When I first started my embroidery blog, I started researching all about how to get traffic to it. I didn’t know much about SEO and I had a personal Pinterest page that I had been pinning embroidery related content to. After learning about how much traffic you can get from utilizing Pinterest, I decided to change my personal Pinterest to a business account and apply some of the strategies I had learned about. Today I wanted to share with you a thorough (but not overwhelming!) run down of how to use Pinterest for your business.
Why Use Pinterest?
A lot of people consider Pinterest to be like a lot of other social media. It’s actually quite a bit different than Instagram, Facebook, Snapchat, etc. Pinterest is unique because it also has it’s own search engine. Unlike most social media where your post is only seen for a day or two, whatever you pin on Pinterest can be found by Pinterest users for years to come. This makes it a valuable tool to use for getting traffic to your website if you optimize your pins to be found!
My Pinterest for my embroidery blog helps me to around 15,000 unique visitors every month to my blog. It is only one portion of the traffic I get, but it’s a significant one!
Another bonus: the amount of time it takes to start getting traffic from Pinterest is far quicker than Google. Google can take 6-12 months to rank your website, especially if it’s a brand new one.
Pinterest pins can start gaining traction within about 30-90 days.
The other cool thing about this platform is that people are inclined to shop on Pinterest, and the company has even implemented an entire shopping tab. According to the Pinterest, “85% of weekly US pinners have bought something based on pins from brands”.
How To Set Up A Pinterest Business Account
If you already have a Pinterest account that you want to turn into your business account, you can go into the settings of your account and change it to a business profile.
You can also sign up for Pinterest and create a brand new business account, which is the best thing to do if your personal account has nothing to do with the business you want to promote.
You can read about creating a business account here.
Advantages of Having A Pinterest Business Acount
Rich Pins
Rich pins are a type of pin that will show meta data from your website on the pin. Whenever someone pins an image from your website, the important information and the link to your website will be included in it. This increases engagement and allows important information to stay in the pin as it is pinned and re-pinned by users. Rich pins can be articles, recipes, products, or apps.
Analytics
You’ll be able to see detailed analytics of how your boards and pins are doing so you can see what types of content and pins you should make more of.
Early Access to New Features
A lot of business accounts get access to new features before they are released to everyone else. Using these new features may help to grow your account more quickly.
Pinterest Ads
I haven’t personally paid for Pinterest ads, but this is an option when you have a a business account.
Even if you don’t end up paying for ads, you can do keyword research with a lot of the data you’ll have access to.
Optimizing Your Pinterest Profile
Once you’ve activated your business account, there are a few things that will help your profile get found. You’ll want to edit your account in the settings and add pertinent information about your business.
There are a few important sections to your profile you should optimize.
Your display name– this should be your business name, but also add in some keywords as to what your business is about.
About your profile – this section should also be rich with keywords but you want to make sure you aren’t just keyword stuffing. Write a sentence or two telling everyone what your business is about and make sure to include any important related keywords people would search for to find your business.
Website URL – make sure this is your website that you want everyone to go to!
Making Pinterest Boards
The next thing on the agenda is to make some Pinterest boards. Many people do this wrong and try to make the board names sound cute or vague. You want the board names to be related to your business and the keywords your ideal audience would search with.
Think of the boards as buckets that you will put related content in. For instance, this blog is about selling online, Etsy tips, and blogging for artists. Some boards I would make could be “Blogging Tips For Beginners”, “Starting An Etsy Business”, “Pinterest Marketing For Artists”, and “Passive Income For Artists”. You want these boards to be categories that are broad enough that you can pin lots of pins to them, but specific enough that people will know exactly what each board is about.
I would also try to make the title of boards more than one word. If you name your board “Blog” there will be a million other Pinterest boards with that name. I could narrow it down a bit more to “Blogging Tips For Beginners”.
Next, you will go into each board and add a board description. This will give you a chance to write more about what each board will include and this section is another opportunity to add keywords that are related to that particular board’s topic.
If you are also using your Pinterest account for personal use, you’ll want to make any boards that aren’t related to your business are private. You can do this by clicking the pencil icon on the board and selecting “Keep this board secret.”.
Pinning Pins On Pinterest
If you’re just getting started on your business or blog, you probably don’t have a ton of products or content. But that’s totally fine! I would first add some pins that aren’t yours to your boards. Just make sure that relate to the board you’re pinning them to.
The reason you’ll want to pin other people’s pins to your board is to show relevance. Pinterest will have a stronger understanding of the particular topic your board and pins are about the more you pin.
To get started, I would aim to try to pin 20-30 pins to each board.
Designing Pins
If you’re not into design, that’s totally okay! I like to use Canva to create all of my pins. Canva is a free design tool that even comes with premade designs and photos you can use.
A few design tips
- Pinterest is partly a visual search engine so you’ll want to make sure any pictures you use in your pin are related to the topic the pin is about. That will increase your chances of your pins showing up when a user searches in Pinterest.
- Stick with large, bold fonts that are easy to read. You want your pin to stand out among all the other pins that will show up in search. If your pin is hard to read, chances are no one is going to click on it. Try to keep cursive fonts to a minimum or avoid them altogether.
- Pinterest pins do best if they are a 2 x 3 or (i.e. 1000 x 1500) ratio. This is because they take up more room in the feed so it will be more likely to catch someone’s eye.
Not all of your pins have to have text on them! If you have photos on your website, definitely pin them to your Pinterest boards. Try both to see what format works best for your audience.
Pinterest Marketing Tools
This is by no means required, but it can help you hit the ground running. There is a scheduling tool called Tailwind that you can use to grow your Pinterest. This tool will pin your pins at the optimum time, giving you a better chance for more Pinterest users to see your pin. It also makes it possible to re-pin old pins.
Another feature I like about Tailwind are the groups. You can join groups related to particular topics, and in these groups you and other Pinterest users can save and share each other’s pins. This can help your pin get seen by more people.
Tips For Pinterest Success
- Upload video pins – I’ve personally noticed a lot more impressions and engagement on video pins. These don’t alway convert to outbound clicks to your website, though. Try to create video pins that add value but leave the user curious enough that they will click through to your website.
- Publish fresh content. Try to make 8-10 pins for each product or blog post that you have on your website. Did you know you pin the same link over and over? As long as the pin design is different, Pinterest considers the pin “fresh”.
- Post consistently – the Pinterest algorithm really seems to love accounts that post consistently. If you can post 1-5 pins per day, I would suggest starting there. (Don’t post too many pins though, Pinterest may think you’re spamming. According to Tailwind, 15-25 pins per day is a good goal to shoot for.)
- Play around with different pin titles and descriptions even if you have multiple pins for the same blog post. This will give you an idea of what keywords and phrases are working well.
- Every month, take a look at your analytics to see what types of pins are doing well. See what is working and make more that are similar to your most successful pins!
- Be patient and give it some time – your pins may not go viral right away, and that’s completely normal. It takes time for the algorithm to understand your pin and for users to find it and engage with it.
It is my hope that this article helped you get a clearer understanding of how to use Pinterest for a business. Definitely give these tips a try and hopefully you’ll start to see traffic from Pinterest to your website!