Pinterest marketing can be very intimidating but this strategy will help. In fact, only are a few things you need to be successful on Pinterest.
In case you don’t know, Pinterst is a search engine like Youtube and not a social media. The idea behind Pinterest is that it is a visual search engine and allows you to have boards to pin whatever you want to.
It is often used to build dreams or save ideas. However, you can get lots of clicks back to your site.
Pinterest Account
You can create a new account if you don’t already have a personal Pinterest account. If you do however, ideal to turn your personal account into your business account.
This is because you’ve already earned some credibility with Pinterest and you already have some followers.
You don’t need to delete all your personal boards. Just hide them from being seen from the public.
If you don’t have an account, don’t fret. I honestly don’t believe it makes that much of a difference. Also, you have the added benefit of starting out fresh instead of having a bunch of boards you need to hide.
Pictures
The First thing you need is a photo. Photos that do best on Pinterest are bright and have come color to attract your eye. Dark and moody usually gets ignored by users.
Pinterest likes photos that are long and portrait style. They also prefer that they have a 2:3 ratio. Usually 600px by 900px is recommended by this can really be any 2:3 ratio including 800px by 1200px for instance.
Pinnable Image
A pinnable image is an image that is made with Pinterest in mind. They follow the 2:3 ratio for image sizing and ideally has text overly.
Image with text overlay are much more likely to get engagement. You want to keep your text clear and easy to read so fonts like Helvetica are ideal.
You can throw in a little scrip to be playful but make sure it is only used on text that is either an easily recognizable name or less important information.
For example, “Everything You Need for Your Trip to Italy” you can put Italy in a big easy to read script.
Another example is “extra most chocolate cake,” depending on where you want your focus you can put either extra most or chocolate cake in script.
Description
Pinterest descriptions are essential. They are how Pinterest knows to place your images.
Your be one to three sentences describing your post. They should also include keywords.
You can find keywords by doing a search in the search bar. For instance, put in the word “pancakes.”
You’ll see at the top of the results are a bunch of suggestions to refine your search. The closer to the beginning they are, the more popular they are. You’re going to want to use the first relevant option you see.
The first suggestion for pancakes is “recipe” and if you click on that, you get more options. The next first option is “easy” and if you click on that our first option is “basic.”
You should keep clicking until you run out of suggestions. So, once you click on “basic” the first option is is “no baking powder.” This likely doesn’t apply to your recipe and the next suggestion is “no milk,” then “no eggs.”
If none of these suggestions apply your done. If one of them do, you’d click on it and see that no more suggestions are offered.
Now you’d take your keywords and make 1 to 3 natural sounding sentences using them.
“These pancakes have an easy and basic recipe which uses no baking powder at all.”
Granted, that does sound a little funny since it says “no baking powder” but it can work since even if it is not a correct way of speaking, there are people who speak that way. Or you can try a variation like “without baking powder.”
I will also say, some of my early posts from when I first started blogging and writing Pinterest descriptions do not include keywords. Still, they are some of my most popular posts, so don’t feel like you have to get every single word in if you can’t manage it.
Hashtags
Hashtags used to be penalized when used on Pinterest. However, now they are used to help Pinterest place your content.
While keywords in essence do the same thing, hashtags work differently, so you need both.
You want to use terms that are relevant and you don’t have to have many hashtags.
On a Pinnable image of Rome you may want to have #rome #italy #europe or on chocolate cake you may use #chocolatecake #dessert
Pintrest Boards
Boards are where you pin your content. Ideally you should have at least 10 boards you can pin to.
Whenever you create a new board, make sure to assign a content category and to add a description.
The first boards should showcase all your own pins and have your brand name as it’s title.
For the rest of your boards, just like with keyword research for pins, you’ll want to have keywords in your boards. However, you don’t need to do as much research.
Naming Boards
You want to keep your board titles as broad as possible focusing on the most searched terms.
Just type in the word “dessert” in the search bar. Right away a drop down with the most popular searches will generate.
“Dessert recipes” is the first thing that comes up so that is what you should name your dessert board. Now, say your site is vegan, so you’d type in vegan dessert and see that the recommendation is “vegan dessert recipes.”
More specific niche titles come to place when you get popular pins.
I have one banana muffin recipe that Pinterest started to love. So I created two new boards for it: “best muffin recipes” and “banana recipes.”
Note how I still kept them as broad as possible looking for the most searched variation. I didn’t pick “best banana muffin recipes.”
Now, if I didn’t have a a good amount of muffin recipes and banana recipes I may have tried to think of something else that would suit.
How Often Should I Pin?
Pinterest loves people who use their platform consistently. This means you should be pinning every day.
However, Pinterest come out and said that they don’t want people pinning more than 25 times a day.
Where should I pin from?
While you can pin from your boards to other boards, it is preferable you pin from your site to relevant boards.
Where should I pin to?
You should pin new and old content to their most relevant boards.
For example, chocolate chip cookies would go in your brand board, cookie board, and dessert dessert board.
Likewise, Rome could go in your brand board, and Europe Board or if you have enough content on Italy and Rome you can also pin it to an Italy board and a Rome board.
Depending on your niche you can get creative. So Italy can also go in a Solo Female Traveler Board since it is generally a safe place for women to travel and a Romantic Destinations and/or Couples Travel board.
Depending on your content and the topic of your pin, you can find many boards to pin your content to.
When Should I pin?
Aside from daily there is no specific time. However, for seasonal content, Pinterest recommends that you start saving about 30-45 days in advance.
So, 4th of July content should be pinned at the middle to end of May. Thanksgiving should technically begin in October but since October is all about autumn you can technically start in mid-august to early September.
New Content
Pinterest likes new fresh content and recommends you pin new content at least once a week.
Really, for any successful site you should be publishing new content regularly anyway.
Do not only pin new content though. Pinterest specifically states to spread new content out and not to neglect your old content.
How to take advantage of popular posts
I generally don’t make lots of pinnable images to begin with – however many do and you can if you want to. However, if you see one of your posts are taking off, this is for sure the time to do it.
If a post does very well on Pinterest try making 5 to 10 different pinnable images to go with it. This can include different photos or different text overlays.
To be clear, 5 isn’t a minimum. It’s just a suggestion. If you can only think of 2 or 3 relevant pinnable images that will be fine too.
Scheduling Pins
There are those that believe you cannot schedule your pins or Pinterest won’t like you. This isn’t true. Just make sure it’s a Pinterest approved scheduler.
Pinterest also has a way for you to schedule out your pins up to two weeks in advance. This is great because it is free. However, it can be time consuming.
Tailwind
Tailwind is a scheduler that is Pinterest approved and can save you lots of time.
I usually take a couple of hours and schedule out enough pins for a month. Then I don’t have to think about it again for a while.
Promoted Pins
Promoted pins can be very helpful if you are trying to sell a product. However, if you are just trying to get traffic back to your site, it is a complete waste of money.
I once experimented with promoting my most popular pin. I got a lot more impressions and traffic from my not promoted version than the promoted version.
If you are selling a product Pinterest has a recommended minimum you invest for the best results.