Pinterest is a great way to market your business, make sales and bring traffic to your website.
I won’t say it’s underrated but it’s certainly not as efficiently utilized to its potential. I have used Pinterest since middle school and it’s only after I started my career I realized that Pinterest is more than just a place to find new craft ideas.
It’s a whole freaking search engine like Google!
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Pinterest currently boasts 433 million users. And according to research, 47% of Social media users see Pinterest as a platform for discovering new products.
And many bloggers and website owners use Pinterest as the only source of traffic for their blogs. (Mind you 100,000 monthly sessions or more!)
In short, It’s a very lucrative platform to grow and scale your business.
A few things to keep in mind before we start:
- It’s best to use an old Pinterest account than make a new one
- A pin has a higher chance of going viral if you have an old account
- Niches on Pinterest matters a lot (some are WAY more popular than others)
- You need to have a Pinterest account older than 6 months for Pinterest to take you seriously. It sucks!
For new folks that don’t know how Pinterest works, here is a summary!
How does Pinterest work?
Pinterest is a VISUAL search engine.
So, In place of boring blue titles and URLs, we see clickable pretty pictures that lead us to websites, blogs, online shops, YouTube, etc.
You make an account and create ‘Pins’ and paste them on ‘boards’. Just like how pinboards work.
You make pins and similarly, other people make pins.
And you paste THEIR pins on YOUR boards and you also pin YOUR pins to your boards.
Everyone is busy doing just that.
You find their pins on your feed, or by visiting their profile. Much like Instagram or TikTok.
(we can say Pinterest is a mish-mash of Google & social media platforms)
Hope that clears up! Now let’s get down to business!
Create A Pinterest Business Account
You can create a business account or turn your personal account into a business one.
By using a Pinterest business account, you can get access to Pinterest analytics and Pinterest Ad manager, both of which are crucial to your business.
So nope! Personal won’t do, make a Pinterest business account.
Make A Profile
Add your credentials, profile picture, and profile title, write a short bio about your business, and select USA or Canada as the location.
(By using USA or Canada as your location, you can get access to Pinterest Ads manager and trends)
Now the basics are over! Let’s get to the main part!
Since Pinterest is a search engine, you NEED to optimize your profile (bio, profile title), boards, and pins for SEO.
Pinterest SEO works a lot similar to Google SEO. You need to find and add relevant keywords where necessary. (More on that in a bit)
You will place relevant keywords in:
- Profile
- Pins title and descriptions
- Boards title and descriptions
Claim Website
After setting up your profile, you need to claim your website.
Pinterest allows you to claim your website to apply for rich pins and become a verified merchant (if you plan to sell anything).
After claiming your website, apply for rich pins!
With rich pins, your pins have your logo and branding when they appear in search results. They also show relevant information such as ingredients in recipes, descriptions, prices of products, etc.
You get an edge over people who can’t or aren’t using them.
Create Pins
After making a profile, the first thing is to know how to make pins that Pinterest likes. Just creating pretty pins is not enough, trust me.
If you want to speed up the process and skip this step, buy a converting pin bundle here!
When I started learning Pinterest for my business, most people only told me to create pretty pins, visual pins, attractive pins, and whatnot.
What I really needed was converting pins. (But pins cannot be converted without being pretty!)
And there is a whole psychology behind making a converting pin. Not that it’s hard. BUT it needs some A/B testing.
First, make a quick Pinterest search about your topic. Notice all the fonts and colors other people are using.
What is the most common font you see? Do you notice any pattern in most pins? What are the biggies in your niche using?
Let me guess. You might most probably see a mix of fonts such as ‘league spartan’, ‘open sans extra bold’, ‘playlist script’, ‘twister’, ‘glacial indifference’, ‘Playfair display ‘ etc.
Here is how you can create your pins using Canva. Most bloggers (including me!) use canva to handle most, if not all graphic designing work for business or personal use.
Make a canva account and select Pinterest templates.
A Few Tips
- Create multiple pins for a single Url (at least 8)
- Change pictures or titles in each different design of the same pin URL
- Spice it up by using a mix of bold & cursive fonts
- Also, try creating long pins (1000×2000)
- Use premade templates if you lack ideas
- Take Advantage of a Free Trial in Canva Pro (you get access to 600,000+ templates in canva and millions of design elements!)
Use Canva Pro free for one month!
Also Read: How To Make Money By Selling Canva Templates
Research Keywords
Pinterest works a lot like Google. So searching for keywords on Pinterest is not much different.
You type your niche keyword on the search bar and observe all the drop-down searches.
Keep trying different variations and see what people are searching for.
Note: if you type and search for a keyword and find unrelated pins ranking, the keyword is probably not worth it since Pinterest is just trying to fill the gap.
You can also find keywords in the top bar of search results,
and related searches by Pinterest.
Click pins of your competitors and see what descriptions and titles they are using. You will find a ton of keywords there!
Another way is to use Pinterest Ads manager to search for keywords. (You don’t need to run ads just use their keywords research tool)
Also, search for boards in your niche and see what keywords your competitors are using. After a while, you will keep coming across the same set of keywords.
Also, search for related keywords.
For example, if my target keyword is ‘affiliate marketing’ then my related keywords would be ‘online income’, ‘work from home’, ‘make money online’ etc.
After finding your list of keywords, optimize your profile by adding keywords you want to rank for.
You will need to insert keywords in your;
- Profile
- Pins titles and descriptions
- Boards titles and descriptions
Here is an example;
Since she is in the personal finance niche, ‘save money’, ‘personal finance’ ‘make money online’ are the keywords she uses and ranks for. The same words are in her bio too PLUS some more related keywords. We can say her profile is well optimized.
Also, since you have limited space in the title, list only the most important keywords. (The keywords you want to RANK for)
Remember: Don’t name your boards creative names like ‘killer cupcakes’ for ‘cupcake ideas’, or ‘one day’ for ‘travel destinations’. Use their original keyword to rank better.
A Few Tips
- Pin at least 10 – 15 times per day
- Don’t make more than 6 boards at the start. You can keep making them when necessary.
- Pin your pins, Pin other people’s pins and repin your pins to different boards (all counts as pins!)
- Pin different times of the day and schedule them through the Pinterest scheduler
- Follow people in your niche (see how they are making their pins, color contrast, pin designs, etc)
- Pin too much and you are shadowbanned
- Join group boards (strictly niche specific!)
- Don’t focus too much on your number of followers
Lastly, be consistent in your pinning since Pinterest seems to love it! Also don’t just depend on Pinterest scheduler and manually pin a few times per day. Manual pinning makes a big difference.
Hope this post was helpful! Tell me in the comments if you have any questions!
Happy pinning!
