The 4 factors that make your Pinterest pins searchable!
With over 400 million monthly active users, Pinterest is one of the best visual marketing tools on the world wide web. It’s one of the best ways to reach your ideal reader, client, or consumer.
However, learning to use the platform correctly and getting your content in front of the right target audience can pose some challenges.
Pinterest sends me over 100K visitors to my blog every month. This past month ALONE Pinterest sent me over 180K visitors. Pretty cool, right? That is more than any other search engine AND my other social media outlets COMBINED.
With there being SO much mixed information out there on how to use Pinterest properly, I am here to show you what you need to do if you want to make your pins searchable. This way, you can hit the ground running and start generating traffic!
I want to note that Pinterest is a search engine that operates on an algorithm. It takes time for the algorithm to pick up on your pin and keywords. So when your pin isn’t reaching 1,000 users overnight, that is 100% Normal.
Optimizing content properly is the #1 way your content will be found. But here are the 4 factors that come into play when it comes to creating searchable pins.
#1 Pin Design
You want to make sure you are using images that are relevant to your topic or subject matter. So if your pin is about fitness, you would most 
likely have an image that makes you think “fitness.”
For example, Almost all of my pins pertain to online marketing. So, my pin images typically have some sort of computer or cell phone mock-up on them. Since you typically use computers or phones when you participate in online marketing.
The algorithm pulls off of imaging as well. So using the right imaging is very important if you want your pin to end up in the right place.
#2 Proper Pin SEO
Your pins will never be seen if you are not optimizing them correctly.
99% of the time, when someone comes to me for an account audit due to low reach, the #1 issue is improper Pinterest SEO or no SEO at all.
Your pin title must have at least one long-tailed keyword sentence. And I recommend adding 2-3 long-tailed keyword sentences into your pin description as well.
Pinterest has also brought back hashtags! So adding 5-10 relevant hashtags can also help your pin be discovered! The guided search and the Pinterest Trends tool are the top places to look for trending SEO.
#3 Proper Board SEO
Pin SEO and board SEO work together to tell the algorithm where your content belongs. So, if your Pinterest boards are not set up and optimized correctly, pinning to them isn’t going to help the reach of your pin.
Make sure you are using trending keywords for your board titles AND adding 2-5 STRONG long-tailed keyword sentences into your board descriptions as well.
You also want to make sure every pin within your board is relevant to it. Even if your board is optimized correctly but contains pins on multiple topics, it will hurt your pin more than help it.
DO NOT add hashtags to your board descriptions. Pinterest only pulls hashtags from pin descriptions.
#4 Best Practices and Guidelines
Remember how I mentioned above there is a TON of mixed and extremely outdated information floating around about Pinterest?
One of the biggest ones is, pinning strategy. I still see users re-pin the same pin image to MULTIPLE boards. And I sadly still see experts preaching this.
Pinterest themselves have said on more than one occasion NOT to do this. In fact, this can be a HUGE reason your pins have a low reach. And this very outdated practice can get your account flagged as spam.
Best practice is to create a pin, upload it to the most relevant board and then NEVER TOUCH IT AGAIN. Re-pins from your personal account will drastically impact your confidence score, and it will take a decent amount of time to get your account moving in the right direction again.
So be sure you are up-to-date on current best practices and guidelines.
At the end of the day…
Pinterest isn’t as complicated as many make it out to be. Once you understand proper SEO and get a solid pinning strategy down, your content will start to trend, and the traffic will start to roll in.
My favorite part of this platform is your content is on there for life. I have pins I created SIX years ago that still send me daily traffic.
The platform is 100% worth learning if you are ready to take your business, blog, or online store to the next level.
If you are over being confused about Pinterest and spending hours online searching for information on how to use the platform, click HERE.
And as always,
Happy Pinning
xo Megan
