Pinterest is a fast growing social network that is a particularly good social network to choose if: 1. Women are a primary customer avatar for your business or 2. If the products and services you sell or the content you create is particularly visual. For example:
- Food
- Fashion
- Travel
- Beauty
- Design
Understand How Pinterest Works
Pinterest is a visual search engine.
For example, if a Pinterest user types a query like ‘survival skills’ into the Pinterest search box, they find hundreds of image results returned from Pinterest.
- If the user clicks on that pin, they will see an enlarged version of the pin in Pinterest.
- If they click on the pin again, they will be taken to the website where this content resides (e.g. the Survival Life blog).
Can you see how Pinterest — with millions of users — can send you some serious traffic? Here are the steps to get viral traffic from Pinterest:
Use the Pinterest Plug-in
It might sound obvious, but if you want people to pin images to Pinterest from your content, you need to make it as easy as possible to do so.
Fortunately, if you’re using Word Press, there are a number of plug-ins that will add the ability to pin your images to Pinterest.
Create Perfect Pinterest Images
The quality of your images is critical to your success in Pinterest. Start with a fantastic, well-lit image that stands out.
Then, add a text overlay that communicates to the Pinterest user what the content is about if they click. Change the color of the image and re-pin it to Pinterest until you find a winner.
Optimize Your Board Covers
The “Board Cover” is an image that is selected to be the “cover” for a board on your main Pinterest page and in the Pinterest board search results. To clarify, a Pinterest user can choose to search Pinterest by individual pins or boards. Make sure your board cover image is named according to what people will be searching for.
Use Exact Match Keywords
Pinterest tells you exactly what keywords to put in the individual pins and boards. Start typing a keyword into Pinterest search and you’ll see the auto-suggested keywords from Pinterest. These are the keywords you want to target on your pins and boards.
A lot of Pinterest users will name their boards things like “Things I Love” or other cutesy names, which is fine for a casual user. But if you want your boards to rank in Pinterest search, you’ll use the EXACT MATCH keyword. So if you want to rank for survival skills, you need to name your board Survival Skills.
You’ll also want to use EXACT MATCH keywords from your Pinterest auto-suggest in your pins. You can also reuse the same popular images and change the text surrounding it to rank for new keywords.
Join and Create Group Boards
This is an easy way to get traffic from Pinterest. Find the largest boards in your space and ask to become a contributing pinner. These big group boards get a lot of traffic and can send traffic to your site. Be sure to read and follow the rules of the group board.
Joining other people’s big group boards is a great way to get traffic. Creating your own group boards is a great way to get Pinterest followers. Create your group board and invite good pinners to join your board.
One thing to remember is that Pinterest works best for visual content. If you are in the food, fashion, travel, beauty, or design industries, Pinterest is a must for your organization.
