Google Image search has really started to mature. Not just in its ability to find and surface images, but also with the way that people are using it.
In fact, if you look at this Nugget from last week, you'll see that 75% of the search impressions are generated through Google Image Search and 57% of actual organic visitors come from Google Image Search too.
The image search numbers I'm tracking are getting larger every day and it's time that retail jewelers pay attention to optimizing image names and attributes.
During the 2014 Holiday Season, from November 1, 2014 through December 31, 2014, I collected hundreds of thousands of keywords from a wide variety of retail jewelry websites. I pooled all that data together to surface the reasons and methods of how jewelry customers were using Google search.
The collected image keyword data was quite massive. When I was analyzing the web and mobile search data (like below), I was able to identify some reasons why customers were searching for particular phrases, but the image data was very different.
The image keyword data suggests that people are more interested in researching a topic than they are visiting a store. The exception to this is when consumers are searching for specific designer names and style numbers because those types of searches are indicative of immediate purchase behaviors, especially during the holiday season.
Image Search Impressions
For my analysis, I grouped different phrases together according to specific commonalities. For example, all the searches including the phrase "engagement rings" were included in one group, while all search queries including the singular version of the phrase "engagement ring" were included in another group.
I included the largest groupings in the following pie chart along with a few groupings that I felt were of interest.
The largest percentage of image search queries included "diamond," "engagement rings," and "engagement ring" in that order.
The word "diamond" was typically used in a query for a specific diamond cut, like "asscher cut diamond rings."
The phrase "engagement rings" was typically used in very long and descriptive queries like "kirk kara rose gold engagement rings."
Most of the "engagement ring" search queries had a more immediate, or perhaps more important search intent, like "engagement ring ideas."
Low Search Volume Queries
The above pie chart includes 5 keyword phrases that have very low search volume, but I felt they were important to track during the holiday season. They are:
- Searches for specific designer style numbers
- Phrases that included the word "gift"
Example: "jewelry gift for him" - Phrases that included the word "custom"
Example: "custom eternity rings" - Phrases that included the word "gemstone"
Example: "mothers gemstone rings" - Phrases that include the word "stone"
Example: "3 stone halo semi mount"
I wanted you to see that these long tail search queries do exist. The "gift" related phrases usually appear in my data tracking more often during November and December than any other time of the year.
The other phrases for custom, gemstone, and stone are always present, but the specific phrases are always random long tail word combinations. The best way to match them in search results is to simply be creative in your product descriptions and blogging.
I also mentioned specific designer style numbers. It's quite difficult to filter for designer style numbers accurately, and I'm sure that the percentage is higher than the reported 0.08% shown in the above pie chart.
Over the last 4 years more retail jewelers are including designer style numbers on their website, which is a complete turnaround from back in 2003 when the general feeling was to hide the vendor style numbers in order to prevent online price shopping.
Birthstone Searches
Birthstones are very popular and they accounted for 13.87% of all the image search impressions. That's actually more than the 13.28% for "engagement rings" but I did not present it that way in the above pie chart. Instead, I split out individual months that accounted for 1% or more of the searches.
Here's how all the entire collection of birthstone search queries was organized. Remember that this is data from the 2014 holiday season in order by popularity:
2.32% Queries without specific months
3.87% May
2.43% March
2.11% September
0.98% April
0.84% October
0.52% December
0.26% January
0.26% February
0.09% June
0.07% November
0.06% July
0.06% August
Birthstone Phrase Usage
The list of birthstone phrase variations is quite large and I can't go through it all. However, here are some examples of the general formats I found.
Format:
{stone name} birthstone {jewelry type}
Example:
aquamarine birthstone necklace
Format:
{month} birthstone {jewelry type}
Example:
april birthstone ring
Format:
birthstone for {month}
Example:
birthstone for september
Format:
what color birthstone is {month}
Example:
what color birthstone is January
If you'd like to capture the attention of some of these search query impressions you will need to include phrases using the above formats on your website.
Image Search Clicks
This next pie chart shows the percentages of phrase groups that users clicked on. The large percentages of clicks for queries including "diamond" and "engagement ring" were bringing users to product catalog pages.
The clicks on phrases including "engagement rings" and "wedding" brought most visitors to blog pages.
Closing Thoughts
Understanding how Google matches written content on your site to the search queries people use will help you correctly craft content for your website. You don't need to worry about keyword density, but you can better boost your ranking when phrases are included.
You could spend months analyzing your own keyword data and simply confuse yourself in the end. Use the guidelines I've given you today, and in the previous days shown below, to help you with your product descriptions and blog posts.
I've included several common phrase combinations in these 5 Daily Golden Nuggets, but you have to be creative and come up with several more on your own.
This is the 5th in a series of Daily Golden Nuggets presenting some deep keyword research data from the 2014 Holiday Season for retail jewelers. I've included links to the previous Nuggets below.
1. Keyword Impressions and Clicks for desktop search queries
2. Holiday Diamond and Engagement Ring Mobile Keyword Data
3. Holiday Jewelry Store and Jewelers Mobile Keyword Data
4. Holiday Keyword Data for Repairs, Watches, and Services
