Using Optimization to Get Your Content Seen

18.07.2017 |

Episode #3 of the course How to grow your business with Pinterest by Sydney Wyatt

 

Pinterest is a search engine.

If you want to get your content seen, you have to optimize it—just like Google.

So, in today’s lesson, we’re going to cover two things: how to optimize a pin and how to optimize your boards.

There are two parts to getting your pin seen and repinned:

1. The actual image: visual attraction, a catchy photo, bright fonts

2. The image data: search-friendly keywords

In a perfect world, someone would search for a keyword, find your content in the Smart Feed based on the way you’ve optimized your pin data, and click through to your website because of how attracted they are to the visual component of the pin.

Today, we’re gonna make that real easy for them.

 

Pin Optimization

First, you have to make it pretty:

• Your pin should be taller than it is wide.

• You should use a high-quality, brightly colored stock photo.

• Make sure the stock photo you use fits your branding.

• Your logo should NOT be the first thing people see.

• Infographics and XL-long pins yield high repin rates.

• Don’t overstuff your pin image with too many words.

• Make sure it’s readable on mobile screens.

As you create more Pinterest-only content, you’ll begin to see the trends in what works and, more importantly, what doesn’t. I use A/B testing on Pinterest often: I pin the same piece of content with two different images and see if one results in more repins and click-throughs.

When you pin a piece of content, the Rich Pins feature will automatically pull a description over from your website’s meta data and display it below the pin image.

If Rich Pins is pulling blanks from your site, fear not! We’re covering all that tomorrow.

For now, you can manually enter a description for any new pin. Just remember: don’t go crazy with keyword stuffing, and please, please, please don’t use #hashtags.

 

Board Optimization

Yes, keyword optimization takes forever and can be tedious at best.

I hear you, I see you, and I agree with you. But it’s necessary—and pays off.

Back when the internet was in black and white, and Pinterest was just a little blip on our world map of social networks, people still wrote descriptions for their boards. Sometimes they were cute, and sometimes they were a personal explanation of the board’s content.

It turns out that description field is a great place to put search-optimized keywords!

There’s a 500-character limit on each board description, so make sure you use keywords that are very narrowed down and related to your niche.

I find my keywords by searching for related terms through the Pinterest search. As you search for broad terms like “blogging,” “travel,” and “finance,” Pinterest will recommend other variations of the same keyword. For example, “blogging” can provide keywords like “blogging tips,” “blogging for beginners,” and “blogging resources.”

To see an example of me running through my method above, watch this walkthrough video.

With every board you add a keyword-rich description to, your chances of being found in a broad search go up. Now other Pinterest users will be able to find you based on your general account information and individual pins, as well as your board keywords.

In the next lesson, we’ll get into site optimization!

Get your website logins ready,

Sydney

 

Recommended book

Contagious: Why Things Catch On by Jonah Berger

 

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