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Google Image Search Gets a Facelift: The Impact on Inbound Marketing

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Why does Google's image search matter to inbound marketing?

Google's image search is one of the most popular image search engines on the web. Even though people might not necessarily be looking for content from your site, they might stumble upon some of your site’s images and find their way to you indirectly through their keyword search terms. Having good on page SEO practices for including images is a pull marketing strategy that can help generate traffic you wouldn’t normally get from your text based content.

Not to be out done by Bing, Google recently decided to update its image search. Here's a rundown on what's new:

New search results layout

Instead of a grid containing information directly under each image such as dimensions and source URL, you now get your results in a minimalistic layout that resembles a digital lightbox. Now users will have to hover over your pictures in image search to find this information. There's also the "show sizes" option on the side bar to show the dimensions on each image result in the lower right corner.

Another thing to note about the new image search results screen is that Google has done away with having separate pages for displaying results. Now, after your initial search, you have the "Show More Results" button at the bottom. Instead of loading another separate page, the additional images will load on the same page allowing you to see everything at once without having to constantly go back and forth.

If you hate change, you can select "Switch to Basic Version" at the bottom of the page to get the good old fashioned image search results view you grew to know and love.

New filters for Colors and Image Type

Google has also given image searchers the option to filter results by image type with the options for "Face", "Photo", "Clip Art", or "Line Drawing". You can also filter your results based on the main color of the images. Or if you're looking for black and white photos, there's even an option now for that. It seems like the search spiders are doing a pretty decent job at identifying colors for searches with a large number of results. Here's what happened when I filtered for Pink images for my search query on Verona:

Reaction to Google's new image search

Speaking as someone who uses Google for finding images  frequently, I find these new features to be extremely helpful for those looking for specific images. Being able to quickly compare all the images on the same page will save a lot of time instead of having to load and go back and forth between dozens of separate results pages.

How do the new Google Image Search features affect on page SEO?

It means you might have to get in the habit of creating more detailed alt tags for your images. This way, those searchers who are taking advantage of Google’s filtering features have an increased chance of finding your content. For example, if you have a press page that has versions of your logo for other content creators to use, it might be a good idea to add "Black & White" to the black and white version of your logo in addition to your keywords.

What are your thoughts on Google's new Image Search? Love it? Hate it? We'd love to hear your two cents in the comments!