Pinterest is a visual social network, so you might think that SEO doesn’t play much of a role here. I mean, nobody actually comes to Pinterest to search for content, right? After all, pinning stuff is what Pinterest is all about! But it turns out that Pinterest has a lot of SEO potential.
In fact, Pinterest users love to share links! When creating compelling boards and pinning tons of great stuff, you’re also sending traffic to your website.
Tons of businesses use Pinterest to drive more traffic to their website, but it’s not just about pinning pretty pictures. If you want your Pinterest pins to rank well in search engines, you need to make sure you’re doing SEO correctly.
So how can you use Pinterest for SEO? Read on!
Do keyword research to give you an idea of what users are looking for
Using the right keywords can help your content reach the right people. So before you get started, it is essential to do keyword research. Create a list of the top keywords in your niche, and use them to inspire your content calendar.
Recipes are a huge hit on Pinterest. Let’s say you’re a nutritionist or a blogger who focuses on healthy living. You might want to create recipes related to the keywords you found.
If you’re a fashion blogger or a clothing retailer, take note of the keywords related to your niche and then create different boards and pins for each season.
Optimize your Pinterest boards
You can optimize your boards by making sure they’re relevant to your blog content or business. So that when someone searches a particular topic, they will find you.
When optimizing your boards, be sure to use keywords that people would search for to find the pins associated with them. Also, make sure you have at least three boards with lots of pins on them. The more boards you have, the more traffic you will get from Pinterest.
Write thoughtful pin descriptions
Including detailed descriptions can help your pins perform better. This, in turn, can help improve your reach and improve your pins’ SEO rankings.
If your Pinterest content isn’t optimized for pinner’s searches, then you’re missing out. You have 500 characters for your descriptions, so make the most out of it. Provide some helpful information about your pin. Give your audience a preview of what they’ll get from your content: what they’ll learn, how it would benefit them, and a call to action. These small bits of information may be just what they need to click through to your site.
If possible, include long-tail keywords in your description. They perform better than single or 2-word keywords since they describe what people are looking for. Just be careful not to overdo it. Google hates it when you stuff keywords into your descriptions, and you’ll likely be penalized for it in search engine rankings.
Use keywords as hashtags
Even though hashtags are optional on Pinterest, they are still considered beneficial. For one, they help users quickly find the content they are looking for. Plus, it helps you quickly get your pins to the top of the search results page.
Only include relevant words and phrases that describe the content in the pin. Avoid using popular but irrelevant hashtags to get people’s attention.
While Pinterest allows users to use more than 20 hashtags per pin, we advise that you limit your hashtags between 2 and 8. Having too many hashtags will make your pins look spammy.
Optimize your website for Pinterest SEO
Linking your website to your Pinterest account is an excellent step towards a better SEO performance.
You can use Pinterest tags to determine what types of Pinterest content deliver the most traffic to your website and what kind of content isn’t working. Plus, it gives you an idea of what people are doing on your website after interacting with your pins. The data is collected and sent back to your Pinterest account, so you can use it to adjust your strategy accordingly.
It’s also a good idea to add share buttons to your product pages. This allows visitors to pin items from your website to their boards.
Final thoughts
Pinterest is a great way to connect with your target audience. It’s visual and social, so it lends itself well to highlighting your content or promoting your products. Whether you’re a blogger, an artist, or a retailer, you can use the platform to drive traffic back to your website and gain followers in the process.
Pinterest may seem intimidating at first, but once you get the hang of it, you’ll realize that it’s easy to navigate. If you need help with Pinterest marketing, please schedule a free 30-minute consultation call with us. We’ll help you leverage Pinterest SEO to ensure your pins are getting maximum results.
