Pinterest is a powerful marketing tool that can help you attract the right audience and sell more products. By optimizing your Pinterest account for SEO, you can make sure that your account is reaching the right people who are more likely to be interested in what you have to offer.
What is Pinterest SEO?
To optimize your Pinterest page for search engines, focus on creating pins that are keyword-rich and air on the side of being helpful rather than promotional. In addition, make sure to post pins regularly, repin other pins that are relevant to your brand, and engage with other users on the platform. By taking these steps, you can encourage Pinterest users to comment on, share, and follow your pins, which can help improve your SEO.
Think of Pinterest as it’s own search engine that delivers rich images with keyword descriptions of blogs, infographics, videos, and products.
Yes, they generate revenue from advertisements, but their company only succeeds if users can routinely find pins they are interested in- whether that occurs from active search or from the algorithm’s predictions.
How to optimize your pins for search
Although similar to SEO for webpages, Pinterest SEO requires additional steps to be taken in order to be effective. Since Pinterest is a visual medium, effective optimization includes such things as proper image formatting, engagement with the target market, and utilizing Pinterest’s special features, like the “Save” button and “Rich Pins.”
These Pinterest SEO tips will teach you how to use Pinterest for marketing purposes. Let’s get started!
Tip #1: Set yourself up for success.
If you want to take advantage of everything Pinterest has to offer, you must have a business account and a verified site. If you already have these two things, you can skip ahead to Tip #2.
Step 1: Set up a business Pinterest account
A business account on Pinterest is free, and it provides you with Pinterest analytics so you can understand user behavior. Additionally, it allows you to use Rich Pins and other Pinterest features, which will be explained in more detail below. For now, just trust that a business account is the way to go.
To set up your business account, follow these easy and free instructions.
If you’re already using a personal account on Pinterest, you can easily follow the instructions to convert it to a business account.
Step 2: Claim your business website on Pinterest
The next step is claiming your business on Pinterest. This step lets Pinterest know that the business you claim to represent is your own. This step consists of verifying that you own a specific domain and adding a link of code to your website.
To get started, follow these instructions for claiming your website on Pinterest. This will give you access to all the benefits that come with having a business account.
Step 3: Write your company description
You only have 500 characters to describe your brand and what value it brings to customers, so make it count! Take a look at profiles of similar brands for inspiration, and write something that really captures your brand’s essence, like Rolex did.
Tip #2: Create and pin quality, engagement-worth content.
Quality content is the key to success with SEO. You can’t succeed with SEO without it.
The search engines have gotten very good at figuring out what people want to see. So, you can’t just put a bunch of useless, poorly-written content on your website, with a bunch of keywords, and hope to rank. That might have worked if you went back in time to 1995, but today you need to write something that is genuinely useful.
If you don’t have good content, you’re not going to get very far on Pinterest because people won’t interact with your pins. That means they won’t comment on it, share it, or save it. And they definitely won’t follow you! Pinterest’s algorithm will also know you’re not posting interesting content, so it will be difficult to reach the kind of audience you want.
What kind of content is good for Pinterest?
Pinterest isn’t just about pretty pictures. Yes, it all starts with imagery, but those images often link to a variety of content, including:
- Blogs
- Videos
- Infographics
- E-books
- Products
Be sure to create an engaging image to accompany each piece of content using software like Canva. Although Pinterest only allows you to re-pin the same post four times a month, you can link to the same piece of content multiple times as long as you use different visuals. Essentially, Pinterest wants users to share different content, but users are able to link back to the same, high-performing content.
You shouldn’t share the same pin more than a few times because people will get bored of seeing it. Try creating a few different pins for each piece of content.
Tip #3: Use guided search to get an idea of what users want to see.
First, log into your Pinterest account. Then, enter search terms related to your business into the search bar to get an idea of what Pinterest users are searching for.
For example, if you have an online store that specializes in selling bedding, you can use Pinterest’s search tool to see what related items other users are searching for. This can give you a sense of what your potential customers might be interested in and help you adjust your product offerings accordingly.
This step is about finding possible search terms that could be used. It is not about finding the number of searches for a particular term. The next step will be about finding data on search volumes.
If you hadn’t thought to explore the keyword phrase “bed sheet aesthetic” on your own, don’t worry, because it seems like plenty of Pinterest users are searching for it. This means that you can now dig deeper and find related phrases.
The great thing about Pinterest is that it is very well organized. People tend to put their content into “boards” that have a common theme. If you search around, you can find some great new ideas. Try searching for competitor boards and see what comes up. If you find a hot topic, you can create content related to that topic and reach out to potential customers who are more likely to be interested.
Tip #4: Set traffic & conversion goals for your business.
Remember that it can take much longer to see results on Pinterest than on other platforms like Google or Facebook.
Although some people may doubt it, Pinterest can still be a good way to generate leads.
In order to succeed on Pinterest, you need to first figure out what it could mean for your business and then set some goals.
- How does Pinterest fit into your wider marketing strategy?
- Does your target audience actively use Pinterest to find content like yours?
After you have decided that Pinterest is the right platform for you, you can use the Pinterest tag to track a variety of conversion events on your site.
Pinterest provides a fairly comprehensive guide to creating conversion campaigns to help with your lead generation efforts. Initially, I would focus on metrics such as impressions, traffic and re-Pins, and then add conversion goals on top of these.
You can collect a lot of data by looking at your traffic numbers and seeing what content is popular on your profile.
I recommend avoiding pushing overtly commercial messages until you have earned the trust of both Pinterest and your audience.
With Pinterest, slow and steady often wins the race.
Tip #5: Conduct keyword research.
Although you cannot use your typical keyword research tools for Pinterest SEO, there is still a lot of value in doing keyword research on Pinterest.
Pinterest uses a search engine to look for key terms that are related to what the user is looking for. The results are based on how often those key terms are used in the Pins that are being shared by content creators.
The following tips will help you find the right keywords for your Pins and boards.
Use Guided Search
Pinterest’s guided search feature helps users to find more specific and relevant results.
After searching for your target term, Pinterest automatically suggests semantically related terms that you may be interested in.
The most popular search queries for each topic can be found here.
Test out Promoted Pins
The point of this is similar to how SEO professionals use AdWords to test certain keywords to see how they work before creating an entire SEO campaign.
You can take your best-performing keywords on Google and use Promoted Pins to see if they will be successful on Pinterest.
Explore Niche Topics
If you are looking for keywords for your particular niche on Pinterest, you will be pleased to know that Pinterest already categorizes and sub-categorizes topics, making it easy to find the keywords you are looking for.
To ensure that your website is reaching its full potential, you should explore all the topics relevant to your business and see how ideas are categorized. You should also research how your competitors are targeting specific keywords. This will help you create a more effective website.
Tip #6: Organize & optimize boards.
When you start to create boards, you should consider your keyword and consumer research for Pinterest.
Creating boards on Pinterest is a great way to improve your visibility because it allows you to categorize your products and/or content in a way that the Pinterest search engine can understand.
Your board titles and images are the first thing users will see when they come to your profile, so you’ll want to make them super clear and particularly eye-catching.
If you want to gain popularity on Pinterest, you need to optimize your keywords and images, as well as populate your boards with high-quality Pins.
Tip #7: Know the anatomy of a Pin.
To create the perfect Pin, you need a good sense of what is trending on the platform and in your industry.
The design of pins changes often, so you need to be up-to-date to stay ahead.
There are still some general guidelines we should follow to create Pins that are friendly to SEO.
Aim for Long Images
Pins should be 1,000px by 1,500px for the best results, or a 2:3 ratio.
It is especially important that images be long on mobile devices, but Pinterest also prefers to display longer images on desktop computers.
Use Eye-Catching Colors
Don’t let your Pins fade into the background.
To make your product or service stand out from the competition, use high-contrast colors. This will catch users’ attention and make your product more visible.
Include Enticing, Keyword-Rich Titles
Keywords are important for both Pinterest SEO and clicks.
Use descriptive titles for your pins so that they are more likely to show up in users’ feeds and to encourage them to click through to your website.
10 SEO Hacks for More Traffic is a great article to aim for when trying to increase your traffic. By following the tips in this article, you can increase your traffic significantly.
Tip #8: Be descriptive.
It is important to have detailed descriptions for your images on Pinterest for SEO purposes. This will help Pinterest locate and display your images in relevant searches.
The description of your content is like a preview that tells users what your site is about. This could be the deciding factor in whether or not they click through to your site.
Your audience will benefit from the content by learning something new, or, if you’re posting a product, an interesting fact that sets your product apart from competitors.
I The author offers some good detail in a couple of sentences totalling around 100 characters.
If you want to be visible for certain search terms, you should consider adding hashtags to your description.
Tip #9: Schedule pins with tailwind.
Tailwind is an effective and affordable tool for growing your Pinterest traffic. It is the #1 Pinterest scheduling app on the market.
Tailwind lets you schedule Pins to be re-Pinned to different boards at regular intervals.
You can also select Pins from other creators to be included on your boards in order to increase your audience.
This app can save you time by automating the process of pinning.
In addition to the Tailwind Create feature that allows you to turn your photos into personalized Pin designs, you can now create, publish, and pin all in one place.
Tip #10: Optimize for visual search.
If you point your smartphone camera at a household item or piece of clothing, Pinterest’s Lens technology can identify the object and suggest related Pins.
Lens is a piece of technology that can understand the components of an image and suggest related posts. This technology encourages creators to think about aesthetics as well as keywords.
It’s a good idea to use high-quality images that are related to the content in your blog post or on your product page when you create your Pins. That way, if a user searches for something related to what you’ve posted, your Pin is more likely to show up in the results.
If you’re looking to improve your website’s SEO, consider posting quality content on Pinterest. Pinterest is a great source of highly relevant traffic, which can help boost your website’s ranking.
This means that the best way to improve your SEO is to create powerful and engaging content.