product > If a bundle, all products must be visible (is_bundle) No placeholder More: https://support.google.com/merchants/an swer/6324350?hl=en
  26. Images Search SEO – Alt tags Steps: 1. Crawl your

    website. 2. Filter your image resource URLs to see all without alt tags defined. 3. Discard all the template images (they are sitewide). 4. Decide the prioritization workflow depending on the relative importance of the content 1. product pages 2. category pages 3. magazine/blog articles What if there are thousands images to optimize? Use AI for captioning the images: LAVIS (Language-VISion) and BLIP2: More information here: https://wordlift.io/blog/en/image- seo-using-ai/ Colab link: https://wor.ai/image-captioning
  27. Images Search SEO • Descriptive file names • Alt tag

    (aka alt text) • Caption • Image Description (Image Galleries)
  28. Images Search SEO • Descriptive file names • Alt tag

    (aka alt text) • Caption • Image Description (Image Galleries) • XML Sitemap (required)
  29. Images Sitemaps Remember: ‘Image URLs must be crawled and indexed’’.

    Namespace where you define the image tags: xmlns:image="http://www.google.com/schemas/sitemap -image/1.1" Tag: <image:image> For each URL we can indicate up to 1000 images. <image:loc> The URL of the image. If the images are in a CDN, its domain must be verified in Search Console. You may combine sitemap extensions but, in this case, pay attention to the size the XML sitemap
  30. Images Search SEO • Descriptive file names • Alt tag

    (aka alt text) • Caption • Image Description (Image Galleries) • XML Sitemap (required) • Consistence between the image and the text surrounding it
  31. Images Search SEO • Descriptive file names • Alt tag

    (aka alt text) • Caption • Image Description (Image Galleries) • XML Sitemap (required) • Consistence between the image and the text surrounding it • High quality images
  32. High Quality Images - Categories First N visible images Images

    following the first scroll All the other images below the fold • Fetchpriority high • Preload • Loading eager • Fetchpriority high • Loading auto • Fetchpriority low • Loading lazy • Decoding async
  33. High Quality Images - Carousels Immediately visible elements First 2

    elements following the first swipe All the other elements of the carousel • Fetchpriority high • Preload • Loading eager • Fetchpriority auto (high if it is in ‘’Autoplay’’) • Loading auto • Fetchpriority low • Loading lazy • Decoding async Note: do no use composited animations
  34. High Quality Images – Product pages Immediately visible elements Second

    element of the carousel All the other elements of the carousel • Fetchpriority high • Preload • Picture scrset • Loading eager • Picture scrset • Fetchpriority high if it is in ‘’Autoplay’’ • Fetchpriority low • Loading lazy • Decoding async
  35. High Quality Images – Image format Format Transparency Animation Browser

    PNG YES NO ALL JPG NO NO ALL WebP YES YES ALL MODERN BROWSERS AVIF YES YES NOT ALL (Safari and Firefox have limitations QUESTIONS Are animations needed? Use <video> elements instead of Gifs. Need fine details with highest resolution? Use PNG but remember it is not lossy, hence the weight of the file can be very big. Use WebP and it is lossless, hence more efficient than PNG. Use SVG if image is composed of geometric shapes Reconsider the use of Text in images Are you optimizing photo? JPG is the first choice (both lossy and lossless. Test different quality levels) Lossy WebP or Avif, but weaker on color chroma
  36. High Quality Images – a checklist • Prefer Vector formats.

    • Minify SVG assets. • Whenever possible, choose WebP or AVIF formats (see previous slide). • Experiment with optimal quality settings for raster formats. • Remove unnecessary image metadata (i.e.: geo information, camera information…). • Serve scaled images (see: https://web.dev/i18n/en/serve-images-with- correct-dimensions/). • Compress images using image compression software like Imagemin (see: https://web.dev/i18n/en/use-imagemin-to-compress-images/). • Use Images CDN, which normally take care of everything image performance optimization. • If it is possible, automate.
  37. High Quality Images – What if the base resources are

    no high quality? You can use Super-Resolution for images, which can enlarge and enhance images using generative AI and Deep Leaning. A good model is ESRGAN (Enhanced Super Resolution Generative Adversarial Network) available in the Tensorflow Hub: https://www.tensorflow.org/lite/examples/super_resolution/ overview https://www.tensorflow.org/hub/tutorials/image_enhancing https://arxiv.org/abs/1809.00219 https://github.com/hiram64/ESRGAN-tensorflow
  38. Lens is everywhere! Syndicalize your images so to have them

    used on other websites frequently used by your audience.
  39. Lens is available also on desktop. We can upload an

    image we have saved in our PC or drag & drop an image from Image Search.
  40. There are ways to present visual facets of our products

    without needing to create/open to index HTML URLS that may harm the SEO performance of our ecommerce MULTISEARCH
  41. MUM, with its capacity of using images, text, and voice

    search in the same search session in a fluid and seamless way, nothing else is but combining search options already existing separately. HOW WE TARGET THESE KIND OF SEARCHES? ENTITY SEARCH ENTITY SEARCH ENTITY SEARCH
  42. MUM, with its capacity of using images, text, and voice

    search in the same search session in a fluid and seamless way, nothing else is but combining search options already existing separately. HOW WE TARGET THESE KIND OF SEARCHES? ENTITY SEARCH ENTITY SEARCH ENTITY SEARCH
  43. Visual Search SEO • Classic Image Search SEO. • Structured

    Data. • High Quality Images. • Attention to PageSpeed and CWW.
  44. Visual Search SEO • Classic Image Search SEO. • Structured

    Data. • High Quality Images. • Attention to PageSpeed and CWW. • Avoid confusion in the image. The main object must be clear, and avoid “artistic” effects like cinematic and blur.
  45. Visual Search SEO •Classic Image Search SEO. •Structured Data. •High

    Quality Images. •Attention to PageSpeed and CWW. •Avoid confusion in the image. The main object must be clear and avoid “artistic” effects like cinematic and blur. •If possible, avoid “stock images”: create them!
  46. Visual Search SEO • Classic Image Search SEO. • Structured

    Data. • High Quality Images. • Attention to PageSpeed and CWW. • Avoid confusion in the image. The main object must be clear, and avoid “artistic” effects like cinematic and blur. • If possible, avoid “stock images”: create them! • Republish your images portfolio in sites like Pinterest.
  47. Visual Search SEO • Classic Image Search SEO. • Structured

    Data. • High Quality Images. • Attention to PageSpeed and CWW. • Avoid confusion in the image. The main object must be clear and avoid “artistic” effects like cinematic and blur. • If possible, avoid “stock images”: create them! • Republish your images portfolio in sites like Pinterest. • Curate every detail of your product images, using ”correlated products” in them. You don’t know what object user they focus on in a photo.
  48. Visual Search SEO • Classic Image Search SEO. • Structured

    Data. • High Quality Images. • Attention to PageSpeed and CWW. • Avoid confusion in the image. The main object must be clear and avoid “artistic” effects like cinematic and blur. • If possible, avoid “stock images”: create them! • Republish your images portfolio in sites like Pinterest. • Curate every detail of your product images, using ”correlated products” in them. You don’t know what object user they focus on in a photo. • Optimize internal linking also for your images.
  49. Visual Search SEO The more pages use our images, the

    better they will be tagged with related entities and, therefore, the more visible they will be in Lens image searches and visual searches.
  50. TL;DR 1) Visual Search is the most natural search 2)

    Images & Visual Search SEO is not only ’’Alt tag’’ optimization 3) The Devil is in the details