When it comes to visual social media platforms, Pinterest is a force to be reckoned with.
Pinterest has also grown its international user base to over 433 million active monthly users who are pinning over 100 million images per day. This makes Pinterest one of the top most visited websites in the world!
You may be wondering how you can harness all this potential traffic for your brand or business. You may even be thinking about jumping on board but want some tips on how to get started.
Well, you've come to the right place!
Here's our guide on how to optimize your Pinterest content for SEO and drive traffic back to your website!
Why should you care about Pinterest marketing?
- 80% of weekly Pinners have discovered a new brand or product on Pinterest
- Pinterest ad revenue is expected to cross $4 Billion by 2026
Source: Influencer Marketing Hub
- Consumers who use Pinterest weekly are seven times more likely to claim it to be the most influential platform in their purchase journey, as compared to other social media platforms
- As of January 2022, Pinterest’s advertising reach was 226 million users.
Source: Pinterest
How to set up and optimize your Pinterest profile for success?
Set up your Pinterest Business account
If you don't have a business account on Pinterest yet, do it now! It will help your brand appear more professional and boost engagement.
You can follow the official Pinterest guide to creating/converting to a Business account here.
Content planning
Your content strategy is the foundation of your marketing.
Content planning is where you decide when to publish each post, how often you want to publish posts, and what content you want to publish.
If you want to be successful with social media, then you need to know what your brand stands for, who you’re speaking to and what kind of message you want to send out into the world.
Here are some questions to ask yourself -
- What are your values?
- What does your customer need?
- Who is your target audience?
- What do they want from you?
- What makes them tick?
- How will your brand be different from other brands in the market?
You can use this information to come up with some general guidelines for creating content that will resonate with your target audience.
What kind of content can you share on Pinterest?
- Product pins
- Blog posts and content
- Infographics
- Videos
Content execution
You can't expect people to find your boards if they're not even aware that they exist. In order to get started, create a board with relevant content and fill it up with interesting images that will draw people in.
You can also create multiple boards related to different aspects of your business or products — this will help you reach more people who are interested in what you sell.
For example, a bakery might create a board titled “Our Best Cupcakes” with pictures of different cupcake types they offer and links back to their website where people can purchase them online.
A clothing store might create a board titled “Our Favorite Fall Looks” with pictures of different fall outfit combinations using items from their inventory and links back to their website where people can purchase them online.
Pin regularly and consistently
You want to keep your pins fresh, so create a schedule for how frequently you'll post new content on your profile or account page.
Pinning too often can turn off potential followers, but not posting enough will make them forget about you entirely (and could even drive them away).
The sweet spot seems to be 1-2 times per day, though this depends on your industry and business model.
Each time you pin, search your brand name and see if any old pins are showing up in the top results. If so, it's time to refresh them with new images or content. If there's nothing new to add, then just delete those old ones.
Use relevant keywords and hashtags
When you're pinning products, be sure to include keywords and hashtags that are relevant to the product category or theme of the pin.
For example, if you're pinning an article about how to style an outfit with sunglasses, include hashtags like #outfitinspiration and #fashionblogger so people who search those terms can find your content more easily.
If you're using Pinterest ads, use similar keywords in your ad copy as well so that people who click on your ad will see relevant content right away.
Board collaborations
Pinterest Board Collaborations allow you to partner with other brands that have similar interests. You can create boards together and pin images from each other's websites as well as collaborate on content creation.
By collaborating with other brands on Pinterest, you can increase your brand visibility and drive traffic back to your website or blog by directing people to your own board or even theirs!
Promotions
There are many ways you can run (paid) promotions on Pinterest to get better visibility -
Promoted Pins
This is the most basic form of advertising on Pinterest. You select an existing pin from your feed and then create a new ad from that pin. The ad will show up in people’s feeds and in their search results.
Promoted Boards
Promoted boards are similar to promoted pins, except that instead of selecting one specific piece of content, you select an entire board or collection of boards that you want to promote. This gives you more control over what people see when they click on your ads.
Pin It Buttons
Pin It buttons let you add a Pin It button to any website or blog post so users can easily pin your content without ever leaving your site or blog post.
8 Tips to optimize your Pinterest content for SEO
To optimize your profile for success, make sure it has all of the following elements -
- Use a Business account.
- A clear description of what you offer in your bio or "about" section so people can learn more about your brand or business without having to visit another site or app (this should be between 50-200 characters). Also, include your website link here.
- Include relevant keywords in your profile's About section, as well as in the descriptions of each image that you upload. This will help Pinterest surface your boards on searches related to those terms.
- Leverage Pinterest Trends to analyze what kind of content works best on the platform.
- Make sure that the images are high-quality and visually appealing. This will help increase engagement with your posts and increase traffic from search engines like Google.
- Pin from other social media sites like Facebook and Twitter to increase engagement with potential customers who are already familiar with your brand or product line.
- Link back to your website whenever possible! This will help drive more traffic back to your site and increase backlinks and sales!
- Use Pinterest’s official guide on content formats to use the best content style, image dimensions, file sizes, and character limits for all your pins.
Wrapping up!
If you're a fan of visual content, Pinterest is likely a natural fit for your brand marketing or advertising. While designing effective posts on Pinterest can be difficult, there are some tried and true ways to attract viewers that are worth incorporating into your feed.
We hope this guide has helped you understand how to best optimize your Pinterest presence for your Shopify store!
Need help setting up a Pinterest marketing strategy?
