Why bother with Pinterest? To put it simply, it’s a dynamite driver of traffic. It has the potential to bring hundreds (or even thousands!) of new visitors to your website every single day.
Let’s dive into my top 20 tips for packing a Pinterest punch.
With Pinterest, it’s really easy to get excited by content that inspires you personally, but your Business Account should have a business focus.
And make yourself look like the pro you are by verifying your website – it will give followers more confidence in your knowledge and experience.
Your Pinterest profile should contain your business name, your website URL and a brief description of how your business solves a specific problem for clients.
And don’t forget to add a category to each board – this will help you appear in more search results.
Keep your boards on brand by only pinning content that will interest that dream client of yours.
Your first eight boards are the most visible – make sure they focus on your business’s areas of expertise. You could take it a step further and create branded board covers too.
If you’re tempted to pin things you enjoy personally, create a secret board for it. This stops your messaging from getting confused, whilst still letting you engage with the things that inspire you.
Secret boards are also a fantastic place to collate research that you don’t want to publicise. This is really handy for collating resources for an article, or looking for behind-the-scenes business advice.
You can also add contributors to your secret boards, making it much easier to share content with your team.
Writing a relevant and well thought out description every time you pin a post can be extremely time-consuming – but there’s a super simple hack that can help you out with this.
Just highlight a fragment of text from the post before hitting the Pin button, and that text will be automatically transferred to the description.
When writing descriptions for your own posts, you want to make sure you’re using those keywords in a natural-sounding way.
There are five types of rich pin:
To start using, you’ll need to validate your site. To do this, click “edit profile”, and then “confirm website”. Copy the meta tag provided.
Now install the Yoast SEO plugin on your WordPress site, then click on the SEO tab in your sidebar. Click “social”, and then select the Pinterest tab. Paste in the meta tag and hit “save”.
To apply for rich pins, enter your URL into the Pinterest Validator, and follow the steps provided.
Pinterest contests can be a fantastic way to engage with current followers AND attract new ones. However, there are very specific rules that have to be followed.
Do:
Don’t:
Contributing to group boards can be an effective way to connect with a wider audience, particularly if you’re sharing top quality content. Use PinGroupie to identify popular group boards by niche.
Just remember, if you pick a board that has thousands and thousands of contributors, you’ll have to be consistently active to stand out from the masses.
Type the following into your internet browser:
http://www.pinterest.com/source/[yourURL]
You’ll see a screen filled with the latest content pinned from your site. This is a great way to see which pieces of content are really hitting the spot with your audience. That knowledge will help you refine your approach going forward.
Pinterest’s trending content may not always be relevant for your audience – but it’s a good idea to review the “Popular” page every now and then. It gives you a better idea of what appeals to users.
Think about how these trends and themes can be incorporated into your strategy.
I would advise having a board exclusively for all of YOUR content. This is where you will pin every blog post, every video, every podcast, every freebie. I’d also recommend having a board just for freebies, and keeping both of these boards at the top of your profile.
I would advise periodically re-pinning every piece of your content to all your relevant boards (including any collaborative ones).
One great thing about Pinterest descriptions is that they allow you to share links – just don’t be tempted to use a link shortener.
If a Pinterest user clicks on a shortened link, they receive an automatic spam alert (even if your pin isn’t spammy at all). This will instantly discourage followers from continuing on to your site.
Promoted pins look pretty much the same as normal pins, but they function as ads, allowing brands to show off content for a price. There’s also such a thing as “promoted app pins” which enable users to directly through the pin, without leaving the platform.
Currently targeting options include:
Just bear in mind that you can only use these functions once you’ve confirmed your domain.
Add Pinterest follow and share buttons to your website.
To tweet your pins, click on the image you would like to share, click “send”, then hit the Twitter icon.
Show your Pinterest feed on your Facebook page with Woobox.
Make it easy for your readers to pin your content by creating a “pin for later” link.
After you hit “publish”, pin an image from the blog post. Open up Pinterest, and copy the URL of that pin. Go back to your blog post and add the words “pin this post for later”, hyperlinking with the pin’s URL. Don’t forget to hit save!
Use free web service If This Then That (IFTTT) to create Pinterest workflows and streamline your approach. Here are a few ideas to get you going:
If you’re looking for a specific piece of content you pinned some time ago, you might be scrolling for a while. Especially if you have contributors adding things to your boards too.
To view the content that only YOU have pinned, go to your profile, and type whatever you’re looking for in the search bar, then hit “your pins”.
Think of Pinterest as your opportunity to give your followers a tasting tray of helpful things – some will be created by you, some by other experts.
Pinning other people’s infographics is particularly effective, as they act as a kind of follower magnet, bring people back to your profile for more.
Finding success on Pinterest is all about showing up consistently… but that’s pretty time consuming. Luckily, I have the perfect tool to help you out.
Tailwind allows you to bulk schedule Pinterest content across your different boards so that you’re making an appearance regularly, in a non-spammy way. You’re welcome.
Copyright © 2018 Gemma Went – This article was originally published at Marketingdonut.com, by author Gemma Went.
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