In our final post for the Pinterest series, we’re discussing how to make the most of Pinterest for SEO and Social Media Marketing. If you need to catch up, you can check out the first two posts: What is Pinterest? And the Beginner’s Guide to Pinterest. The following tips will make you a Pinterest pro – and you’ll start to see a shift in your SEO if you implement this advice in your strategy.

Do a Bit of Keyword Research

Use Pinterest to search for things on your own. This is the number one way you should be looking for keywords to use on your pins. Pay attention to the keywords the automatic suggestion tool brings together. Focus on the keywords that are relevant to your pins. While you can and should use the desktop version to learn how the platform works on a deep level, it’s worth using the Pinterest on a mobile device to see what the search looks like and how it performs there, too.

If you want to see how certain keywords are performing on Pinterest, you can use Google, along with this formula:

Site: www.pinterest.com “keyword”

This way, you can see the most popular pins according to their ranking in the search engine, and then use the results to improve your own optimization efforts.

Check Your Search Visibility

Go into your account settings and make sure your profile is indexable by Google. If it’s not, then all your efforts won’t help you in the search engines. Google will index your Pinterest profile and Pins, so you want it to be visible. If it’s not – change it right now.

Create Quality Images for Pinning

Make sure you’re using clear, quality images, that are optimized for the mobile viewing experience. We discussed this a bit in the second article in our series, so there’s no need to repeat it in detail here. But, it matters because if your images aren’t visually appealing, people won’t click them or Repin them.

Start with Optimizing Your Profile

Pick the right username. You can change it through your account settings. Use your business name or memorable keywords. Also make sure to optimize the name on your profile, and not just the username. You can see our username and profile name are the same – SEO Inc., since that’s our company.

Optimize Your Boards

Each one of your boards should be organized, and feature appealing images. Focus on creating board tiles that reflect keywords people are using to search. While it’s tempting and fun to create clever board names, that’s best saved for your personal accounts. Optimize your board titles in a way that makes it easier for people to discover them. You can be creative while still focusing on using keywords.

Keep Your Popular Boards “Above the Fold”

Place your most popular boards at the top of the screen, so that people do not have to scroll to find them. If you want to drive traffic to certain posts from Pinterest, don’t make people have to dig for them. You can rearrange boards by clicking and dragging on them, so you can change them out as necessary.

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Optimize Pins

Each pin is a representation of your profile, so you need to optimize it as much as you possibly can. Be descriptive, since this helps the search engines discover your pins. Use high-quality images that are well composed and in focus. Use pins that are taller than they are wide, as these will look better on mobile screens – where the majority of Pinterest traffic comes from. You can also create a photo collage, comprised of one to four photos to keep the main image from looking too crowded. While text on the image is okay, you’ll want to limit it as much as you can, so it remains easy to read on mobile screens.

Pay Attention to Your Pin Descriptions

Not all users will spend a decent amount of time on your Pin descriptions, and this can affect the chance of it being repinned. Pinterest likes Pins that give a thoughtful, yet specific description of the content. It should be written to help users find the image they are looking for when they are searching. Add as many details as you can to describe your image, using natural language, fitting in keywords where they logically go.

Use Rich Pins

Rich Pins are enhanced versions of Pins, much like rich snippets offer Include pricing information in your rich pins. There are four kinds of rich Pins: app, recipe, article, and product. Using them will help your Pins perform better than standard pins. It will take some effort to implement rich pins for your account, but it is well worth it.

Product Pins make it easier for people to decide if they want to buy because they provide real-time pricing, availability, and show where to buy the product.

Make Sure Your Website is Verified

If your website is verified, it seems it will appear higher in the search results. Why? Your authority as a Pinner is increased, so this will eventually improve your rankings in the searches. Once you’ve verified your website, Pinterest will give you access to more details on your account in Pinterest Analytics. This helps you understand more about how your Pins are performing and gives you an analysis of your audience. We talk about how to verify your Pinterest account in the second article in our series.

Pin on a Regular Basis

If you want to be successful on Pinterest, you must be consistent with your Pinning efforts. Does this mean you have to spend hours a day pinning content? No, but pinning a few Pins here and there throughout the day several times a week isn’t a bad idea. And just like with other social media platforms, content curation matters. If you’re only pinning content that originates with you, you won’t have a lot of variety, and users will likely stop paying attention to what you’re sharing.

If you don’t like the idea of blocking out time every day to add Pins to your account, there are tools you can use to schedule Pins based on when you know your audience to be the most active.

Check Your Links

Make sure Pinterest isn’t sending traffic to expired or deleted pages. 404 errors will hurt your ranking and upset your users. If you have out of stock products, make sure you add related items to the page so users have something to explore.

Attract More Followers

Beyond adding a follow button to your site, on as many pages as possible, promote your Pinterest account on other social accounts. The more followers you have, the higher your Pinner authority becomes – on both your profile and your boards. The more authority you have, the more likely our Pins will rank higher in the Pinterest search results.

Avoid the Hashtags

Pinterest’s guide on how to use the platform for business specifically says not to drop in keywords and hashtags in the description. Instead, they want you to craft a description that captivates users, and sets a scene using the right search words. While hashtags aren’t completely useless on Pinterest, you do not have to use them to help extend the reach of your pins.

How Does Using Pinterest Improve My SEO?

Pinterest itself is a search engine, which can help drive traffic to your site. Each one of your Pins gives you a chance to not only show up in that search engine, but in Google, too. You’ll get more links to your site – even though they are nofollow. Though you won’t get link juice, there are more chances people will click those links. Social signals and fresh content will also help you look good to Google and other search engines, helping to increase your crawl frequency.

And when you consider the life of a Pin is one week compared to just 24 minutes for Twitter and 90 minutes for Facebook, it’s definitely worth including in your strategy.