Should our main images be without a background or be lifestyle shots?
I am just asking if anybody knows the answer, as google needs product images without backgrounds (this was the case unless it has changed recently!) but lifestyle images look more appealing on folksy.
I am doing some listings with main images with no backgrounds and some with as I really dont know which is best to use!
A similar question to this has appeared from 2016 but as things change so quickly just would like to know what the latest advice is?
I often do both. As a buyer I love to see shots in a background or area going to be used. When I sold purely to the US they preferred lifestyle shots. You could do both.
Google picked up life style shots all the time. Magazines prefer white and png so they can add in a collage etc. Had to submit png recently for a magazine promotion.
Thanks Carol @Caroleecrafts . I think I might have confused myself - I thought it is google market place/shopping that requires no background. Does folksy promote on google shopping? However I have just done a search, and lifestyle images are appearing in google shopping!!! I am now really confused as I am sure that I have products with lifestyle images declined due to the image in the past. I will spend some time today reading up on the latest guidelines for google merchant centre!!
I’m not sure that Google SEO is affected by the background of an image… I know that their ‘crawlers’ like images to be clear (in focus, not blurry or dark), have short decriptive titles and to not be too big when it comes to file size (there are free image tools on line to compress the size). They also love them some alt text, but I’m not sure many people spend time on that (something I don’t do but always feel like I should!).
I guess a white non-descript background would be good for keeping it clear, but it won’t be that appealing to a viewer, no matter which platform they’re surfing on. As Caroline says, having a range of photos on every listing is good but I believe that something carefully staged on an interesting / attractive backdrop (be it lifestyle or otherwise) may be the best idea for your main image. Folksy certainly seem to choose to feature that type of content on their own SM channels and speaking for myself, when I’m choosing items for a Folksy Friday board, I always like to have at least one ‘rich’ type of photo to choose from on a listing that’ll look nice in my collage
Would be good to hear the opinion of someone more techie!
But when you search on google it does show images with lifestyle, …but will the no BG rank higher? And this all only really matters if Folksy does promote listings on merchant centre. Does anyone know the answer or can any one at Folksy clarify?
In Merchant centre it also says that lifestyle images need to be uploaded as an aditional imagenot as the main one. So it would be really useful to know if Folksy uses merchant centre for our listings or not!
I do always use both types of images but what I really want to know is which is best to use as the main image?
and did as they wanted
…but will the no BG rank higher? And this all only really matters if Folksy does promote listings on merchant centre. Does anyone know the answer or can any one at Folksy clarify?