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UPDATED November, 2021
Raise your hand if you think Pinterest is a Social Media platform?
Raise your hand if you think Pinterest is a search engine?
If you choose the latter of the two, then you are right! Pinterest is 100% a search engine and NOT a Social Media platform. (Though it does have SOME social media aspects!) The best part is it’s a VISUAL search engine!
Just like with Google or any other search engine out there, when it comes to your content being seen by the RIGHT audience, using proper keywords 1000% comes into play.
So I am going to break it down as simple as I can.
Let’s start with your Guided Search
See this guy? This is your guided search and your new BFF.
This is where you go and type in things you would like to search for. Such as “workout routines.”
For example, let’s say you are a fitness blogger. Or your own a fitness business. You have just typed up a blog post, and you are ready to upload your content to Pinterest. You want to make sure your pin trends under the proper keywords. So you think of the top 4-6 keywords you want that specific pin to trend under and you write them down.
- Fitness
- Health
- In-home fitness
- Workout
First, I will type “fitness” into the guided search and hit “enter.” Here is what appears. You see all the other keywords that appear next to fitness? Those are keywords that are being searched along with the word fitness. Ranking from #1 down. So by adding those short long-tailed keyword sentences to the description of your pin it will help the SEO!
For example, “Fitness aesthetic” That is an SEO, rich, long-tailed keyword sentence. I could also add “Fitness training.” Yes I know it’s only two words long, but this is how Pinterest likes their SEO laid out.
Next, I will type in “Women’s health and ” From this search, I would create this sentence to add to my description, “Women’s health and fitness. Women’s health and fitness tips.”
So far my pin description looks like this: (brief rundown on what the post is about followed by) Fitness Aesthetic. Fitness Training. Women’s Health and Fitness. Women’s health and fitness tips.
So the final description would look like this: “In this post you will learn about Women’s top health and fitness tips. Fitness Aesthetic. Fitness Training. Women’s Health and Fitness. Women’s health and fitness tips.”
You also want to make sure the title of the pin includes 1 or even two long tailed keyword sentences.
Once you are done formatting it, you want to pin that pin to the most relevant board, and then you leave it alone. As long as the pin and the board it’s being pinned to are optimized properly, you ONLY need to pin it once. Pinning a pin more than once from your personal account can set off spam filters and your account can be flagged or shut down.
So make sure you are also up to date with Pinterest’s current best practices.
Here is an example of one of my pin’s descriptions:
See how I have long-tailed keyword sentences in there? Pinterest Marketing tips. Pinterest Marketing for bloggers. Increase your blog traffic with Pinterest.
UPDATE NOVEMBER 2021:
Pinterest does NOT pull from hashtags any more. So making sure you are optimizing your pin descriptions properly is VERY important. The #1 error I see when I audit accounts due to users getting a low reach is improper SEO. You have to optimize your ENITRE account properly or your content will not rank.
Again, Pinterest is a search engine. And if you are not laying out keywords the way Pinterest likes, your reach won’t be as high.
Proper SEO will 1000% pay off! As you can see here! This is from the last 24 hours! This is a normal, static pin.
And if Pinterest still has you super confused, click here!
Happy pinning!
Xo Megan