Optimizing for Google Lens and Visual Searches

Search is quickly evolving beyond traditional text-based queries. 

Visual search is changing the game, allowing us to search with images instead of just words. Basically, search is becoming as easy as snapping a picture or screenshot with your phone.

And Google Lens and other tools are leading the visual search charge. Google Lens alone is already seeing 20 billion searches a month—20 percent of those related to shopping.

As this technology becomes more integrated into our daily lives, businesses and content creators need to think about how to optimize for visual searches. 

Ignore it, and you risk missing out on a growing segment of shoppers.

In this article, we’ll cover how Google Lens works, why visual search is important for your digital strategy, and actionable steps you can take to make sure your content is discoverable in an image-first future. 

Key Takeaways

• Google Lens helps you find products visually, giving marketers a unique opportunity to showcase items to engaged, visual-based searchers.
• High-quality, clear images are a must to succeed with Google Lens. That way, your products stand out and meet visual search standards.
• Proper image labeling, alt text, and schema markup are essential for visibility in visual search. This helps search engines better understand and index product images.
• The rise of Google Lens is part of a broader shift toward visual-first SEO. As a marketer, you’ll need a visual search strategy to meet users’ growing demand for image-based searches.

Table of Contents

• Key Takeaways
• What Is Visual Search?
• What Is Google Lens?
• How Can I Use Google Lens and Visual Search Applications?
  • Google Lens as an Online Shopping Tool
• Why Is Visual Search Important?
  • Visual Search for E-commerce
  • Visual Search for SEO
• How Do I Optimize Content for Google Lens and Visual Search?
  • 1. Google Merchant Center Integration
  • 2. Structured Data Markup
  • 3. Image Optimization Best Practices for Visual Search
    • Image Size
    • Label Images and Add Keywords
  • 4. High-Quality Photos and Visuals
• Beyond Google Lens: Other Visual Search Tools and How They Compare
  • Pinterest Lens
  • Bing Visual Search
  • Amazon Camera Search
• Leveraging Google Lens and Visual Search for SEO
• Future Trends in Visual Search
• FAQs
• Conclusion

What Is Visual Search?

Visual search lets you instantly find information using pictures instead of keywords. 

Imagine you spot a jacket or pair of shoes you love but don’t know the brand or what they’re called. With visual search, the answer’s just a photo away.

This is particularly impactful in e-commerce, where consumers are increasingly searching for products visually rather than typing text-based queries. As the technology behind it improves, accounting for visual search in your SEO strategy is becoming a must.

What Is Google Lens?

Google Lens is an image recognition technology that allows you to interact with real-world objects using your phone’s camera.  

Using AI, Google’s technology interprets the objects on your phone camera and provides additional information. It can scan and translate text, see furniture in your house, and even help you explore local landmarks.

Google Lens is integrated directly into the camera on some phone models. If it doesn’t come preloaded on your device, it’s integrated into various Google apps that you can download from the Google Play or Apple App stores.  

How Can I Use Google Lens and Visual Search Applications?

Have you ever been traveling and wished you could read that train ticket in a foreign language? With Google Lens, just hover your phone camera over it, and it will translate the text for you.

You can also use Google Lens to learn about your environment in other ways. If you point your camera at a nearby landmark, you’ll see historical facts and information about the hours it’s open. You could also use it to identify a type of flower or the breed of dog. 

You could also use it to see which items are most popular on a restaurant menu (this information is pulled from Google Maps). Or, if you’re a student, you might use visual search to help with your homework. For example, you could hover over an equation and get a step-by-step guide to solve the problem.  

Google Lens as an Online Shopping Tool

But one of Google Lens’ most exciting applications for marketers—the one I’m going to talk about today—has to do with online shopping.

Say you’re browsing on your phone and see a sweater you like.

Rather than typing a long query into Google (aka “brown sweater, zig-zag pattern…”), you can use the new Circle to Search feature and Google Lens will find the same (or a similar) item.

The app also provides style tips and ideas about what items to pair with the sweater. The recommendations are based on AI’s understanding of how people in fashion photos typically wear similar clothing.

Before the shopping feature launched, users could already search for clothing by taking screenshots and uploading them to Google Photos or by scanning physical items in stores. The addition of Google Lens’s image search feature makes the process quicker and more convenient.

Looking ahead, Google Lens is poised to revolutionize shopping with augmented reality (AR) showrooms. In the near future, shoppers may be able to try on clothes virtually from home, making the online shopping experience even more immersive.

As Google Lens and visual search SEO continue to evolve, marketers need to optimize their product marketing strategies to stay competitive.

Why Is Visual Search Important?

Visual search isn’t just a novelty. It’s a game-changer for e-commerce and SEO. 

Google Lens and other visual search tools open new opportunities for engagement and conversion. Optimizing your site for visual search can improve user experience, enhance SEO strategies, and drive organic traffic. 

With more people using their cameras for search, you can’t afford to ignore visual search.

Visual Search for E-commerce

Visual search is especially impactful for e-commerce. It simplifies the process of finding similar products online, making it easier for consumers to discover items that match their preferences. 

As this technology continues to grow, visual search SEO will redefine how products are found and purchased online. Make sure your e-commerce SEO strategy incorporates image optimization and structured data to keep up.

Visual Search for SEO

Visual search is becoming increasingly important as search engines shift toward image recognition. 

Optimizing and properly indexing your product images can improve their visibility on platforms like Google Lens. Enhancing your SEO with visuals opens new channels for organic traffic and boosts engagement as more consumers turn to visual search for product discovery. This emerging trend is reshaping how businesses approach SEO.

How Do I Optimize Content for Google Lens and Visual Search?

To effectively optimize for Google Lens and visual search, focus on high-quality images, proper labeling, and structured data to help get your content indexed correctly. Let’s explore the key strategies below.

1. Google Merchant Center Integration

Google Merchant Center tells Google more about your products so it can list them in search (or use them in Google Shopping results). This is an important step for both text-based and visual search SEO. 

Here’s how to sign up for Google Merchant Center:

Go to Google’s Merchant Center homepage and sign in to your Google account.

Click “Sign in to Merchant Center” in the dropdown menu.

You’ll be asked questions about your business, like whether you sell online and have a physical store location. 

Then, enter your business’s name and information:

Scroll down, and fill in more information about your checkout process, tools you use, and whether you’d like to receive emails.

When you’re finished, agree to the Terms of Service and click “Create Account.”

Once you’ve created your account, don’t forget to add your products.

You can do this by creating a product feed. On the home screen of your new account, click “Add product data”:

You can then choose to add individual or multiple products.

2. Structured Data Markup

If you don’t want to use Google Merchant Center, you can still get your products to show up via visual search on Google Lens and elsewhere. However, you’ll need to add some structured data markup to your website. (In fact, I recommend doing this even if you do use Google Merchant Center.)

Structured data markup consists of code snippets added to your HTML that help Google better understand information on your website. Schema.org annotations are the most commonly used markups for SEO.

For example, schema can tell Google that a specific page is a recipe, an article, about a local business, or an event.

Product schema, for example, shares reviews, pricing, returns information, and more.

To implement Schema.org markup, you’ll need access to edit the HTML on your site.

Google provides a helpful support guide on setting up structured data so that your site is compatible with their Merchant Center.  

If you use WordPress, there are also several schema markup plugins that handle the heavy lifting. 

Once you’ve added the code, use Google’s Structured Data Testing Tool to make sure Google understands your markups.

3. Image Optimization Best Practices for Visual Search

The technology behind Google Lens is similar to Google’s reverse image search but uses more sophisticated AI. That means a lot of the same principles that apply to regular image optimization for SEO also apply to optimizing for Google Lens.

Image Size

Large images that load slowly (or not at all) can hurt your SEO (as well as make your website less user-friendly).

Since e-commerce websites tend to have many images (as they should!), loading times are particularly important.

Use a compression tool like Compress JPEG or Compress PNG to shrink your images.

Label Images and Add Keywords

Use keywords and descriptive language wherever you can—for example, in image titles, alt text, filenames, and EXIF data.

Add image titles and alt text via your website’s HTML or your content management system (like WordPress or Squarespace).

EXIF data can be edited locally on your computer. This data adds more in-depth information to your photo, such as the time and date it was taken and the camera used.

Although machine learning tools like Google Lens rely more on image recognition than text when executing a search, adding clear and relevant information to your image can improve SEO and user experience.

4. High-Quality Photos and Visuals

Another way to optimize for Google Lens is by providing crystal-clear product images.

If someone long clicks on a brown sweater in a photo, and that sweater is a product you sell in your e-commerce store, you want your product to come up as part of their search. To do that, Google needs to understand the brown sweater you’re selling is the item the searcher is looking for.

Quality is everything when optimizing for visual search. Just take it from NP Digital SEO Manager Jane Javor:

“It’s more important than ever to incorporate high-quality images and optimized alt tags into your content to improve visibility in visual search.”

Look through your website and replace any images that are blurry, cropped oddly, or don’t fully show items.

Ideally, you’ll want to use high-resolution images taken on a professional camera, balancing quality with file load time. Opt for a high-quality file format like .PNG or .JPG.

Beyond Google Lens: Other Visual Search Tools and How They Compare

There are several key players in the visual search game besides Google Lens: Pinterest Lens, Amazon Camera Search, and Bing Visual Search, to name a few. Each allows users to search using images rather than text, but they target different audiences and offer unique features. 

Let’s break down how they compare.

Pinterest Lens

Just like Google Lens, Pinterest Lens allows users to shop for products from third-party retailers. Users can take a photo, upload one, or hover over a physical item with their camera to use the feature.

Unlike the all-pervasive Google, Pinterest is a specific ecosystem with its own Verified Merchant Program and internal search engine.

To optimize your brand for Pinterest Lens, make sure you have a Pinterest business account, get your products onto Pinterest using Catalogs, and join the Verified Merchant Program.   

Bing Visual Search

Bing Visual Search is another strong player in the visual search space. It offers image recognition and the ability to find visually similar images across the web. 

Bing Visual Search appeals to users who are already integrated into the Microsoft ecosystem or those looking for an alternative to Google’s visual search.

Amazon Camera Search

Amazon Camera Search is a visual search experience aimed exclusively at Amazon shoppers.

This tool allows you to scan a product you’re interested in and quickly find similar items available for purchase on Amazon. It leverages Amazon’s own Lens technology and its vast product catalog to provide instant access to thousands of similar products, reviews, and buying options.

No matter which platform your audience primarily uses, it’s obvious that visual search SEO has never been more important.

Leveraging Google Lens and Visual Search for SEO

Advances in Google Lens search aren’t just changing the nature of SEO. They also represent a significant shift in the way people look for products. Leveraging visual search can significantly boost a site’s SEO by enhancing user engagement, extending reach, and better capturing search intent. 

So, how do you leverage visual search successfully? By reshaping traditional SEO practices to fit your needs. 

Turn your website into a visual search powerhouse by optimizing images and implementing structured data. This will help search engines understand your content and deliver it to visual searchers.

Future Trends in Visual Search

The future of visual search looks bright, with advancements in AR and AI set to enhance the user experience. 

As Google Lens and similar platforms continue to evolve, marketers should prepare for more seamless integration of AR and cross-platform search capabilities, potentially revolutionizing how we shop and interact with online content.

FAQs

What is Google Lens?

Google Lens is an AI-powered tool that allows you to search using images instead of text. It can identify objects, landmarks, text, and even provide related search results or shopping options based on the visual input.

What is visual search SEO?

Visual search SEO involves optimizing images, videos, and visual content to improve their visibility in search engines that offer visual search. This helps ensure your content is discoverable when users search with images rather than keywords.

What are the benefits of visual search?

Visual search improves the user experience by enabling instant identification of objects and information. It provides convenience, drives higher engagement, and creates new opportunities for e-commerce, making products and services more accessible.

What is the difference between visual search and image search?

Visual search allows users to search using images to find relevant results, while image search involves finding images based on keywords or metadata. Visual search focuses on context and recognition, and image search is more about matching based on descriptions.

Conclusion

Google is always innovating and creating new and different ways to search. Google Lens is the most recent example of the search giant’s nonstop growth.

E-commerce retailers can’t ignore this new technology, as image search is likely to be a big part of the future of online marketing. 

As marketers, we need to pivot rapidly as technology changes. Google Lens is no exception.
Don’t miss out on a growing segment of customers who prefer this new and intuitive way to shop. Optimize for visual search to give them the user experience they crave.