By Robert Lockard

The other day, I had an image in my mind of a strange object and I wanted to find a picture of it online. The only problem was I didn’t have a clue what it was called. The image in my head was of a scene in “Superman II” when General Zod’s henchman Non is in the Oval Office and he’s staring intently at something. It’s five metal balls tied to strings in a row and the ones on either end keep hitting the four still balls, causing the ball on the other end to bounce away and come back again.

Maybe you already know what I’m talking about.

I turned to one of my coworkers here at eHarbor, Inc. and asked her to help me. She could picture it, as well, but she couldn’t put her finger on the name. I tried searching for “metal ball attached to strings hitting each other” on Google, but I didn’t find what I was looking for. Luckily, my resourceful coworker found it on Amazon.com, I believe. I could now put a name to an image – Newton’s cradle!

This story illustrates my need for a visual search engine and not simply a text-based one. Luckily, Microsoft and Google are both heading in that direction. I read about their efforts in a CNN article entitled, “Microsoft, Google expand search-engine tools.”

None of the Bing Visual Search galleries look like they would help me find Newton’s cradle because they mostly include people, entertainment and electronics. But it’s new, so I’m willing to cut Microsoft some slack. I’m sure they will get better as they get a feel for what people are (literally) looking for.

Microsoft is still trying hard to break Google’s domination of the search-engine market. The CNN article cited a comScore study showing that, in June, about 65 percent of online searches were done through Google, while just 8.4 percent were done through Bing.

I’ve talked about the race between Microsoft and Google to develop a stronghold over a variety of online and software industries before. You can read about it in my blog entry, “Google-Microsoft face-off good for ecommerce.” Their rivalry is bringing great innovations like these visual search engines. I’ll hopefully talk more about Google’s Fast Flip in a forthcoming blog entry. For now, I’ll say adieu.

This is a complete version of the eHarbor Blog entry, “Finding Superman image on Google no easy feat.” The photo of Newton’s cradle is from Flickr, and it is the copyright of ƒяαиcєscα яσsє.

By Alyssa Udall (@udallyss)

Here’s the scenario: You’re searching for information on the most poisonous spider in the world, the black recluse, which you’ve recently learned has been found in an area near your home.  Desperate for information that may help you protect yourself and your family from the dangerous arachnid, you type in “brown recluse” in a search engine bar.  As the information is populating, several articles on the effects of the spider’s poison, the origins and known locations, or other subjects pulls up, looking very promising.  Then there are the pictures.  Lots of pictures of the huge, brown and black spider and even the damage its bite inflicts on the human body.  Which of the two would draw your eye?

Most likely, you would immediately move your cursor over the picture, possible exclaiming something like, “Gross!”, and would possible spend the next few minutes sharing the images with your friends and coworkers.

Recent studies on the browsing habits of search engine users confirms that people will consume information through pictures more than 30% faster than with regular text.  Why would someone knowingly skip over interesting pictures like graphs, charts and other images, in favor of reading a full-length blog post on the subject?  Some just might, but most won’t.

Image searches account for hundreds of millions of searches on Google everyday.  By optimizing the images on your site, you can tap into this market and begin a new side of Search Engine Optimization for your company.

Here are a few ways you can optimize your images to generate traffic.

Name the Image Correctly: An accurate name that describes the picture in brief, simple language is important, and will ensure that your image is pulled up in a relevant search.

Use Keywords: Keywords are another important factor.  Properly describing the image with keywords and alternate keyword tags will increase the power of your photo and increase its searchability.

Place Images Near Relevant Content: The best location for an image is surrounded by relevant content, like in a blog post.  This will increase the organic ranking of your photo within search engines.

Optimizing your photos can be a great source of traffic for your site!  These simple guidelines take very little time to implement, so start following them today to get the results you’re looking for.