By Heather Lutze, Pinterest Speaker
Okay, let’s face it. We love Pinterest, and not because it’s become one of the leading drivers of website traffic among all the social media sites. And not because it can impact traffic to our websites, and improve our SEO rankings.
No, we love it because it’s addictive, it’s a delight to the eyes, it satisfies our love of collecting things, and it feeds our desire for new, beautiful, unique, and utterly amazing sights. Honestly—we could go on Pinterest one day and never get off it again.
How about you?
Then we’d wake up like Rip Van Winkle, sometime in the future, wondering what happened to those missing decades.
In a nutshell—Pinterest has power, and that same seductive appeal also gives it great social media marketing power, and “getting found online” power.
So it’s time to drag yourself away from all the jaw dropping photos of places in your bucket list, and all the consumer goods you never even knew existed but you’re now lusting for, and get down to business.
Let’s discuss becoming findable within Pinterest, and also how it can help your overall online Findability. Pinterest results are starting to show up on Google, so having boards that rank under your desired keywords helps you dominate yet another spot on that search results page.
Here’s what you need to know about Pinterest SEO:
- Keywords, keywords, keywords: No matter how social media and internet marketing evolve, the fact remains that no search engine can match your content with a searcher’s question unless you use the same keywords to talk about your products that they use to search for them.
- Descriptions: You are allowed a fairly generous description of your pins—500 characters. Make sure you use them all, and that your most relevant keywords are included.
- File Names: When you pin your own images, make sure the file name contains your targeted key phrase as well. Using something like July2012_30130304_0015.jpg is a wasted opportunity—it won’t rank, but custom-cupcakes.jpg just might.
- Pin It and Follow Buttons: Your website should have both, to allow visitors to pin photos of interest to their own boards, and to be able to follow you on Pinterest and see what you’re doing.
- Keep it Social: By repinning and promoting others, you stay within the spirit of Pinterest’s guidelines. Try to come up with any contests or campaigns that get your followers to add pins to your boards, or share your pins. The search engines are all taking notice of social sharing in their rankings, so getting fans to evangelize or share about your brand is of great value.
- Eye Catching Boards: Bland is out; bold, colorful and dramatic images are in. That’s what people are looking for on Pinterest, so give them a reason to pick their jaw up off the floor, and share, share, share.
- Link–Up: Pinterest has settings to link your boards with Twitter or Facebook, making it even easier for followers and prospective clients to find you, like you, and follow you.
To read more about using Pinterest for business: The Power of Pinterest – Put it to Work for Your Business Today
Warm Regards,
Heather Lutze, Pinterest Speaker
Author, Internet Marketing Speaker, Trainer and Consultant