How to use the Pinterest Trends tool to get more website traffic!

How to use the Pinterest Trends tool to get more website traffic!

How to use the Pinterest Trends tool to get more website traffic!

If you are looking to get more FREE traffic to your website, Pinterest is the place to do it. With over 445 MILLION monthly active users, it’s a great place to reach your ideal reader or customer. 

But I know firsthand how overwhelming this platform can be. 

If you’re new here, I’m Megan! I have been working in marketing for over 14 years and have worked in Pinterest marketing for the last eight years. So, as I said, I know firsthand how overwhelming this platform can be, mainly due to the vast amount of mixed information you have probably read. 

I am here today to tell you it’s really not that complicated. Sure, you need to learn a few things to see steady and consistent growth, but today I will teach you one of those things! 

Today, we are going to talk about how to use the Pinterest Trends Tool, which is basically a cheat sheet that can help your pins go viral if used properly. 

What’s popular on Pinterest is generally ahead of the curve when it comes to trends, which is why the Pinterest Trends Tool is one of my all-time favorite things! I use the trends tool every single time I go to optimize a pin for myself or a client. 

What is the Pinterest Trends Tool? 

The Pinterest Trends Tool is a free tool that provides insights into the most popular search terms on Pinterest. You can use this tool to discover what topics are trending on the platform and see how search terms have performed over time.

It can show you current, growing, seasonal, and top monthly and yearly trends. 

How Trends Work on Pinterest

Content trends on Pinterest anywhere from 6-8 weeks before the actual season or holiday. So, right now, we are in the last few days of August. I started pinning fall content for clients about two weeks ago. 

Right now, the trends tool is showing me all things fall, and Halloween are on the upswing, which tells me that my pins that are optimized for fall-specific keywords will take off faster and continue to grow if pinned in advance. 

 

How To Use The Trends Tool To Your Advantage

Here is an excellent example of how I use the trends tool to my advantage. Here is a client of mine who is a food blogger. Each week I take a look at her trends tool to see what is trending in her specific niche and if any of her content fits the current or growing trends. 

The trends tool is showing me Zucchini recipes are 100% on the upswing. Trending up in the US AND popular with her specific audience. So, I know if she has content pertaining to this trend, it should get a pretty quick boost. 

I am going to optimize her pin with proper Pinterest SEO, and I will use the keywords that are trending for “zucchini recipes.”

Because her pin (and the board is was saved to) are properly optimized for Pinterest SEO, I used top trending keywords pertaining to “zucchini.” These are her pin stats after only a few hours. Not bad right?

Why Pinterest SEO Matters

If you are a long-time follower, you know I preach SEO on Pinterest more than most. Why? Because SEO will inevitably be your key to making it or breaking it on the Pinterest platform. 

99% of the time, when someone comes to me with a low reach or low engagement, I find about 15 SEO errors on their profile. Or VERY outdated pinning strategies. 

But once we address them AND pin properly (within current guidelines) moving forward, their reach ALWAYS increases TEN FOLD. 

Every. Single. Time. Along with their outbound traffic. 

Pinterest isn’t as complicated as many make it out to be. Remember, Pinterest is for longevity. Content lives and circulates on the platform for life. In contrast, you get a 24 MAYBE 48-hour reach on Facebook and Instagram. 

If you’re lucky. 

If you want to get serious about a long-term solution for website traffic, invest in Pinterest. I promise it’s worth it. This is a pin that is SIX years old, and this month alone has sent me over 3,500 website visitors. From ONE pin that I haven’t touched in SIX YEARS. Not bad, right? 

 

If you want to learn more about current best practices, guidelines, and proper Pinterest SEO, click HERE

As always, 

Happy Pinning

xo Megan 

 

 

 

Your Complete Guide to Affiliate Marketing on Pinterest

Your Complete Guide to Affiliate Marketing on Pinterest

Your complete guide to Affiliate Marketing on Pinterest in 2023 and beyond! 

{This post contains affiliate links. That means I make a small commission at no extra cost to you. Visit my disclosure to learn more.)

Can you now use affiliate links on Pinterest?

I see this post so often in my private Facebook group and many other business Facebook groups I am a part of. 

Since the launch of advertising on Pinterest in May of 2014, Pinterest has been a little back and forth regarding affiliate marketing on the platform. 

So it makes sense; there still needs to be some clarification. But today, I am here to tell you that you can, in fact, utilize Pinterest for affiliate marketing. 

Affiliate marketing can be a great way to make money by sharing products that you use and love. Before we dive in, let me give a quick rundown on exactly what affiliate marketing is. 

(If you already know, you can skip head!) 

What is affiliate marketing? 

Affiliate marketing is the process by which an affiliate earns a commission for marketing another person’s or company’s products. 

I am sure you see a lot of this on Instagram already. While many posts from influencers are sponsored, a lot of influencers share links to products they love. 

99% of the time, those are affiliate links. And if you purchase that product, or even a different one, via that same affiliate link, that affiliate earns a commission. Usually 10-20% of the sale, sometimes more. 

The concept of affiliate marketing is, “What if you can share the products you love and make money while you sleep? 

When it comes to Pinterest and affiliate marketing, it’s essentially a win-win situation. As you know, when you pin something on Pinterest, it circulates the platform for LIFE, potentially reaching tens of thousands, if not hundreds of thousands, of users. If you know what you are doing. 

If even 20% of those users clicked on that link and made a purchase, well, you would be making a pretty penny with little to no effort. 

Sounds pretty good, right?

Is affiliate marketing only for bloggers?

Gone are the days of needing a blog to promote affiliate links/content on Pinterest. So all of you non-bloggers out there who are looking into this avenue, you are in luck

There are a few different ways to drive traffic to your affiliate links on Pinterest. With MOST programs, you can directly link a link to your affiliate link or direct traffic from the pin to your blog post containing the affiliate link. 

You can even try both. That is the beauty of Pinterest! 

Pinterest is an ideal place for affiliate marketing. 

Why is that? 

In 2022 Pinterest came out with some pretty sweet and reassuring stats

They noted that Pinterest converts more browsers into buyers. And visitors from Pinterest are more likely to convert into leads or sales faster than other social media platforms. Yes, even Instagram. 

Not only does that platform have over 445 MILLION MONTHLY active users, they also noted this: 

  • Pinterest trends take off 20% FASTER in the first 6 months than trends on other platforms. 
  • Shopping engagement grew by 20% in 2021, and that’s expected to triple by the end of 2023
  • In that same report, Pinterest said that 75% of Pinterest’s monthly users are always SHOPPING.

Making it THE ideal place to promote your affiliate links. 

Here is what is in my ShareASale account today. I haven’t written a post with an affiliate link in it (until this one) Since 2019.

That means, due to my old pins circulating Pinterest and sending me affiliate traffic, I made over $2,000 this month alone and did ZERO work to get there. 

This money is coming from two old posts I wrote nearly FOUR YEARS AGO. Because my account and content are correctly optimized, it keeps circulating and trending off and on throughout the year without me having to do a thing.

This is why proper Pinterest SEO is SO important!

Now, to the good stuff.

How to do affiliate marketing on Pinterest

Whether you have a blog or will be directly linking affiliate links, there are a few things you want to keep in mind and a couple of steps you will want to take. 

  1. Find affiliate programs and networks with products you want to promote. (I’ll talk more about these coming up) 
  2. Create pins and add your affiliate links.
  3. Add proper disclosures and publish your pins.

However, there is more you need to know; stick with me! 

You want to make sure you are staying in compliance with the FTC (Federal Trade Commission) So, here are a few important affiliate rules for Pinterest:

  • Do not use URL shorteners like bit.ly to hide your affiliate link. You have to be transparent about affiliate links.
  • Only operate one Pinterest account in which you promote your affiliate links.
  • You must disclose an affiliate link when one is used. More on this in a minute. 
  • Do not create affiliate pins repetitively or in large volumes, as this can look like spam, and it also can get your account flagged and possibly shut down. 

Ensuring you are 100% up-to-date on Pinterest’s CURRENT best practices and guidelines is extremely important. (More on this in a min too) 

Disclosing affiliate links

Staying in compliance with the Federal Trade Commission is extremely important. But also very easy. 

If you are directly linking affiliate links to pins

You need to make sure in your pin description, at the bottom, after you leave your description AND optimize your pin, you must note at the end that this is an “Affiliate link.” Or even better, “This is an affiliate link or sponsored product.”  

In Pintererest’s community guidelines, they say: 

Pinterest says: “All applicable disclosures are required to indicate the commercial nature of your content (such as the use of #ad to indicate that your content is a Paid Partnership).”

So adding #ad or #affiliatelink is fine too. But, if you want to play it super safe, I would indicate, “This is an affiliate link or sponsored product.”  

If you are using affiliate links in your blog post

There are a few things to keep in mind. At the VERY beginning of your blog post, you need to have an affiliate disclosure before you even start typing.

This is what I say when my blog posts contain affiliate links, “This post contains affiliate links. Which means I make a small commission at no extra cost to you.”

Just remember, no matter how you are linking an affiliate link, you need to make sure you are noting that it is one. 

Pinterest Account Guidelines

You need a Pinterest for Business account to successfully affiliate market on the platform. 

The reason is that Pinterest is a search engine operating on an algorithm. If you are just posting pins with affiliate links that are not properly optimized or saved to non-optimized boards, your reach will be in the single digits, and that drastically brings down how much money you can make

Here is what you want to make sure you have set up BEFORE you start with affiliate marketing

  1. A PROPERLY optimized Pinterest account. From your handle to your profile to your boards. Using proper Pinterest SEO is extremely important if you want your content to be found. So many Pinterest for business users give up because they can’t get a good reach, and they aren’t getting a good reach because their account wasn’t optimized properly
  2. Current best practices and guidelines. It’s essential you are up-to-date with how Pinterest wants you to be pinning. Pinning with outdated strategies will not only get your account flagged as spam, but it can also get it shut down. 

If you want to learn more about setting up a successful, properly optimized Pinterest account AND ensure you are up-to-date with current best practices and guidelines,(so you can rock your affiliate marketing) click HERE. 

Below is a list of Affiliate programs you can join! Just be sure to read the rules to make sure they don’t say anything about not being able to promote on Pinterest. 

And also, be sure to check out Pinterest’s Community Guidelines pertaining to affiliate marketing for more in-depth information. 

Happy Pinning, 

xo Megan 

How to be found on Pinterest

How to be found on Pinterest

How to be found on Pinterest

“How can I be found on Pinterest?” “Why do I have such a low reach? And Why isn’t my content being seen?”

Those are two questions I get asked most often. And a lot of times, there is a simple solution

Like any platform, Pinterest is constantly changing and evolving, and the key to creating a successful Pinterest marketing strategy is to stay on top of the ever-changing updates and best practices.

Let me go over some realistic expectations first…

I am not here to make it seem like Pinterest is this instant fix for your traffic issues; it’s not. Though I am sure you have read 10+ posts before you got to this one telling you that, in fact, Pinterest can triple your website traffic overnight! 

Posts like that are the reason so many users quit Pinterest before it gets good. And let me tell you, when it gets good, it’s GOOD. 

Pinterest is for longevity. Unlike Facebook, Instagram, and even TikTok, when you pin something on Pinterest, it will continue circulating the platform for life

Here is a pin I created back in 2017. The last time I touched this pin was in 2017. In the last 30 days, it’s sent me over 3,000+ new visitors to my website. ONE PIN. Without me touching it, it started trending again, all on its own. 

Here are my stats from today, July 30th, 2023. It’s 2:30 pm EST, and Pinterest has already sent me over 2,400 visitors to my website JUST today, and the day isn’t even over yet! 

I am showing you these stats because I want you to know how valuable Pinterest can be for your blog or online business long term

What matters when it comes to being found on Pinterest?

First proper “Pinterest” SEO. This tip isn’t a new one, but it can never be emphasized enough. The reason SO many users are not getting the reach they want is because they aren’t optimizing their accounts and content the right way. 

I have been working in Pinterest Marketing since 2015, and this is the #1 issue I see when looking at an underperforming account, no SEO or improper SEO. 

Something to note: If you have been using proper Pinterest SEO, but your account is under 6 months old, a lower reach is normal. However, you should still see it growing steadily with consistent and proper pinning. If not, you may want to re-evaluate your SEO. 

Also, let’s say your account is three years old. But you haven’t been using proper SEO till now, and you haven’t been consistent with your pinning till now; you can also expect it to take a few months for the algorithm to start picking up on your content. 

Why SEO Matters

Because Pinterest is a search engine, it operates on an algorithm. And if you aren’t using proper SEO for the algorithm to pick up on, it will have no idea where your content belongs. 

I mentioned at the beginning of this post that being found on Pinterest is typically a simple fix because it is. 

When you go from not optimizing content (and your profile) the right way to doing it correctly, you start to see steady and consistent growth

Think about it like this: The Pinterest algorithm favors relevancy. So if you are pinning your recipe pin to a “free for all” style group board, not optimized for SEO and filled with pins on various niches, it will have no clue where your pin belongs OR who to show it to. 

And your reach stays in the single digits

Now, you have correctly optimized Pinterest boards and sent your optimized pin to the most relevant board; the algorithm goes, “Ok, this pin is about gluten-free recipes, so I will show it to users searching for gluten-free recipes.” 

Having proper SEO on your boards and pins gives the algorithm a much better idea of where your content belongs. Thus helping your content trend and, in return, showing it to more users. 

How you can be found on Pinterest

The first thing I tell my clients and students to consider is the MAIN keyword under which you want your account/content to appear. 

For me, it’s Pinterest Marketing. I want the algorithm to know my account is all about Pinterest, and to do that; I optimized my profile with Pinterest Marketing specific keywords. 

And because I did it correctly, my profile shows up at the top when someone searches “Pinterest Marketing.” 

Now I want to think of 5-6 sub keywords I want my content to rank under. These usually have to do with other topics you blog about or other products you sell. 

My example would be: 

  • Pinterest Marketing Tips
  • Pinterest Marketing Strategy
  • Pinterest Marketing for Beginners
  • Pinterest for business
  • Pinterest for Bloggers
  • Pinterest Virtual Assistant

Those are the six sub-keywords I use most often and the top keywords that have to do with my business

Because I always focus on my top sub-keywords when creating content, my content typically ranks right at the top when those keywords are searched. 

The algorithm sees that I am using relevant and proper SEO and that I am consistent in my pinning, so it favors my content and shows it to a larger audience. 

So if you are one of the Pinterest users who is getting frustrated with a low reach, re-evaluate your SEO and your strategy. You will be surprised how a few simple tweaks can elevate your entire account

Gone are the days when Pinterest wanted us re-pinning our content over and over.

Being successful on Pinterest today means focusing on fresh Pin content- rather than pinning the same pin to multiple boards. 

This is a very outdated practice many users are still using. A practice that will hurt your reach and possibly get your account flagged. 

Staying up-to-date on best practices is key to being found on Pinterest.

Don’t let a low reach get you down. Re-evaluate your SEO and strategy. 

Think about how nice it will be six months from now to have a pin you haven’t touched in months send you traffic on auto-pilot. Think about what that could mean for your email list or client list. Or even better, your sales.  

And if you want to learn more about proper Pinterest SEO and current best practices and pinning strategies, click HERE! 

As always, 

Happy Pinning! 

xo Megan 

 

2 Easy ways to know if your Pinterest SEO is strong!

2 Easy ways to know if your Pinterest SEO is strong!

2 Easy ways to know if your Pinterest SEO is strong!

Pinterest SEO. I am sure you have read a few different posts on how to use proper SEO on Pinterest. And if you have, I can guarantee you have read some mixed information, and you aren’t sure what is correct, so you ended up here. 

Or this could be your first stop in your Pinterest SEO research. 

No matter how you ended up here, today, I will show you the TWO factors I look at to know if my Pins are optimized properly and my keywords are strong. 

This little trick I will show you today is a trick my Pinterest Ad’s manager, who works at the Pinterest corporate office in San Fran (Hi Emily!), taught me years ago. It’s been a great way to know I am on the right track in terms of optimizing my content with the strongest keywords possible! 

Pinterest is a search engine. 

Yes, duh, I am sure you know this. But, I like to mention it as many users think it’s a Social Media Platform. And while it does have some social media aspects to it, at the end of the day, it’s a visual search engine. 

Search engines operate on an algorithm. And the way the Pinterest algorithm knows where to place your pins is based on the image, the wording on the pin, AND, most importantly, the SEO you use to optimize your pin (+ the board you are saving it to, but that’s a topic for another day.) 

Making sure you have correctly optimized trending keywords in your pin title and description will help the algorithm know who to show your pin to. 

Factor 1: “More like this.” 

When you upload your pin on Pinterest, optimize it for SEO, then publish it to the most relevant SEO-optimized board; you can then click on “see your pin.” 

When you see your pin, you can scroll down, and you will see: “More like this.” This is the algorithm showing you similar content based on the SEO/topic/image of your pin. 

It’s the first indicator you did something right. If you scroll down and see pins that fit with your pin, you know your pin is on the right track. 

Here is my client’s pin on home decor.

 

Here is what Pinterest is recommending based on the SEO (and image) of her pin:

Because I optimized her pin with proper Pinterest SEO and was sure to do keyword research via the guided search AND the trends tool, her SEO is strong. Based on that, and the image, we can see that Pinterest is showing us pins like the one I just created for her.

The SEO of this pin is relevant because the algorithm is placing it with other content it belongs with. In turn, showing this pin to users searching for home decor, then saving her pin to home decor-specific boards, showing the algorithm more relevancy and expanding the reach even more.

Which leads me to Factor 2: Boards

Let’s look at another client of mine. I created and optimized this pin for her on ADHD. If you click on the pin and then click on “see more stats” at the top, you can then scroll down to see which boards users are saving this pin to.

As you can see, her pin is being saved to very relevant boards.

As I was talking about above, because the SEO of the pin is strong and relevant, this pin is shown to users searching for ADHD content.

Then, those users have a chance of seeing this ADHD-specific pin in their smart feed, then they will hopefully engage with it and save it to a relevant board. This shows the algorithm even further how relevant this pin is, and the algorithm expands the reach.

A few things I want to mention: 

  1. Factor 2 can only be done once the pin starts to get engagement. So don’t stress if your pin isn’t getting saves immediately. Pins take time to rank, especially if you have a newer account or let your account sit untouched for a longer period. 
  2. I would focus more on Factor 1. “More like this.” That will tell you right away if your pin is optimized properly. 
  3. Now, let’s say you know you’re using proper Pinterest SEO and did keyword research before optimizing your pin, so the SEO is, in-fact strong. Then you may want to reevaluate the image and wording on your pin. Is the image relevant to the SEO on the pin? Is the wording on the pin image relevant to the SEO of the pin? 
  4. If you answered yes to the last two questions in #3, you then have to look at the SEO of the board you saved your pin to when you first published it. 
  5. Is the SEO of the board strong? Name? Description? Is your board description keyword stuffed? 

See all of these factors work together to help the algorithm decide who to show your content to. 

Now, let’s say your pin aligns with other relevant pins when you look at “more like this” after you post it. Then after a week or so, the reach is still low; that is when you may have to take a look at your Pinterest boards. 

While the SEO of your pins is important, the SEO of the board that pin is saved to when you post is equally important. So even if the SEO of your pin is strong, but the board you are saving it to is “weak,” it will end up limiting the reach of the pin. 

This is why you want to be sure you use proper Pinterest SEO from your pins to your profile and your boards. They all work together as a team! 

I realize your head may now be spinning! But I promise, it’s easier than it seems once you get it down! 

If you want a little help learning exactly how to optimize your account from top to bottom, step-by-step, click HERE! 

Happy Pinning!

xo Megan

 

 

 

Are Tailwind Communities and Pinterest Group Boards hurting your reach on Pinterest? 

Are Tailwind Communities and Pinterest Group Boards hurting your reach on Pinterest? 

Are Tailwind Communities and Pinterest Group Boards hurting your reach on Pinterest? 

This is going to be a blog post that is going to get mixed reviews. But as someone who has been working in Pinterest marketing since 2015, I can tell you one very common factor that always comes into play when an account has a low confidence score (reach) is Tailwind communities and Pinterest Group Boards. 

Before I get into why you may want to think twice before pinning to communities or group boards, I want to talk about a confidence score since you may not have heard of it before. 

What is a confidence score? 

Each pinner on Pinterest has something called a “confidence score.” A confidence score is how the Pinterest algorithm ranks YOU as a pinner and content creator.

So when your pins are getting a good reach and engagement, your confidence score is most likely on the higher end. But if you are not getting the reach and engagement you want from Pinterest, it’s probably due to a low confidence score.

Sadly, there is no way for you to know your “score,” but if your pins are getting a reach of 10, you can guess it’s probably on the lower end.

Common factors that make up a low confidence score: 

  • Consistency: You are not sending out fresh pins daily and staying active on the platform. 
  • Relevancy: Your pins are being sent to or saved to non-relevant boards. Thus showing the algorithm they don’t really “belong” in any specific spot. 
  • Outdated Pinning Strategies: You are pinning with outdated pinning strategies: EX: Sending the same pin to multiple boards on your profile. (THIS is a BIG NO NO) 

While consistency and pinning with outdated pinning strategies play a large part in how the algorithm ranks your content, relevancy is the MOST important factor in how your content ranks on Pinterest. 

Why you should think twice before pinning to group boards and Tailwind communities…

The Pinterest algorithm picks up on where your content is being pinned to. It picks up on the keywords your pin is optimized with AND the keywords of the board it is being saved to. 

It also picks up on the other content within each board. 

Pinterest shows you content in your smart feed based on a few different factors. But the main reason pins on “Gluten Free Recipes” appear when you type “Gluten-free recipes” in your guided search is that all of those pins have a few things in common: 

  1. Relevant SEO in the title and description of the pin
  2. That pin was saved to a board specific to gluten-free recipes
  3. The board that the pin was saved to is not only relevant to gluten-free recipes but also contains other pins specific to gluten-free recipes. 

The algorithm goes, “ok, all these relevant factors line up, and we know this pin is specific to gluten-free recipes, so we will show it up at the top when those keywords are being searched. 

Make sense? 

Here is the biggies issue with Communities and Group Boards…

First, let’s take a look at this TailWind Community. 

Title: Blogging and Social Media Pins: 


Description: 
Tribe for Pinning social media, craft business, making money, and blogging-related pins. Please share TALL IMAGES ONLY. NO KEYWORD STUFFING OR REDIRECTS ON AFFILIATE LINKS! 

You can see three different niches: Social Media, Craft Businesses, Making Money, and Blogging. Since this community is not extremely niche specific, the chance of your pin being saved to a relevant board is much lower. 

99% of the time, the users that participate in a group like this one save your content to a board filled with pins on various topics. This way, they are playing by the rules of the community. 

 Unfortunately, when this happens, the algorithm has no clue where your pin belongs, thus hurting the reach of that pin and your account’s overall performance, as Pinterest thinks you are creating non-relevant content. 

Now, let’s talk about Pinterest Group Boards.

Just a short 18 or so months ago, group boards were still a highly sought-after Pinterest practice. Users wanted to be a part of as many group boards as possible to get their pins out to a larger audience.

Then Pinterest said: “Right now, we want creators to focus on relevancy. And many group boards have steered away from our original idea of what we wanted them to be, a place where creators shared ideas and inspiration.” 

Basically saying that they are now used as a place to dump pins in the hope of getting that re-pin. 

The issue with group boards is this

  • Unless they are VERY niche specific, they are usually not optimized for SEO AT ALL. 
  • Participants of these group boards (just like communities) tend to pin your content to a non-relevant board so that they comply with the rules of the group board. Now your pin is saved to a non-SEO optimized board, not relevant to your pin, and saved in a board full of pins on various topics. 
  • And these two things confuse the algorithm and hurt your pin’s reach and your confidence score as a pinner. Thus hurting the reach of your entire account. 

The solution is this…

Even if your account has a low following, your pins and account will perform better overall if you are saving your pins to YOUR niche-specific SEO-optimized boards. 

After spending the last 8 years personally working on 100’s of different accounts, I know this to be 100% true

I can promise you that if you ditch your group boards, focus on updating all of your boards with proper Pinterest SEO. Focus on using proper SEO and trending keywords in your pins, AND make sure you are pinning within current best practices and guidelines; your account will grow. 

Your content will start to rank under the right keywords, and Pinterest will start showing your content to more and more users. My account ranks in the top 6 when you search “Pinterest Marketing” All because my account and content is optimized with proper Pinterest SEO. 

And the more your content ranks, the higher your entire profile will rank within your niche. 

Pinterest can be confusing as there is a large amount of mixed information, false information, and highly outdated practices floating around the internet. 

I promise it’s not as confusing as many make it out to be. Get your SEO down and a solid (up-to-date) pinning strategy, and you will be golden! 

If you want to learn step-by-step how to properly optimize your Pinterest account, click HERE

Happy Pinning! 

xo Megan 

An outdated practice that is KILLING your reach on Pinterest

An outdated practice that is KILLING your reach on Pinterest

An outdated practice that is KILLING your reach on Pinterest

Are you struggling to get a large reach on Pinterest? Are you participating in re-pin threads in Facebook groups? If you answered yes to both of these questions, keep reading. 

What is a re-pin thread?

Many business-focused Facebook groups like to post daily engagement threads, whether it be an Instagram engagement thread, Facebook engagement thread, OR Pinterest re-pin thread. 

Each of these threads comes with a specific set of rules you must follow if you participate. 

When it comes to re-pin threads, you usually have to re-pin X amount of other pins within the thread if you drop a link to your pin. I pulled the image below from a Facebook group. As you can see, over 400 people have participated in this re-pin thread. 

And it makes you think, “This is really going to help my pin get a push by getting all these re-pins.” 

When in reality, these threads are KILLING your reach and confidence score on Pinterest. 

Here’s why…

Pinterest preaches relevancy. They have said dozens of times they want to see our content saved to relevant boards. This way, the algorithm can pick up on it and push your pin out to users who are searching for keywords specific to your pin. 

So, saving your gluten-free recipe pin to a gluten-free recipes board shows the algorithm your pin should be shown to people searching for gluten-free recipes. 

Make sense? 

When you participate in these threads 99% of the time, your pin is NOT being saved to a relevant board. Most of the users who participate in these threads create boards just for these threads. Saving your pin to a free for all style board filled with TONS of different topics. 

See, the algorithm not only picks up on the SEO of your pin and board, but it picks up on the content within the board. So if your pin is saved to a board with other relevant pins, it will get a MUCH larger push. 

If your pin is being saved to a non-relevant board filled with pins on tons of other topics, it will hurt not only the reach of your pin but your account as well. 

A confidence score is a score you can’t see. But you can tell if you have a low or high score based on your reach. The more your content is saved to relevant boards, the more it will be shown when specific keywords are searched, and the more it will then be pinned to other relevant boards. 

Thus showing Pinterest you create quality content users want to save. Thus helping your account rank at the top under the keywords you want it to rank under. 

Because my account is optimized correctly and my pins are saved to relevant boards, I rank in the top 6 under profiles when you search “Pinterest Marketing.” 

So when your pins are saved OVER AND OVER AND OVER to a non-relevant board, the algorithm isn’t even sure where your content belongs. 

Best Practice

Even if your account only has 10 followers, your pins will perform 10X better being saved to your SEO-optimized relevant boards over a group board or a larger board that is not optimized for SEO and is filled with non-relevant pins. 

These threads are KILLING your reach and overall account performance on Pinterest. I have been working in Pinterest marketing for over 8 years now, and the two common mistakes I see when someone comes to me with a low reach are: 

  1. Improper Pinterest SEO 
  2. They have spent time participating in re-pin threads 

It is possible to bring your account back! My best advice is to make sure your entire account, from your handle to your boards, are set up and optimized properly for Pinterest SEO. 

Make sure you are up-to-date with current best practices and guidelines. I still see SO many users re-pinning the same pin to multiple boards, and that is NOT ok anymore. Pinterest themselves have said on more than one occasion NOT to do this. 

Pinterest is an insanely powerful way to grow your traffic online… and it only takes about an hour of your time each week, Proper SEO and consistency.

If you want to learn more about proper Pinterest SEO and current best practices and pinning strategies, click HERE!

Happy Pinning!

xo Megan