Pinterest has become the social media platform of choice for a variety of businesses, and especially in the ecommerce industry. With over 100 million active users – over 90% of whom use the site to plan out their purchases – Pinterest is an excellent channel through which to funnel traffic directly to your online store.

Your success on Pinterest will be a result of your visibility on the site, meaning you’ll need to put effort into optimizing your content for search. But, since Pinterest is a visual platform, you won’t get away with keyword-stuffed titles and descriptions, and users will be turned away by anything that seems spammy. Below, we share top SEO-related Pinterest marketing tips that will help you boost your visibility, reach, and website traffic.

Pinterest Marketing Tips for Boosting SEO

Craft a Great Profile Description

Your profile description is a great place to include targeted keywords. But an optimized Pinterest profile requires that you get creative describing what your business sells, insert relevant keywords, and capture your audience’s attention, all in a 200-character limit. We recommend that you focus on keeping your profile description light-hearted, and remember that humor is always an effective technique.

...And Equally Great Product Descriptions

Your post descriptions are the ideal place to insert product and service-specific keywords, and of course, will help potential customers understand more about what you have to offer. Keep in mind that in Pinterest’s layout these descriptions show up as captions, so while they should contain keywords, they should also be readable enough that users don’t delete them when repinning content. Don't sully an attractive product with a spammy description!

Create Custom Board Names

Try and craft compelling names for your Pinterest boards to aid in search visibility. Again, get creative with balancing keywords and grabbing attention by narrowing down your boards by theme. For example, an online store selling fitness equipment should avoid a "Fitness” board in favor of one more descriptive and specific, such as "Top Weight Lifting Workouts”.

Link your Account and Website

Not all Pinterest marketing tips related to SEO are about keyword usage. You'll also want to make sure there are plenty of links between your Pinterest account and your website so that customers can quickly convert their interest into a purchase. Make sure you get your website verified by Pinterest so readers know your account is official. At the same time, you'll also want to ensure your website (and marketing content) promotes your Pinterest account equally as much; growing your follower count will help your profile and pins show up more often in searches. Plus, you'll encourage customers to share your products with others.

A word of advice for online retailers with a large selection of products: commit to consistently assessing the status of your links. Dead links can work against you in search rankings and won't direct a click to a point of purchase, botching a potential sale.