After unveiling the proposal in May, Google Images has this week launched an exciting new tool for creative content marketers: “Swipe to Visit” is here at last.
In case you might have missed out on this innovation, Swipe to Visit is an AMP-powered feature available on the mobile web that, as Google puts it, “makes it faster and easier for users to browse and visit web pages”. The secret sauce here is AMP, which comes with an advanced prerender capability for ultra-rapid page loading.
Let’s break that down a little to make it clearer exactly what’s being delivered with this new development. One of the attractions of visual search is that it vividly and rapidly brings to pictorial life a multitude of possibilities for users, whether they’re looking for a specific product, wanting design tips for a refurbished room, seeking “how-to advice” for a DIY project, or looking for a holiday destination.
We’re all familiar with this, but alas that also includes familiarity with one of its drawbacks: during visual search, you’re likely to end uploading a large number of webpages. This tends to seriously slow down the search to such an extent that it can prevent users from completing their task.
Swipe to Visit puts paid to that flaw once and for all. With it, you can simply go to Google Images on your smartphone and select an image, after that you’ll see a preview of the website header at the foot of the page. If you want to explore further, you simply swipe to load the webpage. And it loads instantaneously.
Why should content marketers be excited by this? The ability to capture high-definition images and optimise them for search means that brands have another – and highly engaging – means of attracting users to their websites.
You’ll need to support AMP, of course. If you already do, you won’t need to take any additional action for your website to appear on Google Images’ Swipe to Visit feature. If you don’t support AMP yet, you can find out how to get started here.
The bottom line for all AMP-enabled publishers is that your content is likely to get substantially more traffic from your online images because it’s merely a single swipe away for users who want to find out more.
