There are plenty of elements that go into building a website for your business, but something that is bound to be on your mind is how to bring new potential customers to your site. One of the best ways to accomplish this is through SEO, or Search Engine Optimization. SEO is the act of pushing your website to the top of the search engine results pages. Most people do not click past the first page of search results, so if you are able to get to the top, more people are likely to check out your website.
SEO covers a lot of different concepts, from your website’s loading speed to the blog content you write. One element of SEO that might not be so apparent, however, is the way that you use images on your website. There are a lot of ways to improve your images’ SEO, but one concept that is growing in importance is the reverse image search.
This article will discuss the ins and outs of reverse image searching, from a basic definition to the many ways that you can use them to your website’s advantage. We will also go over some common reverse image searching platforms like Google and Tin Eye search, and how you can bring your website higher up the reverse image results page.
What Are Some Reverse Image Search Uses?
The first point of discussion is answering the question, What is a reverse image search?”
It may come as a surprise, but reverse image searching is not very complicated. In fact, it is simply the act of conducting an online search but using a picture instead of text. All you have to search with an image, and then you will receive plenty of useful information, including visually similar images, a list of potential keywords associated with the image, and a list of links to websites that use the image.
As someone who is managing a website for a business, reverse image searches can be very helpful for learning interesting facts about an image, learning the copyright status of an image, finding the original source of an image so you can properly cite your sources, and even learning if other people are using your original images. You can also learn if there are other copyright violations on certain images that you are using, so you can learn if you should take a certain picture off of your website.
Overall, reverse image searches are a great way to track down or learn more information about a specific picture. There are plenty of great reverse image search uses for a website manager, and can also be a tool that other people can use in order to find your website. Whenever someone searches for an image that you are using on your website, your page will pop up as a result!
How To Conduct An Image Search
So, after learning what a reverse image search is, and how it can be useful to your website and your company as a whole, it is essential to know how to conduct reverse image searches. Reverse image searching is done slightly differently through different platforms such as Google, Bing, and Safari, and devices such as a phone or desktop computer. There are even special resources and platforms built for reverse image searching, like Tin Eye. Meanwhile, some search engines are equipped with their own reverse image searching capabilities, like Google reverse image search. Google and Tin Eye will get their own spaces, so let’s briefly discuss the general rules of reverse image searching:
- Open your preferred search engine or browser.
- Upload your image. When you have a photo on your desktop or saved to your device, you can typically upload your image directly into the browser search bar in order to search for it.
- Or, paste your image’s URL into the search bar. If you do not have a saved image, but have the URL for it instead, you can also paste the URL into the search bar in order to find the image.
- See your results. Hit “Search by image” and see the variety of sources that pop up!
Tin Eye Search
Perhaps the biggest platform for the reverse image search is Tin Eye. Tin Eye is the company that invented the concept of reverse image searching, all with the goal of making images, and image searches, more accessible. Tin Eye bots are constantly crawling the internet, looking for new content to add to their page.
Tin Eye is an image search and recognition company with a free, usable platform where you can conduct reverse image searches of your own. You can head to their website and paste a URL, upload an image, or even drag and drop an image into the search bar. Then, the system will offer you an easy-to-navigate results page where you can sort by a number of different categories.
In their reverse image search uses, Tin Eye also has helpful tools that can help you easily compare two images to find their differences or find any related stock photos. They also do not save any images that you search with. Overall, this is an incredibly reliable company that not only takes care of you but offers excellent image results from all across the web.
Google Reverse Image Search
It likely does not come as a surprise to learn that Google has its own reverse image platform that you can use to search for photos, art, and more. Google is the most popular search engine in the world, used by over 80% of the global population. With billions of people using the search engine every day, there is no doubt that Google has plenty to offer when it comes to search results.
Their reverse image-searching system called the Google Reverse Image Tool, is free and very easy to use. Just like Tin Eye, it allows you to upload images from your desktop or saved files and search with ease. It stands out for allowing you to have an extension where you can access the power of Google searching through platforms like Bing and Yandex, too.
It is difficult to say if the Google search tool is better than Tin Eye’s. Both serve a similar purpose and do their jobs very well. Both platforms offer their own benefits, but you are likely to have success with either platform.
Optimizing Your Images
With a more in-depth understanding of how you can use reverse image searches for your website’s benefit, now it is important to discuss the ways that you can play into other people’s reverse image searches. You can do this by optimizing your images. Here are a couple of ways that you can make it into another Google or Tin Eye search:
Always Incorporate Images
Though it might sound simple, one of the best ways to improve your image SEO is to have images on all of your web pages. All of your blog posts and service pages should include images to the best of your ability. Visual searches are incredibly popular, and by adding images to your web pages, your website is more likely to appear as a search result for any reverse image search.
Use Alt Text
Another excellent way to optimize your images for SEO and reverse image searching is to use alt text. Alt text is the text that will appear in place of an image if the picture is having trouble loading. Often, it will be a description of what the image is, using keywords and common phrases.
When people conduct reverse image searches, keywords will appear as an additional search term. If you have these keywords in your alt text, you can push yourself further up the search listings.
Improve Your Results
When it comes to mastering the reverse image search, there is plenty to do. You can use this tool to your advantage in plenty of ways. Before you add a specific image to your webpage, you can do a reverse search in order to make sure there are no copyright issues with the photo, and you can find the original source so you can provide a proper citation.
But sometimes it can take a little more work to fully embrace the Tin Eye or Google reverse image search. Luckily, our team at SEO Design Chicago is here to help! At SEO Design Chicago, we specialize in SEO and website building for websites of all kinds, from ecommerce platforms and beyond. We have teams of skilled content writers, designers, and editors who can all help you bring your website to the top of the search engine results page.
If you are looking for extra help with your website or with how to use reverse image searches to their full potential, talk to someone on our team today. We can help you optimize your alt text, find the right images for your website, and talk to you about goals and the best strategies to achieve them.
Contact us at SEO Design Chicago today for the only image work you’ll need
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