There’s an old saying when it comes to attracting visitors to your website: “Silly rabbit, Trix are for kids.” I’ve never really been certain what it means or how it has anything to do with building a business, but I’m reasonably sure that the saying has something to do with Google Image Search.
For those that are unaware of Google Image Search, or GIS as the kids call it, on the Google home page there is a nifty little button on the top left corner with the word “images.” Performing a search in that search engine will yield thousands of images related to your keyword, many of which will not be disgusting.
Gazillions of Searches a Day
Google Images get somewhere between 2,421 and 150,000,000,230,000 searches a day. Those numbers, while entirely fabricated, prove that Google Image Search may be a useful way of getting more potential customers to your website.
On a scale of 1 to 10, where 10 is very useful and 1 is writing your business name on a rock and throwing it at children, GIS visitors rank about a 2. When someone searches for images, they’re looking for images. They’re not looking to buy a product.
But not useful is not the same thing as useless, and image searches give you another opportunity to get hits that may net you some extra business, all for little cost.
5 Tips for GIS Hits
- Choose Relevant Images
The only way that you are going to generate business from your image searches is if your images are relevant to the products you have. For example, if you run a yoga studio, you want images of men and women in yoga positions, so that if someone searches for yoga positions in Google they come across your site.
- Find Unique Images
Use stock image photos to ensure that you’re using images that were not used by countless other websites. This gives image searchers a reason to click on your image. If you use the same image found on other websites, you may not only be causing copyright issues – you give searchers no reason to view your image over that of the other website. Using your own images over stock images is even better.
- Enter Alt Tags
When you scroll over an image and see a text box pop up that explains the caption, you are looking at an alt tag. These tags help Google know what is in the image. Make sure your alt tags are relevant to both the image and your website, like “Students at Seattle Yoga Studio performing standing separate leg stretching pose.” Don’t spam your alt tags, though.
- Add Your Website Name
Another reason it is important to have interesting and unique images is because people will steal them with such regularity you’d think they’d have an unpopular A&E Show called “eTheft.” But image theft can also be to your benefit. Add your website name and/or logo on the corner of the image, and everyone that steals it will help you market your brand. Just remember, only images you own the copyright to can be branded like this. Don’t do it with stock photos.
- Fifth Bullet Point
I don’t have anything else interesting to say, but having five bullet points is visually appealing, and it makes it sound like I did a lot of research to write this post. If you read this far, answer this riddle I made up in the comments: What percentage of pet turtles live in mobile homes?
Using Google Image Search to Get Visitors to Your Website
Visitors that come to your website through GIS rarely become customers, because potential customers don’t look for images when they’re looking for your business. But if you look in a thesaurus, “never” is not synonymous with “rarely,” and since images also improve the user experience and may help you with branding, they are a useful addition to any web page or article.
