Pinterest SEO: Your Complete Guide for Optimizing Your Pinterest Content

the complete Pinterest SEO guide

Still not using Pinterest?

Well, that’s a shame, especially if you are an e-commerce company.

Here are some quick stats to help you change your mind:

  1. Pinterest is valued at more than $11 billion.
  2. The social network has more than 150 million active users, 70 million of which in the US alone.
  3. More than 2 million users purchase “rich pin” products every day!
  4. It’s estimated that more than 5 million pins are created daily.

I know what you’re thinking: what do all these have to do with Pinterest SEO? And is this even a thing? Yes and yes.

Pinterest SEO and Why You Should Add it to Your SEM Efforts

You’re right, Pinterest is no Google. But did you know it is in fact a search engine?

Yes, you read that right.

There are more than 2 billion searches done directly in Pinterest every month. Better yet, across all industries, Pinterest is responsible for 5% of the website traffic. In other words, 5% of your traffic could come from your pins if you pay some attention to Pinterest SEO.

The Pinterest search algorithm differs greatly from those of Google or Bing. Pinterest’s ranking factors are related to engagement rates and social shares first and foremost. However, as we all know, these make for great content on any platform, not just on a crisscross between a social network and a search engine.

If you want to learn more about the technical details of the Pinterest ranking algorithm, check this blog post on the smarter home feed. It’s written by the engineering team at Pinterest, so it’s definitely the best source for such info.

As one of the top social networks for visual content, Pinterest can be a gold mine for traffic, engagement and even sales. Given the massive amount of searches, you need to master the Pinterest content optimization game before enjoying any of the above – you have to find a way to stand out from the massive amount of content posted daily.

Let’s see how you can do that.

The Complete Guide on Pinterest SEO – What to Do to Get more Visibility, Traffic and Sales

The smarter home feed is all about bringing Pinterest users content they care about. According to the team of engineers at Pinterest, the quality of content is judged according to four factors:

  1. Domain quality
  2. Pin quality
  3. Relevance
  4. Pinner quality

The good news about these factors is that you can work to improve every single one of them. It won’t happen overnight, but it will happen.

Here’s your complete guide on Pinterest SEO:

  1. Be Consistent

Much like any other social network or content platform, your pinning also needs to be consistent. This means you can’t pin every once in a blue moon and expect stellar results.

Some people recommend up to 11 pins per day, ideally between 2:00 AM and 11:00 PM. Don’t take this as a hard rule; it’s more of a guideline. Frequency and number of pins depend on your industry and other factors. Plus, the right combination is never derived from online advice (no matter whom it comes from), but is the result of heavy testing.

And, if 11 pins per day seems too much for you to handle, here’s some good news: they don’t all have to be your own content. You can always use Pareto’s principle and pin 80% your own content and 20% content from other bloggers/influencers or re-pins.

  1. Research Your Keywords

You do it for blogging and other types of content, so why not for Pinterest SEO, as well?

Make sure you keep user intent in mind so that your pins are found by relevant people. And, as I advise our copywriting clients, don’t shy away from very specific and long-tail keywords.

I recently wrote a guest post for SiteProNews explaining exactly what matters and what doesn’t in keyword research. My post was geared towards blogging and general content writing, but the principles hold true for Pinterest SEO, too.

Let’s look at an example: you may already know that Pinterest is a treasure trove for food blogs and recipes. You can find any type of recipe, for any taste buds and for any occasion there.

Since there are tons of searches related to recipes, you may be tempted to optimize your pins for this exact keyword. But you shouldn’t.

Think about it: people who are ready to shop (or cook) will search for something more specific: sugar-free recipes, vegan Thanksgiving recipes, chocolate cake recipe, recipes for toddlers are all more valuable than recipes alone.

They will get you the kind of “committed” traffic from people who may buy something from you, subscribe to your newsletter, re-pin your content and more. That’s because you’re giving them exactly what they’ve been looking for.

You can use Google AdWords Keyword Planner to get suggestions for such keywords. Or, even simpler, you can just type your broad keywords into the Pinterest search bar and take a look at the suggestions. They are made of what people search for, so it’s an excellent insight into user intent.

  1. Increase Your Domain Quality

Now that we’re done with the basics of Pinterest SEO, let’s take a closer look at the more technical aspects of boosting the ranking of your Pinterest content. Remember the four smarter feed criteria mentioned above? Now that you know how often to post and how to find the perfect Pinterest keywords, you’re ready to hack them.

Much like domain authority (the authority of your website’s domain as seen by Google and analyzed by Moz), domain quality is literally what Pinterest thinks of your website.

As you might have expected, the better your domain quality, the higher your chances of ranking among the first results on the keywords that you crave. But how is it calculated, you ask?

Well, just like in the case of domain authority, we don’t know the specifics. But we do know that Pinterest checks up on the popularity of the pins from your website. The more people engage with them or click on them, the higher your domain quality.

Of course, domain quality is fluid. It can increase or decrease in time. But there are a few things that you can do to get Pinterest to deem you trustworthy and rank your pins higher:

Step 1: Make sure you have a business account.

Step 2: Confirm your website – this tells Pinterest that you truly are the owner of the website you listed.

Step 3: Allow your pins to be visible to search engines. This may sound like a no-brainer, but you’d be surprised at how many people nail the advanced aspects of Pinterest SEO and forget about the basics. Allowing your pins to be found by other search engines gives you extra visibility – which is exactly what any business wants.

Step 4: Enable rich pins. Rich pins are a great way to offer extra details right on the pin. Currently, there are 4 types of rich pins: recipes, articles, apps and products. By offering more content (pricing, ingredients and so on), you entice the reader to click on the pin to read the whole story or re-pin your content if they already found all the information they needed.

Step 5: Add the “Save” button to your website. This small snippet of code allows users to pin something they like directly from your website. There is also a Chrome extension that serves the same purpose, but I wouldn’t count on too many people already having it installed. Why miss a pin opportunity? And, as I’m sure you know, the more pins your website gets from other pinners, the better its quality.

Pinterest SEO, just like “regular” SEO takes time to work. But these quick hacks can help you boost your rankings in minutes.

  1. Improve Your Pin Quality

Here’s why you should care about pin quality: if you compete with another pinner on the same keyword, the higher ranker is determined according to pin quality. In other words, if someone else has a great chocolate cake recipe, the winner of the ranking war will be the one with the top quality pin.

In turn, the quality of a pin is determined by how many people engage with it. So, to get more people to pay attention to your pin, you need to have people paying attention to it. Sounds tricky and a bit convoluted, but it can be done.

How to improve pin quality, you ask?

In a nutshell: abide by Pinterest’s guidelines for every single thing you pin.

The more detailed answer is below:

Step 1: Create great headlines for your articles or product descriptions. The more compelling the headline, the more people will click it and engage with your pin.

Step 2: Pay extra attention to your graphics. As previously stated, Pinterest is a visual content network, so everything that looks bad will fail. To avoid that, use high-quality photos, tall rather than wide images and bright colors when possible. For blog posts, we suggest overlaying the title over the image. Also, note that longer images take up more space in the feed, thus becoming easier to notice. You can learn more about the ideal pin photo size here.

Step 3: Constantly monitor your Pinterest account. If your pins aren’t getting any re-pins, consider a complete change of strategy (see more tips on this below).

  1. Improve Pinner Quality

That’s you!

In a nutshell, pinner quality is what Pinterest thinks about your ability to curate the best content for users. This is quite different from your domain quality, as it doesn’t just refer to your website or blog, but to your entire Pinterest activity.

Here’s what you can do:

Step 1: Be active on Pinterest. Remember that this is a social network – emphasis on the “social” part. So automating your posts should only be a small part of your strategy. Respond to comments and inquiries and constantly engage with other pinners.

Step 2: Ride the wave of the most popular content. If your boards and your own content aren’t getting enough traction (yet!), (re-)pin some of the most popular content on Pinterest. Simply head to the “Popular” category and see what content got users raving. Add it to your own boards as a means to draw more attention to them.

Step 3: Engage with influencers. Much like “traditional” SEO, Pinterest SEO can benefit a lot from the traction of influencers. Contact some of the most popular pinners in your niche and simply ask them to take a look at your boards. Even one re-pin from an influencer could get you quite far.

  1. Don’t Forget to SEO Your Pinterest Profile

This is your ground zero. Use your magic keyword research skills to find out what to include in your Pinterest profile. A mixture of short-tail and long-tail keywords is ideal for your profile description. However, be sure not to overdo it: keywords stuffing doesn’t work in Pinterest SEO just as it no longer works for your blog.

  1. SEO Your Pinterest Boards

Same as above, a lengthy description with both short-tail and long-tail keywords works best. While Pinterest hasn’t announced any penalties for keyword stuffing (like Google has), it’s best to steer clear of those practices.

In Pinterest SEO, just like in blogging SEO, you should also be concerned with the quality of your traffic, not just its volume. If your profile/pin/profile descriptions are keyword-heavy and barely readable by humans, you won’t be attracting the kind of crowd that you can turn into clients.

  1. Make the Most of Seasonal Trends

Halloween, Christmas, Easter, summer holidays, even wedding season are great ways to boost your Pinterest SEO. Creating themed blog posts is just the beginning. You can post them on Pinterest using the right keywords and watch your reach soar.

In fact, it’s the seasonal approach to Pinterest marketing that brought Brian Lang an incredible reach back in 2015.

 

Pinterest SEO and Your Business

You shouldn’t be too quick to dismiss Pinterest as a place for cat photos, recipes and dresses. It can be a gold mine for any business, especially an ecommerce one. In fact, you can say that, if Facebook is the place where people brag about what they already have, Pinterest is the network that shows what people aspire to have. And it’s not uncommon to see literal shopping lists on Pinterest made of rich pins. The question is: how many shopping lists will your pins be on?

 

Need help with Pinterest SEO or social media in general? Check out our social media management and marketing services and get in touch with our experts:

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Adriana Tica is an expert marketer and copywriter, with 10 years in the field, most of which were spent marketing tech companies. She is the Owner and Founder of Idunn. In October 2019, she also launched Copywritech, a digital marketing agency that provides copywriting, SEO content writing, and strategy services to companies in the tech industry.