Get Health Access | How to Get Thumbnail Images on Google Mobile Searches | Google over the times has introduced many features on different devices to increase its expertise in optimizing the search results and user experience. One such feature is displaying thumbnail images in different search contexts. One in the using thumbnails in the Google Suggest drop down. And the other context is in displaying results in the search engine result page(SERP). Google especially started this on mobile devices. Google began displaying Thumbnail Images for mobile search results in 2016 but they were irregular in their implementation.
What are thumbnail images on Google search?
Now-a-days most of the search results on mobile search results show these image thumbnails next to the description text snippet along with the Title and URL. These are similar to those being displayed on Google News. These image thumbnails are generated by cropping the featured images that are put up on the articles. Why not look here to top hybrid mobile app development.
What is their importance?
It can be considered as a given that on the SERP for a particular search, those results with image thumbnails will be clicked first.
Is this not convincing to you ? Then let’s take a hypothetical scenario where one of your site’s articles comes up in the top 4 results for a particular search organically. Your site’s result doesn’t have an image thumbnail but your competitor who ranks just below has one. Images tend to capture one’s eyes over the simple, plain text. It being more appealing, attracts more attention and most of the users might click on that result and thereby decrease your traffic. But if the displayed image thumbnail is irrelevant or of low quality, it affects the click through rate (CTR) negatively.
How to get them for your articles?
Now let’s see how you can get appropriate thumbnails for your articles. One thing to observe is that not all the websites on the search result page have these thumbnail images. It is not that the images the websites used on their articles are of a particular aspect ratio. The factor that is playing an important role is declaring the image in the structured data format or include it in the Open Graph Protocol meta tag. Those sites which didn’t follow this practise didn’t get the thumbnail image in SERP including their article. But this is not a simple open and shut case. They are general assumptions and also Google representatives didn’t give a definitive answer. But they said that they are always working to improve the Search function with helpful visuals and that they encourage sites to enhance their content.
So it’s better to set up the images according to the Open Graph Protocol and Structured Data format to be on the safe side and optimize your site article for the same.
Specifying the images as thumbnails
Based on Google documentation on specifying the thumbnails, you can achieve it in two ways as given below.
- Using a PageMap
In this method, you specify a thumbnail image by adding a <PageMap> tag to the <head> section of your page. This section is for Programmable Search Engine ( Google) which helps in providing useful information and remains invisible to the users. You can create a thumbnail DataObject for your thumbnail image as shown below.
<!–
<PageMap>
<DataObject type=”thumbnail”>
<Attribute name=”src” value=”http://webpage/atricle.jpg”/>
<Attribute name=”width” value=”100″/>
<Attribute name=”height” value=”130″/>
</DataObject>
</PageMap>
–>
- Using a thumbnail meta tag
In this method, you specify the thumbnail image by adding a thumbnail meta tag to the <head> section of your webpage. This is done as below:
<meta name=”thumbnail” content=”http://webpage/atricle.jpg” />
Optimizing your thumbnails for Google SERP
There are few best practices that you can follow to increase the chances of Google displaying an image thumbnail for your website articles.
- Choosing the right image
Google doesn’t take into consideration the aspect size of the image provided for the thumbnail. The search engine itself crops the image determined in its algorithm as needed. Google didn’t disclose how it is going to crop the images. In that case, it may crop out some useful information. After cropping, the image can end up stretched or blurry too. So, select such images that don’t contain unnecessary small details. Also make sure that it is clear and that even in the transformed form, it delivers the necessary function.
- Assigning relevant images
It is important to provide images that are in relevance with the search request. When such images are displayed as thumbnails, it effectively reflects the information on that page of your site and greatly influences the CTR. This is what is required from the thumbnail. If a non-relevant image shows up as a thumbnail, it decreases your expertise and users might not visit your page.
- Maintaining your consistency
To bring the best out of this option, create images that identify with your brand. Being consistent with your color scheme and placement of your logo in the preview can be a subtle advantage to you. It increases your brand recognition as many of your regular users can easily identify you and opt for your articles or pages.
- Optimizing your image for search
This helps the Google search engine crawl bots to easily identify the images on your pages and make the right choice in selecting the thumbnail for your page. This can be achieved by selecting the correct file name, setting the right alternate text and naming it with a title that contains keywords. Make sure that H1 tag is relevant to the title tag and that the images are relevant to the title tag. Keep in mind that the image you are using is not too large. Large images mean longer loading times which is not favourable for the website.
You can further make changes by using search results on your mobile phone by searching using relevant keywords. Ultimately it’s Google’s algorithm that makes the call in selecting the thumbnail. All you can do is to do your best in optimizing your images which might help the algorithm to take the right direction.
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About The Author
Hermit Chawla is a MD at AIS Technolabs which is a Web/App design and Development Company, helping global businesses to grow by Global Clients. He love to share his thoughts on Web & App Development, Clone App Development and Game Development.
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