Pinterest has undergone significant evolution in the last few years, becoming more than just a social network. It is now a powerful visual content search engine, and businesses can optimize their presence on the network to make themselves discoverable to their audience. Pinterest has over 100 million subscribers on the platform who search for and pin new content according to their interest, and the platform is definitely underutilized by businesses.
However, if you’re going to have a successful Pinterest profile, you have to make your pins easily accessible and discoverable, and the best way to do this is search engine optimization for Pinterest. No, it isn’t as complex as it sounds; it’s quite simple, actually. Below is a list of tweaks you can perform to improve your performance.
- Optimize your profile
Even before you begin pinning stuff, set up a good profile with the right username. You can always use your settings to change your username so that you have one which adequately reflects who you are and how you want to be reached. The URL will be your keyword, so pick out an easily memorable, direct and clear username. The same applies to your profile name, which is how you will be identified within the network.
- Optimize your boards
Ensure that your boards are neatly organized and appealing, with appropriate emphasis on different images and titles within the boards. Pay attention to details and use creativity to inject fun aspects to the images and titles.
Speaking from an SEO standpoint, place yourself in the user’s shoes and pick board titles according to the way it will be searched for. While it’s awesome to have a funny and clever title, they must be optimized to be easily found by users. You don’t have to strictly use your industry keywords, and you should feel free to add creative touches provided it still effectively sends the message.
- Optimize your pins
Every pin added represents an aspect of your profile, which means that you must optimize it as much as you can. Do not shy away from descriptions, which will better help the search engine to find your pins from the maze of images.
Use high-quality images with the right composition and focus. Choose vertically oriented pins (taller instead of longer) which render better on mobile screens. You can have pins that compile multiple pictures as these are great for how-to processes among others. However, keep the images as few as possible for better visibility. If you use text, ensure that it is easy to read on a mobile screen and keep it short.
- Develop your descriptions
The amount of time you spend creating your pin descriptions could be the difference between whether or not your pin gets re-pinned. Pinterest prefers pins which give well-thought-out and specific descriptions which will help a user get the right thing when they search for an image. Include all details describing your image and ensure that the text flows naturally. You can fit in your keywords if they can be added naturally. This will make your pins stand out from others.
- Limit use of hashtags
Among the things that were mentioned in Pinterest’s official guide on using the platform for business purposes was that businesses shouldn’t just drop hashtags or keywords with no thought to form. Part of captivating pinners is putting up a nice description incorporating the right search terms to help pinners imagine themselves using your pin. Hashtags are not as useful on Pinterest as they are on Instagram, Twitter or Facebook; you don’t necessarily need to have them to improve the spread of your pins.
- Perform keyword research
Extended keyword research is one of the best ways to identify the right keywords to target as you put up pins. Begin as a user interested in one of your products and try out searches on Pinterest. Look at which results are displayed first and how pins, pinners and boards are organized in order to deeply understand how the platform works. See which keywords are brought together by automatic suggestion and which keywords will be most relevant for your pins.
Apart from desktop search, you may want to explore Pinterest on mobile, given the increase in number of users that prefer accessing the Internet on mobile rather than desktop. In fact, over 75 percent of users access the platform on smartphones and tablets, so it’s important to account for search differences on mobile and do what it takes to make mobile access as functional as possible.
Analyzing keyword performance
You can analyze performance of particular Pinterest keywords using Google by typing in the following string into your Google searchbox:
site: www.pinterest.com “keyword”
You can evaluate the most common pins depending on search rankings and leverage the results to optimize your won keywords.
Finding who pins from your website
If you’re wondering how pinners can pin content directly from your website to their boards, follow the following URL:
http://www.pinterest.com/source/[yoursite]
This gives you an easy way to see the things that Pinterest users are taking from your site as well as their rankings on Pinterest.
Analyzing referral traffic from Pinterest
Pinterest can drive significant referral traffic back to your website, so you should have a way of tracking the pages which attracted the most traffic and evaluate the way pinners reach your pages in order to know how to further optimize your most popular pins and even upgrade your content using new posts.
- Utilize rich pins
Rich pins are an enhancement of regular pins and are used to offer more information about the pin. They may be used within six contexts namely, place, product, article, recipe, movie and app, and they are more significant than regular pins.
Whether you’re offering the price of a product, an article or a full recipe, rich pins perform better in search results and are highly recommended if you can benefit from their use on your Pinterest profile.
Conclusion
Optimizing your presence on Pinterest is much easier than it sounds and has remarkable resemblance to how you would optimize your site for search. Simply work on optimizing your username, profile name, boards and pins, then perform keyword research and analysis to get the best keywords to include in your description. Natural flowing descriptions are always preferred, and you should use rich pins where applicable for easier and wider reach.
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