As you know google is revolving day by day from voice search to visual search one of the most amazing features google have provided us is google lens, announced back in 2017 has now taken over the technology to a new level. 

Lens uses AI technology to provide users with the required data from his giant database accordingly. This method helps Lens to learn to identify objects with continuously increasing accuracy.

Lens allow the user snap or upload option so user can view similar object or get information about it.as google lens provide consumer base experience to a new level.nowadays it has became one of the easiest way to shop for customer as they are just one click away from there desired products. In fact, Lens is currently able to recognize more than a billion products and the number will increase more.   

Gone are the days of dozens of Google searches to find that cute pair of shoes you saw on the subway by using, again and again, different kind of query and still can't go for the accurate result

Why visual search is important

Michiel Heijmans,COO at Yoast SEO.

Visual search: schema, branding and some good old-fashioned image SEO

Fili Wiese - SEO Expert at SearchBrothers.com

Image Search can be important indeed. How much so depends on the specific vertical. Websites offering physical goods are more likely to benefit from ranking well in Google Image Search, when compared to websites delivering on standardized services, such as digital goods like broadband service providers for example. For a few verticals, particularly in the fashion and luxury industry Image Search does bare some serious potential.

Visually sold products and services - to many people who are decorators or hoteliers, craft sellers, and they find that image search is something that people prioritize before they choose them. In fact, you might see actual searches for "kitchen remodel Seattle," and then people will base their decision of who to go with based on the images that pop up there, they'll visit that website.

Here is an example of a leather jacket which google lens has shown where you can buy this product 

How Google Lens work:

One of the major issue many marketers are facing to understanding how lens recognize products and other things while searching for this I just found out that google use OCR(Optical character recognition),knowledge graph and Artificial neural network.

Google lens is currently serving multiple tasks for now as translation through your camera or gathered information about pets, plants, places, food, or any product that catches your attention while surfing in the real-world or on the internet. 

So while watching out at some of the David Beckham collection, I found out his shoes are a little more attractive than my own collection. So here, when I use google lens, it just starts suggesting to me some of the places where I can get them easily. 

The main question that Pops up in your mind as a marketer will most probably be like 

"How could I rank for here?" 

"Man, I was not ready for that shit."

So when Google has announced the Google lens, they have also provided the way that how they will gonna rank for a product in Google lens take a look here:

Where they have clearly stated that it will gonna rank on the on page relevancy, authentic site, image quality and fresher content like you can see in the below image one of the amazing features they have provided is they have differentiated both blogs and product suggestions.

Like one of the examples below:

As per October 2019 update, Google start suggesting style ideas 

1. Suggest Similar Products

One of the best things that e-commerce are doing for now that they have started suggesting similar products from their own to decrease the bounce rate of their website

For example, here is one of the examples of an ecommerce store where they have provided image recognition so they can serve customers as per their recommendations.

And when I was scrolling through their review somewhere around 80% of there reviews were based on satisfied customers.

One of the things that we can include in our strategy is to sort and optimize your look alike products like once are done ASOS.

A visitor goes on a website with  the intention to buy a specific dress. Once she starts surfing on website product pages, she sees a model wearing that dress with a necklace, and watches. — all these things are also available on the website.

The visual search  will let the visitor know that they can easily shop the whole look instead of that one particular item and will start showing them similar options from their outfit. This increases the likelihood of the customer to shop more before finalizing their purchase.

Visual search technology helps keep the customer on websites, even if the item they originally wanted is sold out, by presenting them with similar products which are in stock.

2. Target Celebrity looks/Styles

If a consumer is using Lens' 'Style Suggestion' function, it will return a number of very similar-looking products from various vendors. In this case, written content – namely, product descriptions that offer true value to the customer – will play a vital role in helping your merchandise stand out in a visually identical crowd.

One of the coolest techniques I have seen recently for Google lens optimization was to add your product as the celebrity favorite as well as let your product have some space so Lens can recognize it easily. As you can see one of the examples below where they have present their product as one of the beloved Celebrity Robert Downey JR

As everyone likes to follow the fashion style of their beloved Celebrity and that what an ecommerce store can use to divert their customer. On the other, if there will be no space for the product, that would seem like that where the first two products are songs of some of the famous Italian singers.

One thing is crystal clear at this point that you have to make a space for your products, so Google lens can recognize it clearly.

3. Start working on image quality/CTR pattern

While lying on the sofa during this quarantine, I just thought if I can get a watch online, so here what Google results gonna show at the top, they've started with images. Then it's showing the result where you can get these watches.

According to Rand Fishkin: 

So it's your time how you can increase your CTR or branding to be on top of these results.

Here what I can suggest is that, it should start with the image quality of your products because there is a high chance that people will attract with these kinda images 

Instead of wasting their time like watching these:

Another thing that is notable in the above image is they've written half of their quality so it could attract more customers while another thing peoples will point out that this image is from one of the leading E-commerce stores Amazon. So both of the ranking factors are already proved by this example. First that we've mentioned above as page authentication, and the other one will be CTR.

4. Work hard for your ranking

Much like voice search, the information that Lens initially serves customers is taken directly from Google's Knowledge Graph. So things that will help you to hit in image search will depend on your normal SEO routine as per backlinko recent research . Only things that you should consider are to start focusing on your page authenticity and include image link building in your SEO strategy.

Here’s what Fili views regarding image link building:

You should not do that, because it is unlikely to propel any objective. Most likely pursuing an active “Image Link Building” effort is bound to expand limited resources without any tangible result to be expected and could even be penalized by search engines.

He continues and advised “Link Building should be actively pursued, yet for different reasons. It is content discovery, searchbot crawl prioritization, user navigation and most importantly of all converting traffic that should be the driving forces behind link building activities. Anyone interested in embracing this strategy is invited to follow this blueprint: https://online.marketing/guide/linkbuilding/”

5. Mobile friendly website is must

As google lens is available in mobile devices for now so all of these searches return images from mobile optimized websites.as of course non-responsive websites are a big turn off for the user. experience.google even back ago google recommend device friendly websites as one of the ranking factors for image ranking .

Use Structured Data

By using structured data google images can favor you by display your images as rich results

Conclusion:

Google lens could be one the most beneficial tools for the E-commerce industry as digital marketing is evolving day by day we as marketers should keep a close eye on it and let's see how we can make best out of it.