Visual Search: Changing the landscape of SEO
Right from the Stone-age days to the Egyptian civilization, and now in this digital era of Google Lens, our culture has always been dominated by visual communication. This can be credited to our biological evolution, as the human brain can process visual information 60,000 times faster than words, and a staggering 90% of information transmitted to the human brain is visual. So, it’s imperative for marketers like us to jump on the bandwagon of Visual search. And with so much consumer and brand weight behind it, we can vouch it to the breakout trend of 2019.
The image recognition market will grow to $25.65 billion by 2019 (MarketsandMarkets). This is being driven by millennials as 62% of consumers want visual search over any other new technology (Visenze) as it simplifies shopping on mobile. Now, the consumers can simply point and click to search instead of typing in a keyword such as ‘Little Black Dress’ and provide tailored results. It gives marketers the opportunities to personalize the customer experience, find out new trends and insights on social media and thus determine the future course and design new product lines accordingly. Image recognition can further be used to form strategic influencer partnerships by analyzing influencer’s general sentiment and real-time engagement.
E-Commerce brands are leading the pack in this race to visual search supremacy. eBay integrated visual search into their app, giving consumers the option to use pictures saved or clicked on their phones or use photos from any social platforms to shop for similar products on eBay. Google has taken the game a notch-level higher by introducing Lens which can identify apparel, home goods, barcodes, business cards, books, event flyers, landmarks/buildings, paintings in museums, plants, and animals. Similarly, Pinterest Lens partnered with Home Depot to help people decorate a new home by giving consumers the ability to shop the Home décor products as in the pictures.
Besides the fact that large number of companies are adopting visual search tools, 2020 is expected to see some additional trends in the space of visual search technology.
- Increased integration with chatbots — It will become easier to use visual search as a way to start a conversation with a brand’s chatbot.
- Combination of Text and image — More brands will combine visual search with text search to increase their visibility and reach.
- Broader Scope of visual search — Visual platforms, such as Instagram, will start to realize their potential to tie-in to the visual search market, allowing for seamless shopping experiences.
- Improved technology — Overall, visual search technology will become more accurate and widespread.
While this all seems to be in its infant stage, visual search technology is extremely promising. It is definitely something to look out for, as it has all the potential to positively impact the landscape of SEO. Brands that are wishing to stay visible have to plan how they can leverage the technology. Though we don’t expect it to replace keywords and text-based search entirely any time soon, it will definitely not be surprising to see the rise of this handy feature and become an integral part of search.
