Pinterest SEO refers to the practice of optimizing your profile and content to improve visibility and discoverability on the platform. Just like traditional search engine optimization (SEO), this involves conducting keyword research, revamping your profile, and elevating your content.
Whether you’re a business using the app for marketing or a creator trying to establish branding and build awareness, this Pinterest SEO guide contains everything you need to successfully utilize this social media site in your content strategy.
Let’s dive right in!
What is Pinterest SEO?
Pinterest SEO is crucial for your social media marketing strategy on the platform, as it can help you reach new audiences, drive traffic to your website, and encourage follower-to-customer conversions.
With over 522 million active users on Pinterest monthly, it will be difficult to get your content noticed on such a large platform by focusing on content alone, which is why it’s vital to understand Pinterest SEO.
The Importance of Doing SEO for Pinterest
Doing Pinterest SEO is important, as it helps improve your content’s ranking in search results. Despite being a mainly visual app, the Pinterest algorithm heavily relies on SEO elements like keyword use, search intent, and user engagement when ranking content, just like the Facebook algorithm.
In fact, as the social media expert Jay Baer said: “Content is fire, and social media is gasoline.” This means that creating quality content is only the first step to success, and businesses can (and should) use social media to see results continuously.
After all, if no one sees your pins, you can’t expect to gain leads and conversions, so it’s crucial to utilize Pinterest SEO to ensure your content reaches your audience.
9 Best SEO Strategies for Pinterest
While traditional SEO and Pinterest SEO share the same goal, their main difference lies in how they can improve reach and discoverability. With that in mind, let’s take a look at the 9 best Pinterest SEO practices designed to help you elevate your content and profile on the platform.
#1. Set Up a Business Account
The most important step for Pinterest SEO is to set up a Pinterest business account to gain access to the Business Hub and create rich pins. These two features are essential for brands and businesses planning to use Pinterest for marketing.
The Pinterest Business Hub comes with a native analytics tool, which provides insights into your content’s performance, and the Ads Manager, which allows you to run ad campaigns to boost reach.
If you already have a personal Pinterest account, you can easily switch to a business one by following these steps:
Log in to your account and go to your profile.
If you’re doing this on a desktop, simply click the arrow on the right side of your profile picture and select Convert to business.
Then, follow the on-screen instructions and provide the necessary details, like your business name, category, and goals.
Lastly, click Done to convert to a business account.
For mobile users, click on the profile icon in the bottom right corner and go to your account.
Under Settings, click Account management.
Then, tap Convert to a business account and follow the on-screen instructions to convert your profile.
#2. Optimize Your Profile
If you already have a business account, the next best thing you can do for Pinterest SEO is to optimize your profile for search results.
To edit your profile, go to Pinterest, click the downward arrow beside your profile icon, and tap Settings.
Here, you’ll see the key parts of your Pinterest profile, such as:
- Name
- Description
- Username
- Website
To start optimizing your profile, choose a name that accurately reflects your business. If possible, this should include a relevant keyword to ensure that your account shows up when a user searches for that phrase.
For instance, Organically Addison’s Pinterest name features her branding and three keywords that show her occupation and the type of content she makes, allowing her to reach audiences interested in these topics.
Next, you’ll have to create a compelling description that tells users more about your profile and/or business. Make sure to add any details you weren’t able to fit in your name, as well as more relevant keywords. In Addison’s description, she specifies that she’s a “Whole30,” “Paleo,” and “Gluten-Free” baker, narrowing her niche and target audience further.
After the description, you need to create a username for your account. Similar to the name, this should represent your business while, ideally, containing a keyword. However, usernames are limited to only 30 characters, which can make this challenging.
You can try using a username generator to help you come up with creative ideas or simply stick to your brand name like Addison does, with her user name “organicallyaddison,” to reinforce your branding and help build awareness.
#3. Verify Your Website
Verifying a website is different from adding it to your Pinterest profile, as the former will directly link the website to your account rather than just being displayed on your page. This Pinterest SEO tip can help increase your online presence, as it will show your profile picture and website link on all the content from your site that’s shared on Pinterest.
To verify your website, go to Settings and click Claimed accounts in the left sidebar.
Under Claimed accounts, click the Claim button beside Websites.
There are three different ways to verify your website on Pinterest:
- Uploading an HTML file
- Adding an HTML tag
- Adding a TXT record
Simply select the one that’s most convenient for you and click Continue. After verifying your website, you’ll be able to see all the sites you claimed in this section.
#4. Conduct Keyword Research
If you want to succeed, the foundation of your Pinterest marketing strategy should lie in one of the most important parts of Pinterest SEO—keywords. According to the platform, 96% of the total searches on Pinterest are unbranded, which means knowing the right keywords to target can help you reach your audience.
When creating pin titles and descriptions, it’s best to be as specific as possible with the keywords you use. More general keywords like “dog” and “art” will likely have millions of pins already, so the chances of ranking for these terms are slim to none. Instead, opt for more specific, long-tail keywords with lower search volumes.
Fortunately, it’s easy to find long-tail keywords for your specific niche. In fact, you can conduct keyword research directly on Pinterest simply by searching for a broad keyword in the search bar.
For instance, a search for “skincare” results in six varied keywords that you can use to create more targeted content.
#5. Set Goals
As with any plan or strategy, the most important thing is to set clearly defined goals to help you stay focused and guide all future actions. With Pinterest SEO, a common goal would be to increase traffic and conversions. This can be done by revamping your content on the platform and using better-quality visuals to get more clicks.
#6. Optimize Pins
Optimizing your pins is one of the best examples of a Pinterest SEO tactic that directly impacts your success. According to Pinterest, 61% of users purchase a product after seeing it on the site, which is why it’s crucial to create high-quality and engaging content.
Your pins are composed of three main parts:
- Pin title. Titles have a 100-character limit, but only the first 30–40 characters are actually seen by the viewer. To ensure that your pin titles are effective, don’t use a generic title like “banana bread recipe.” Instead, make it interesting, like “the best banana bread recipe with only four ingredients!”
- Pin description. Unlike titles, the pin description can have up to 500 characters, but most social media users will only see the first 50, so it’s still vital to utilize this section strategically. Don’t waste this space by simply repeating your pin title; instead, hook your audience from the beginning, then continue with captivating and informative text that ends with a call to action.
- Pin format. To make your pins more appealing to the viewer, it’s important to follow the recommended Pinterest post sizes when creating content. While there are several supported media sizes on the app, the ideal pin size is 1,000 px by 1,500 px or an aspect ratio of 2:3. This displays the optimal quality on both mobile and desktop.
#7. Create Rich Pins
An effective way to use Pinterest for SEO is to create rich pins that provide the viewer with up-to-date information about the products featured in your pins. These automatically extract the data from your website and sync it with the information on the platform, ensuring that your audience has all the details they need when making a purchase.
The three types of rich pins that you can make are:
- Recipe rich pin. As the name suggests, this type of rich pin is used to share recipes and cooking blogs. Aside from the title, a recipe rich pin will also include serving size, diet preference, ratings, and a list of ingredients.
- Article rich pin. An article rich pin is best for sharing published articles on an external website and comes with a headline, author, and description.
- Product rich pin. Product rich pins are ideal for boosting sales, as they display the product’s important details, such as its price, availability, and description.
Example of a recipe rich pin
Example of an article rich pin
#8. Optimize Pinterest Boards
One of the best SEO tips for Pinterest is to optimize your boards to enhance their discoverability. While most users tend to focus on pins alone, Pinterest boards can actually help you reach more audiences and improve your pin views.
Boards allow users to organize their saved pins in different categories. But, for creators, these provide a way to curate their content and highlight their business. For instance, if your business sells paint, you can create Pinterest boards on interior design, trends in living spaces, or painting tips using your products.
To optimize your boards, use relevant keywords and phrases in their titles to make them easier for users to find. This not only improves its visibility but also helps you create a better user experience, which can encourage more likes and engagement from users who are genuinely interested in that content.
#9. Schedule Pinterest Pins
Consistency is key on social media, especially on a large platform like Pinterest, but it can be difficult to stay on top of content creation while running a business. By scheduling your Pinterest pins, you can build a regular posting schedule of quality content and get more views and followers.
Moreover, scheduling means that you can publish content during the best times to post on Pinterest, improving the chances of your audience seeing your content. While there is a native Pinterest scheduler you can use for this purpose, we recommend using a dedicated social media management tool like Publer to handle your posting schedule.
Aside from post-scheduling, Publer has a variety of features, like:
- In-depth analytics tool
- AI Assist feature
- VistaCreate and Canva integration
These can help streamline content workflows and help you manage your presence on Pinterest more effectively.
4 More Expert Tips for Pinterest SEO
Now that you have an understanding of the basics of Pinterest SEO, here are four more extra tips to help you achieve maximum visibility:
- Cross-post on other social media sites. Cross-posting content on other social media platforms will boost your Pinterest SEO efforts, as it will drive traffic from these sites to your profile. Just be sure to resize your image for Pinterest if the photo is coming from a different app, as it may not be optimized for the platform.
- Try Pinterest ads. If you feel that your organic reach isn’t enough, consider running Pinterest ads to promote your content. While this tip for Pinterest SEO isn’t free, unlike the majority of the practices we discussed, it’s sure to deliver results. In fact, according to our latest Pinterest statistics, ads on the app perform 2.3 times better than those on other sites.
- Leverage Pinterest analytics. The platform’s analytics feature is one of the most powerful Pinterest SEO tools you can use in your strategy, as it can give you a comprehensive overview of your content’s performance. Access to Pinterest analytics can help you pinpoint weak areas in your strategy and make the necessary changes to ensure success.
- Monitor Pinterest trends. The current Pinterest trends represent the popular topics and content that users are searching for. By aligning your pins with these trends, you can create relevant content that resonates with your target audience.
Key Takeaways
- Pinterest SEO is the process of optimizing content on the platform to increase discoverability.
- Some of the best strategies for Pinterest SEO include conducting keyword research, creating rich pins, and optimizing pins and boards for search results.
- Other expert Pinterest SEO tips to consider for better visibility are cross-posting content, running Pinterest ads, leveraging analytics, and monitoring trends on the app.