Chances are you’ve discovered many great products, services, and ideas on Pinterest. Now it’s your turn to be discovered and to help others. Pinterest is a search engine, so once you post content to the platform, it’ll circulate forever as opposed to Instagram where your content lives in people’s feeds for mere seconds. By following best practices and having a simple, yet solid strategy, Pinterest can increase traffic to your website or blog thus helping you attract better clients and earn more income. Within this guide, you’ll learn all about how to set up and optimize your business account in order to grow your website traffic with Pinterest. My goal is to get you pinning confidently and consistently so you can increase traffic to your site thus gaining more trust and clients! While you’re there, feel free to follow my boards and get inspired.
Proper Pinterest Profile Set-up
Your Name & Bio
Upload a clear profile photo that is consistent with the rest of your branding across social media. For example, if you use your logo as your Instagram profile picture, use the same image for your Pinterest profile picture. This will create instant familiarity when users are searching for your company.
Think of the rest of your bio area as a ten-second elevator pitch. Use your company’s name along with a primary keyword that describes your business – more on that below. Finish up your bio with a clear and concise intro to who you are, what you do, who you do it for, and how it benefits them.
Boards
Create 3-5 primary boards that are focused on your unique magic. These are where you curate content that is focused exactly on your niche audience and how you best serve them. For example, if you are an interior designer, the first board would feature all of your own work. The second board would be filled with pins that link to your blog. A third board could be focused on your specific style like “Mid-Century Modern Interiors” or “Modern Industrial Interiors”.
Then create a few more secondary boards that are related to your main content. Using the interior designer example, these could focus on specific room inspiration like “Farmhouse Kitchens” or “Small Bathrooms”. Another idea could be “Design Tips for Rental Homes”.
If you use the same Pinterest account to Pin other topics for personal use or inspiration, set those boards to secret. Then your “Weeknight Meals” board won’t interfere with your niche if you’re running an interior design business.
Pro Tip: The most successful boards have at least 10 pins, so be sure to fill them up with some content right at the beginning.
Use the Right Keywords
Nailing your SEO (Search Engine Optimization) and using the right keywords across your account is what gets your content in the feeds of your ideal audience. A keyword is a term or phrase that people are typing into their Pinterest search bar. These could either be short-tail keywords, like “maternity” or long-tail keywords like “summer maternity outfits”.
Long-tail keywords are more specific and do a much better job at attracting a more targeted audience to your posts. 2 to 4 words in length is optimal, just make sure it’s a phrase people are likely to search for and that accurately describes what your Pin content is about.
Where to place keywords
- Board Titles: Branding Tips for Small Businesses
- Board Descriptions: Bring your vision to life with these helpful branding tips. Brand design advice for bloggers, creative entrepreneurs, and business owners. Create stronger brand design, storytelling, and connect with your ideal audience.
- Profile Name: Meteor Street Studio | Brand & Squarespace Design
- Profile Description: Exquisite branding and web design that propels soulful businesses forward with style and deeper connection.
- Pin Title: (The title of your blog post) Top 5 Tools for Creative Entrepreneurs
- Pin Description: The following are five of our favorite business tools that we use constantly; from email marketing to stock photography. By leaning on high-performing tools, everyday tasks will be made simpler leaving you to focus on what you do best: creating. Start using these today. #businesstools #creativeentrepreneur
Follow Pinterest Best Practices
Pin titles
- Always use Title Case and never ALL CAPS.
- Avoid using symbols.
- Use clear, specific titles that accurately describe the content.
- Do not repeat your Pin title in the description.
Pin descriptions
- The more details, the better, but the maximum character count is 500.
- Put the most important information at the top of the description to be seen in the preview.
- Write your descriptions using a natural sentence structure. Don’t just list out the keywords.
- Include a call to action.
- List 2-5 relevant hashtags at the end.
Pin imagery
Pinterest prioritizes fresh content. This doesn’t mean you need to write a billion new blog posts. Instead, create multiple different Pin designs that all link to the same URL. We love creating 20 different template designs with the same photography and titles. Then we test the same templates with slightly different, yet still relevant titles and different photos. This way you could quickly create 20, 40, or even 60 fresh pins that all serve the same target piece of content!
Perfect your Pinning Strategy
The path to success in anything is founded on a good strategy. Here are a couple of important things to remember to ensure effective Pinterest performance.
Consistency is key
It’s not ideal to post 500 pins in one sitting and then abandon the platform for a whole month. Instead, it’s better to post 5-20 pins every single day. Sound exhausting? Put it on autopilot. I personally love Tailwind. Tailwind provides an optimized schedule that automatically posts your pins when your target audience is most active on the platform.
This way you can create your content in batches. For example, I’ve been able to set aside 1-2 hours to schedule content in my Tailwind account that will automatically post to Pinterest throughout the entire month causing my impression rates to increase over 300% in only 30 days. Start your free Tailwind trial here.
Follow the 80/20 rule
20, or even just 5, pins a day can sound like a lot of content but don’t worry, it doesn’t have to be your own! If you are able to post a bunch of your own content, that’s great, but that’s also a lot of work. Ensure that at least 20% of the Pins you post to your boards link to your website. The other 80% can be other people’s posts that are in the same niche.
This ensures you are still serving your audience with quality inspiration, boosts your profile, and increases the likelihood that your content will get in front of the eyes of your ideal viewer.
Powered by Creative Market
