With the use of the internet and other online resources, looking for things online has never been easy – yes, even with images!
Of course, Pinterest is no stranger to this feature as they are literally a visual search engine. With that in mind, I will teach you how to use the Pinterest Image search tool the platform has!
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What is an Image Visual Search Tool?
Let us say you saw a photo of a really good pair of shoes while browsing the web and you badly want to know the brand and where it can be bought but there are no details on it.
The best thing you can do is to do a visual image search – basically, instead of typing in a question, you will be using the image of the pair of shoes!
And through that, the system or platform will then scan and look for the websites using that exact image or is similar to the image you posted.
And since Pinterest is a visual search engine, where else to discover and search images than within Pinterest itself, right? I personally love using Pinterest for image searching or even product searching now because of this feature.
What is the Pinterest visual search tool and how does it work?
I have to say that Pinterest marketing is not only about SEO (keywords you have in your pin titles, descriptions and board titles). Images play a huge role on this platform too.
The Pinterest image search tool is the little magnifying glass you see at the bottom right corner of the image or pin. This is a little fun feature from Pinterest wherein you will not need to type any related keywords in the search bar once you see a pin that you are interested in.
When you find something in a Pin or image that you want to learn more about, you can just click the little magnifying glass search icon on the bottom. Then highlight the part of the Pin you’re interested in, and Pinterest will show you Pins just like it.
For example, I want to see more Pinterest templates in Canva just like this pin. I just tap the search icon tool, highlight the text part of the pin, and then the pins with related keywords and images will show up – easy as that!
Another case that this visual search tool will greatly help you is if you are looking for specific products in an image. This feature will help you find any products using any image you highlight within a pin!
For example, in this photo, I am interested in the mirror and I want to see more options and places where I can buy it from. I just click on the small magnifying glass icon on the bottom, highlight or crop the particular product I want which is the mirror, and Pinterest will then find visually similar products for me!
You can do this if you want to search for a specific bathroom or kitchen or other home decor furniture you see in an image.
Can you reverse image search on Pinterest?
Now, if you want to reverse image search on Pinterest with the photos you have on your camera roll or you want to take a photo of a product in front of you and you want to see more places to buy it from, then Pinterest has a reverse image search tool that can help you do just that!
Pinterest calls this image search feature the Pinterest Lens which lets you discover ideas inspired by anything you point your Pinterest camera at or lets you see search results directly from your image gallery.
However, you can only reverse image search or use the Pinterest lens on the Pinterest app which makes sense since you will want to capture images on your phone while you are on the go.
You will see the Pinterest Lens once you open your Pinterest app, go to the search bar, and you will notice there a small camera icon. It basically works like Google images where the platform will help you find the images you need.
Here’s how to use the Pinterest Lens feature:
- Open the Pinterest app and tap the search icon or search bar
- Click on the camera icon
- Pinch to zoom or tap on a specific object to focus your camera
- Tap the button to snap a picture or select a photo from your camera roll
- From there, you can browse through related images from the results
A tip is to make sure you hold your camera steady for a clearer picture and a more accurate set of results.
If you find this post useful or want to get back to it later, just save this PIN to your Pinterest or blogging tips board.
I’m Anastasia and I’m a full-time blogger, online entrepreneur, and Pinterest marketing strategist. I help digital entrepreneurs and bloggers drive targeted traffic from Pinterest either through my online courses or through Pinterest consultancy.
