If you want to be a Pinterest pro you’re going to need to up your SEO game first! Pinterest may be a social media platform but it’s not like the others. It’s more of a user-driven search engine. Think Google search but with pretty pictures.
Pinterest has more than 400 million monthly active users, and 71% of those users are female. Any business that has a product or service that would be of interest to the female market would be crazy not to build up their Pinterest profile.
Pinterest doesn’t work like other social media platforms. It will take some time to get things set up and flowing properly. You’ll need to spend a lot of time thinking about SEO when setting up your profile and your boards.
It doesn’t matter what your business is, if it’s of interest to a female demographic, then you could benefit from being on Pinterest.
Once you’ve set up your profile and verified your website, you’ll need to create some boards. Think of these as file cabinets. These are the folders you’ll organize all your pins into.
This is where your SEO savvy comes into play because each board needs to be optimized for search. And you’ll need as many boards as you can possibly come up with. Some say the minimum you want is ten, but thirty is even better. Yes, you’ll have some overlap but it’s an important part of the Pinterest optimization process.
Let’s say your business sells nail polish. The obvious answer is to create a board dedicated to nail polish. But if you know anything about SEO then you’ll know that just won’t work. You want to think of long-tail keywords here. Think instead of colors or themes.
Red Nail Polish, Blue Nail Polish, Wedding Nail Polish, Summer Nail Polish, Fall Nail Polish, Christmas Nail Polish, Gel Polish, Glitter Polish, and Matte Polish. Now you could have boards for all of these, but it’s also possible you’ll have a pin that will fit into three different categories – such as Red Nail Polish, Winter Nail Polish, Christmas Nail Polish — and that’s perfectly okay. Pinterest has said they don’t mind you posting about the same thing on a variety of boards.
Now when creating the board you don’t just need to give it a name, like “Red Nail Polish”, you also need to think about what people may search for when looking for red nail polish. Maybe things like easy nail polish, pretty nail polish, nail polish air, nail design, nail polish ideas, nail painting, nail polish tips.
You want to fill your board description up with all these long-tail keyword terms, that are relevant to the board you are creating.
Do your keyword research and come up with all sorts of keywords relating to your main keyword phrase. This is going to be the key to having a perfect Pinterest-optimized board. Remember Pinterest is like a search engine. People “search” for things and when they do, you want them to find your pin.
Now that you have your boards, it’s time to think about your pins. Pins need to not only be visually attractive, (with a pretty picture) but you’ll also need a bold headline to grab the person’s attention and make them want to click on your picture.
When making your pins, you want to make sure and use bold fonts. While cursive fonts may be pretty, they aren’t going to help you with Pinterest. You only have a second to grab a person’s attention, and you aren’t going to do that without big, bold letters.
You know what else works great? Video! While most pins are going to be graphics, you’ll want to spend some time making video clips too. Video is without a doubt going to be important to your Pinterest SEO strategy. It grabs the algorithm’s attention and will give you a leg up over your competition.
Here are some sample videos, so you can have an idea of what I mean when it comes to creating some cute Pinterest videos.
You will want to keep your videos short and sweet. While you can post a video up to 15 minutes long, you really don’t want to. Shorter videos typically perform better on the platform. I would suggest keeping them under 15 to 20 seconds long. Just remember that your video needs to be at least 4 seconds.
You can skip the audio. Most users don’t have their audio on anyway. This also means text overlays for your video is more important than ever. Also keep in mind that like your images, your video pins should be SEO optimized with a good title, keyword-rich description, and hashtags.
Pinterest makes use of hashtags just like all the other social media platforms. They should be a part of every post you make on Pinterest. But know they are limited to a short, initial burst of exposure. They don’t play into the long term visibility of your post.
When inserting hashtags make sure they are relevant to your post. If your post is about blue hair dye, don’t insert a hashtag about nail polish remover. If you aren’t sure which hashtag to use, trying searching for your topic on Pinterest and use the autocomplete suggestions as your guide.
Hashtags make your pin searchable. Using the right hashtags for your pin will label that into a particular category. And, when someone searches for the content with the same hashtags, they get to see your post there, too.
Think short and sweet when it comes to your hashtag ideas like #foodie #baking #recipes. Longtail hashtags don’t seem to work as well on Pinterest as they do on Instagram. Things like #thingsillneverdoagain won’t do you any good.
Pinterest’s algorithm is different from LinkedIn, Instagram, and Twitter. With Pinterest, it takes some days, weeks, or even months to get your pins to be found by the right audience. But using the keyword-specific description and with the right hashtags, it starts showing interactions sometimes within hours.
Pinterest rewards those who use their platform often. This means you’ll want to post at least five to ten times a day, every single day. I realize this sounds like a lot of work, but it’s really the only way to ensure you’ll get the most out of using the platform.
If you aren’t already using a scheduler like Later.com, you can always use the built-in Pinterest scheduler that allows you to plan out posts up to two weeks in advance. By scheduling pins weeks in advance you’ll be able to miss a day or two when you are busy doing other things and not have to worry about your account going stale because you’ll already have pins prepared for that day.
Pinterest really does reward the accounts that are most active so make sure that you pay close attention to your pins and get them scheduled in advance so you will have a minimum of five to ten pins a day, every single day.
