How To Optimize Your Pinterest Profile For Success
If you want to optimize your Pinterest account to drive more targeted website traffic, rank in keyword searches and increase conversions - this is the guide for you! You’ll learn my exact process for building my own client’s accounts as an expert Pinterest manager and you’ll have your Pinterest profile set up for success in a week or less.
Create A Pinterest Business Account
Whether you’re converting your existing Pinterest account that you’ve had for years or starting from scratch, you’ll need to make sure you have a business account. It’s stated in Pinterest’s terms and conditions that you have to have one if you’re using the platform for marketing your content, services or products so this is a must. Besides the rules, you’ll also get access to Pinterest Analytics and be able to more accurately track your results.
Claim Your Website
This step only applies if you have your own website (if you have an Etsy store, are an affiliate marketer or micro-influencer you can skip this step). Claiming your website is beneficial because it tells Pinterest you are trusted content creator. I’ve found content is more easily shared and ranked in searches and have noticed that pins linked to a claimed website generally get more outbound clicks than those that don’t.
While the process for claiming your website requires you to inject code into the backend of your website, it isn’t as scary as it seems! There are full tutorials on most website hosting platforms here.
Do Keyword Research
Keywords are king on Pinterest because they help categorise your content and show it to your ideal audience. Pinterest users primarily use the search bar or their home feed to find products or information, so making sure your profile is SEO optimised for the Pinterest platform is one of the most important steps!
You’ll do your keyword research using the platform itself. To start, you simple type the content or product terms into the Pinterest search bar itself - whatever automatically populates is what users are searching for. You’d want to make a list of these to use in the below steps. In the example below you can see all the search terms that have populated for ‘kitchen’ for a home decor blogger or an online store who home decor.
You’ll notice there are terms that automatically populate in a list format and colored block terms that generate if you click enter. Both of these lists can be used as keywords later on. You will also get more specific in your keyword searches, for example: kitchen lighting or kitchen organizing depending on what your niche focuses on.
You’ll then research subcategories and list out your keywords to use later. For example, if you sell jewelry and accessories you’d do keyword research for all of your product categories: necklaces; rings; earrings; material-based keyword research like gold or pearls and more niched keywords like minimalist jewelry or handmade jewelry or engagement rings. Whatever you sell or blog about should be researched.
Here’s a complete guide and more info on Pinterest keyword research.
Start With The Basics
Choose a profile image and cover image that best represents your brand. I always try to make the profile image include a person, person using the product or product itself - I’ve found this converts followers easier than if you were to use a logo as it’s more personal. The cover image can have imagery, include logos or text to tell users more about your business.
While we’d want these two things to be in place for best Pinterest practices please note that Pinterest users are mainly using the search bar and their home feed to find your content. This means that it is rare for a user to come to your actual profile and look around - they find your one pin in a sea of other pins based off of keyword research. It is very different to social media platforms and gaining followers isn’t an important Pinterest metric like we see elsewhere (we focus more on outboard clicks and sales).
Lastly, you’ll want to optimize your Pinterest profile name and description. I try to include keywords in both to make sure Pinterest can accurately categorise my content in searches. For my own business I’ve chosen to name myself Haskin Creatives | Pinterest Marketing Expert and ensured keywords were placed in the description as well.
Create Your Boards
To start you’ll want to create ten boards for your business. You’ll need your keyword list for this part of the process and for the most part you’re going to make your boards according to your content categories. For example, a health and fitness coach who blogs about health, wellness and fitness related topics is going to have boards titled: weight-loss tips; healthy recipes; home workouts; workout routines; etc.
Each of these boards should also have a description which includes even more keywords related to the specific topic. My ‘wellness tips’ board would have a description of 2-3 sentences that incorporate my keywords researched, for example: Wellness tips for healthy living with everything from nutrition and healthy eating ideas to fitness and workouts. Featuring self care ideas and inspiration, natural remedies and everything you need for a healthy body, mind and home.
While you’ll notice some creators simply ‘keyword stack’ their descriptions (list keywords without the sentence format), this is not within Pinterest’s best practices and I would advise against it.
Please note: I’ve had some trouble in the past with creating too many boards at once, especially on brand new or inactive accounts. Going from zero to too much activity has gotten accounts flagged for spam. It’s not the end of the world but now I space out this board creation process over a few days just to be safe!
Start Pinning!
Now that your account is optimized for success you’re ready to start pinning. Create some well thought out graphics while applying your keyword research to pin titles and descriptions and you’ll be good to go.
Have a questions about optimizing or setting up your Pinterest profile? Drop it in the comments below or let me know what you’d like to read about next on the Haskin Creatives Pinterest blog.
Hello, I'm Megan!
An introvert at heart, Pinterest is the perfect platform for me. Simply posting your content using the right marketing strategies gets you an abundance of website traffic? No engagement or ‘showing up’ needed?
Who wouldn’t want to use this powerhouse of a platform …
