Pinterest is a powerful, yet underrated platform. It’s commonly associated with recipes, DIY how-to’s, and home décor ideas but it drives a significant amount of organic traffic across many industries. Pinterest is often lumped with social media platforms like Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and LinkedIn, but it’s not really a social media platform; it’s a visual search engine with a social component.
Pinterest was built for search and discovery. With 478 million active users per month, the majority of pinners use the platform to find ideas and plan their next purchase. In fact, 97% of Pinterest searches are unbranded, meaning pinners are eager for new ideas and open to finding new brands. Also of note: women make up more than 60% of the global audience.
Why does this matter to home builders? Several reasons. First, it’s the perfect platform to showcase their homes and the type of lifestyle buyers can experience in them. Second, women are a growing number of buyers and often drive homebuying decisions in their families. Third, builders who take advantage of this powerful platform have the ability to reach their audience before their competitors.
What is Pinterest SEO?
In short, Pinterest SEO is all about how you optimize your profile, fins, and website to gain more organic traffic. Unlike traditional SEO, which ranking factors focus on backlinks and technical SEO, Pinterest’s ranking factors relate more to engagement metrics and social shares.
What more traffic from Pinterest? Follow these tips to drive quality traffic to your home builder website.
Set up your profile for success
If you’re on Pinterest for your business, you need to have a business account. While business accounts share the same features as personal accounts, you will also gain access to analytics and ads. If your current account is a personal one, you can easily convert it into a business account.
Choose an SEO-friendly username. Your username will be included in your profile’s URL so try keep the same username across all of your social channels to improve cross-platform discoverability. In addition to your username, consider adding keywords to your display name. This is one of the fastest and simplest ways to improve your Pinterest SEO. Consider adding a few strategic keywords that will help you get discovered in relevant searches and give users an idea of the type of content you’ll be sharing.
Craft the perfect bio. Your bio is prime real estate. Take time to explain who you are and what you have to offer. As long as you include relevant keywords in the first part of your bio, it can be as creative or straightforward as you like. Don’t forget to include a call-to-action to encourage engagement and activity.
Prepare your website
Linking your Pinterest account to your website lets Pinterest know you’re a legitimate business. Claiming your website allows you to feature your website URL on your profile, which serves as a kind of keyword; making it possible to be found by more pinners and drive more traffic to your website.
Add a Pinterest tag. Pinterest tags are pieces of code that you place on your website, similar to the Facebook pixel. The tag collects and sends data back to your Pinterest account so you can see what people are doing on your website after interacting with your Pins and ads.
Include a Save button. The Save button lets customers save things from your website to Pinterest. This enables your content to be seen by more people.
Find relevant keywords
Conducting keyword research on Pinterest is important. Search behavior on Pinterest is different than a regular web search like on Google. You’ll most likely will need to adjust your targeted keywords. Pinterest’s guided search is a smart way to understand how and what pinners are searching. Guided search populates related keywords based on what other users have been entering. Start with your core keyword and take note of the recommended keywords under your search query that you can use in your descriptions.
Organize and optimize boards
While most of the focus in on pins, Pinterest Boards also appear in search results. This makes them another great opportunity to increase your discoverability. Its tempting to get creative with your board names, but rely on your targeted keywords in the board names and descriptions to make them as SEO-friendly as possible. Strong Pinterest descriptions include specific topical search terms in addition to broader keywords. Just like with a Google search, you’ll want to avoid keyword stuffing to keep your description natural and engaging.
Optimize your pins
Creating the perfect pin takes some time and planning.
Aim for long images. Certain types of graphics work better than other. The optimal pin size is 1,000px by 1,500px (or a 2:3 ratio).
Be keyword-rich titles and descriptions. Just like your bio and board descriptions, you’ll want to include keywords in your pin titles and descriptions. This will make your content easier to find, increase your reach, and grow your community. Titles should be simple, compelling, and relevant to entice pinners to save and click through. For pin descriptions, start with the most important information first. Pinners will see the first 50-60 characters on their feed even though descriptions can use up to 500 characters. Explain what the content is, how your audience will benefit, or an interesting fact that sets your product apart. If you’re using hashtags, this is where you’ll add them.
Use rich pins. Rich pins are your not-so-secret weapon in boosting SEO on Pinterest. Rich pins are made when you create a Pin from your website. They pull in extra bits of information that improve ranking. You can create three types of rich pins: “product,” “article,” and “recipe.”
Post consistently
The Pinterest algorithm values fresh content so you need to make sure you’re posting quality content on a consistent basis. You can do a mix of new content from your website and blog along with sharing/repinning content from other creators. Pinterest is more evergreen than the regular social networks; it’s not uncommon for a pin to still be a big traffic driver months after you first shared it.
Just like website SEO, it takes time for your Pinterest SEO efforts to gain traction so be patient. You’ll start to see results from your efforts in due time. If you need additional help with your Pinterest content strategy or management, we can help. Schedule a demo to see how we can help super-charge your Pinterest strategy today.