Google Lens Product Recognition

How to Get Your E-Commerce Store’s Products Listed on Google Lens

There are other places on Google besides the organic search results where your e-commerce store’s products can appear. You can still optimize product pages to rank in Google’s organic search results. For more traffic, though, consider targeting Google Lens as well. Each product listed on Google Lens creates a new opportunity for shoppers to find and visit your e-commerce store.

What Is Google Lens?

Google Lens is a reverse-image search tool that allows mobile device users to find information about the object or objects depicted in an image. It comes pre-installed on most Android devices. Alternatively, Android users can download the Google Lens from Google Play, and iOS users can download it from Apple’s App Store.

With Google Lens, users can perform searches to learn more about the object or objects in an image. Users can take a photo in real-time or upload a stored image to the official app. Google Lens will then analyze the image with its artificial intelligence (AI) technology and display a series of tabbed results.

Users will see several tabs after performing a search. The default tab displayed is “Search,” which features indexed images that match the user’s image. Users can tap an indexed image to visit the web page where it’s currently published. If a user searches for a product image, the “Search” tab may reveal indexed images of the same product and similar products.

To search for indexed web pages featuring the words depicted in the image, users can tap the “Text” tab. Google Lens can analyze the words on street signs, products, boxes and other objects. It will return indexed web pages relevant to these words in the “Text tab.” Users can search for all of the words depicted in an image, or they search for select words by highlighting them.

There’s even a “Shopping” tab. After performing a search, users can tap this tab to find relevant e-commerce listings on Google Shopping. The “Shopping” tab on Google Lens will return e-commerce listings for products depicted in the user’s image. E-commerce listings on Google Shopping will appear in the “Shopping” tab of Google Lens.

Add Products to Google Merchant Center

To get your e-commerce store’s products listed on Google Lens, you should add them to Google Merchant Center. Available at google.com/retail/solutions/merchant-center, it’s a platform where you can provide Google with detailed product information. Products added to Google Merchant Center are eligible for Google Shopping, thus making them eligible for the “Shopping” tab in Google Lens as well.

You can add products to Google Merchant Center by creating a feed. Feeds are files with structured data about products. You can create a single primary feed that features all of your e-commerce store’s products. After uploading the primary feed to Google Merchant Center, Google will review it within three to seven days.

Opt in for Free Google Listings

When using Google Merchant Center, be sure to opt in for free Google listings. Free Google listings are free Google Shopping listings. When you create an account for Google Merchant Center, you can choose the option for free Google listings.

You can also opt in for free Google listings by clicking the “Growth” tab, followed by “Manage programs.” With free Google listings enabled, your e-commerce store’s products may appear on Google Shopping and the Google Lens “Shopping” tab at no cost to you.

Use High-Quality Images

Image quality matters when targeting Google Lens. Google Lens is more likely to show clear and high-quality images in its tabbed results than grainy and low-quality images. After all, it works by matching user-submitted images to similar images. If an image is grainy, Google Lens won’t be able to effectively analyze it, nor will Google Lens show it in the tabbed results.

For product images, use the Joint Photographic Experts Group (JPG) format. Some other formats can create and save product images, but JPG typically offers the highest level of detail. You should also isolate products in these images. In other words, limit the use of background elements or secondary objects. Product images should focus on products and nothing else.

Include Product Names in Image Filenames

Another Google Lens optimization tip is to include product names in image filenames. Like all files, product images require a filename. You’ll have to give each product image a filename before uploading it to your e-commerce store.

Rather than using numerical or otherwise generic filenames, give your e-commerce store’s product images descriptive filenames that include product names. You can use the official name of a product for the filename. For product names consisting of multiple words, add a hyphen between the words. Regardless, including product names in image filenames will help you reach Google Lens users. Google Lens can better match the product images with user-submitted images.

Don’t Forget the Alt Text

Product images should have alt text. When uploading product images to your e-commerce store, create a unique and descriptive alt text for each of them. Alt text is an attribute that’s used to create alternative text descriptions of images. If an image doesn’t display correctly, the alt text may be displayed in place of it. Some visitors, such as those who are visually impaired, may also use screen-reading software that plays the alt text aloud.

For valid Hypertext Markup Language (HTML), all images must have alt text. Google has visual-based algorithms that it uses to analyze images, but it still uses text-based algorithms for this same purpose. By giving product images descriptive alt text, you’ll have a better chance of getting them listed on Google Lens.

Regardless of what your e-commerce store sells, Google Lens can help it succeed. Getting your e-commerce store’s products listed on Google Lens will result in more traffic. Shoppers may stumble upon your e-commerce store’s products after searching for a related image on Google Lens, after which they may check out your store to make a purchase.