There are more than 291 million monthly active users on Pinterest (as of the first quarter of 2019). 90% of weekly users use Pinterest to make purchase decisions.
The numbers indicate how important it is to stay active on Pinterest. However, if your content isn’t optimized for Pinners’ searches, then your content might just get lost amidst 200 billion ideas.
Let’s have a look at the SEO tips you can follow to boost your content’s visibility in Pinterest.
Increase Domain Quality
Just like Google uses domain authority to determine the relevancy for a specific industry, Pinterest uses domain quality to define the quality of your website.
Pinterest can check the popularity of the pins from your website. It can also check whether or not your site is a source of high-quality content.
Follow these steps to improve domain quality:
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Convert to a business account (if you haven’t already).
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Claim your website in Pinterest to prove you’re a legitimate business/pinner.
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Authorize rich pins on your account. Rich pins help you import additional information from your blog directly. Every time you update any information on your blog, it’ll automatically be transferred to Pinterest. Rich pins can increase both your search impressions and clicks.
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Ensure that you pin every day (even on weekends). Pinning 50 posts a day and none for the rest of the week isn’t advisable. Pinterest states, “Add new pins over time rather than uploading a bunch at once”. You can schedule pins to ensure that you pin frequently and consistently.
Now that you know how to improve your domain quality let’s have a look at how you can improve your pin quality.
Improve Pin Quality
Pinterest uses the popularity and engagement levels of your pins to determine the pin quality.
If a lot of people like, comment, save, closeup, or click through your pin, Pinterest will consider that as a high-quality pin.
Follow these steps to improve pin quality:
- Create a visually-appealing and pin-worthy graphic: The first thing anyone sees is the image, and if it isn’t eye-catching, you might not receive enough engagement. Here are some best practices for creating pin-worthy graphics:
- Use the Pinterest recommended aspect ratio i.e., 2:3 (e.g., 1000 x 1500 pixels). Other ratios might negatively impact performance or may cause your pins to truncate.
- Use multiple images in your pin. Pinterest found that pins with multiple photos get 30% higher click-through rates and 20% higher checkouts.
- Your pins must highlight why your product or service is the best fit for viewers.
- Use your brand logo in every pin. However, avoid the lower right corner as it gets covered with by the product icons.
Add text overlay on your pin image to enhance your message and make your pin stand out.
For Videos:
According to Pinterest, videos that teach people how to do something or inspire people to do something new perform better than others.
- Ensure that your video conveys the message even without sound. If you’re explaining something on the video, use text overlay or captions to communicate your message.
- Pick a strong cover image to let people know what they can expect in the video. Your cover image also helps Pinterest to show your video to the right audience.
- Make the best use of titles, descriptions, and hashtags to get discovered in search.
Improving your pin quality can significantly improve your visibility in the search and can help you get more traction.
Improve Pinner Quality
Apart from domain and pin quality, Pinterest also ranks content based on pinner quality.
Pinner quality is Pinterest’s perception of you as a content curator.
Follow these steps to enhance your pinner quality:
- Pin highly-relevant content: Pinterest says, “Content relevancy matters more than anything else”. It’s important to curate content that caters to the needs and interests of your target audience.
- Pin already popular content to your boards: This will help you increase engagement in your pins, thereby improving pinner quality. To find popular pins:
- Browse Popular Category.
- Check Repinned to find the most saved pins by category.
- Pin Consistently: As mentioned above, you need to pin consistently and frequently.
Add Relevant Keywords
Just like on any other search engine, keywords influence what appears in searches on Pinterest. Keywords help Pinterest understand what your pins are all about.
One of the best ways to do keyword research is by entering your keywords on the Pinterest search bar. Just like Google, Pinterest auto-suggests keywords to you.
These suggestions are the most popular search phrases. Remember, shorter keywords always have more competition. Therefore, it is advisable to use long-tail keywords.
Now that you have a list of keywords with you, here are a few areas where you can add them to improve your visibility in search:
Add Keywords on your profile: There are two places where you can add keywords to optimize your profile:
Business name.
Your bio.
Adding keywords on your profile will help you rank on top when users are looking for people for specific keywords.
Add keywords in your Pin descriptions: A good pin description is something that includes relevant keywords and entices users into clicking on it.
Add Keywords in your Pinterest boards: Optimize both the title and the description of your boards. Ensure that you save the pins to your most relevant board because the keywords of your boards stay with the pin. Pinterest uses it to categorize and display your pins/boards when appropriate.
Bonus: Use relevant hashtags on every pin you post on Pinterest to increase your content’s visibility.
Wrapping Up
When it comes to researching new products or ideas, Pinterest is the first thing that comes into the mind. Optimizing your pins can help you rank on top of the searches, which in turn, can help you drive traffic to your website.
Improving domain quality, pin quality, and pinner quality will tell Pinterest how great your pins are. Use keywords to let Pinterest determine the relevancy of your pins with the search term.
