Learn How To Rank #1 On Pinterest

Pinterest SEO Strategy to Rank #1 on Pinterest

Hey blog fam! Is your current Pinterest SEO strategy getting you massive results? Are you wondering how do you rank higher on Pinterest?

If you’ve been struggling to gain traction on your pins, or if the algorithm hasn’t displayed your pins in the Pinterest smart feed.

Don’t Fret!

I will be sharing tips on Pinterest search engine optimization. Keeping Pinterest best practices in mind these tips will improve your Pinterest ranking.

Ready to make this happen?

Okay lets get it!

A quick look at Pinterest basics.

What is Pinterest SEO

Pinterest is a visual search engine for finding ideas like recipes, home and style inspiration, and more.

Your home feed is the center of Pinterest.

It’s where you’ll find ideas, or Pins, with recommendations based on your interests, as well as what people you follow on Pinterest are saving

Users will come to Pinterest and search for ideas, recipes, or information.

As a Pinterest content creator, you will want to optimize your profile, Pinterest boards, and pins to be found when a user types in a search query.

How To Get Started On Pinterest

Start by going to the Pinterest website: You will need to create a free business account.

• Start your business account
• Add your email
• Add your business name
• Choose your business type
• Create your account

Pinterest SEO for A Beginner

To see a full and complete tutorial on setting up your Pinterest profile you can read my Pinterest Guide For Beginners

You can begin setting up your profile. Use keywords to describe your business. Create boards related to your topic and make sure to add keywords here to describe your boards.

Follow other users within the same niche and begin creating and saving pins.

How do You Get Found on Pinterest

When you enter a term in the Pinterest search bar you will get results that match your query.

You will also see more terms related to your original search.

These additional terms are what you will use to build your descriptions.

The search term a user enters and some of the additional terms will tell you what your descriptions should include to be found in search.

To better understand how do I get my pins noticed on Pinterest.

lets take a look at some of the metrics used by the Pinterest algorithm

1.Verified Website

By verifying your website with Pinterest this is an additional way Pinterest can determine the quality and relevance of your content.

2.Pin Quality

When it comes to our pins Pinterest will look at the engagements a pin will get.

The more saves and click-throughs a pin receives Pinterest uses that to determine pin quality.

3.Content Creator

Pinterest loves when we are active on the their platform.

By consistently pinning you can establish a good track record. The recommendation is to pin often and consistently.

If you pin 2 fresh pins daily keep that frequency. If you pin 10 fresh pins daily keep that frequency.

Avoid pinning sporadically-don’t pin 50 pins on Sunday to cover your week. Spread them out over time.

4.Relevance

It’s important to understand your audience and create useful content targeted to their needs.

The better your descriptions are, along with great content will help your pins to be shared by your audience.

Using keywords in all your descriptions will tell Pinterest what your content is all about.

Keeping your descriptions relevant to your niche is crucial for any hope of being discovered in search.

5.Keywords

This is the foundation of Pinterest. Like Google, Pinterest is a search engine.

Google uses a text based search providing users with a list of results each with a link that directs back to a website.

Pinterest is a visual search engine, using (pins) images that are colorful and creative.

These pins each have a link that directs back to a website.

For both Pinterest and Google using keywords to describe your links will increase your chances of having your content show up in search results.

6.Pinterest BIO

It may be tempting to come up with a jazzy sounding BIO, but you will want to be careful to not use clever titles in your descriptions.

Pinterest has a social aspect in that you can follow and have followers. In order to see maximum results you want to optimize your profile for search not for being social.

Remember Pinterest for business so you will want to use keywords to give a description of your brand.

This helps Pinterest to understand your business and what you offer or promote.

7.Relevant Niche Boards

A niche board or personal board is a board you own. You would be the only person to have access and control over what is placed on the board.

You can create boards to save others pins and share pins you’ve created. These are ideas or interests you have that you are curating.

Use Keywords in the board descriptions to help Pinterest understand what the board offers, and to attract followers to your profile.

Other users will see your Pinterest board descriptions and choose to save pins you curate that they believe are relevant to there profile.

8.Group Boards

A group board is just like a regular board.

The added difference would be the owner can invite others to collaborate (add pins) on the board.

There is no limit on how many collaborators join in. That’s up to the board owner if they decide to close it at some point.

The appeal to group boards was the more collaborators on the board the more reach the board would have.

Each collaborator has followers and those followers would see pins that were posted in the group.

So if the group had 10k followers your pin could be potentially be seen by this group.

According to recent changes with Pinterest– group boards may not give the massive results they once gave.

With Pinterest focusing on fresh content you may want to consider experimenting with group boards to see what type of results you get.

From my perspective be active on the platform and pin to your relevant niche boards consistently.

How to Use Pinterest SEO to Increase Your Reach

I have been through free courses and paid courses for Pinterest, and learned a tremendous amount from all the great content different bloggers have created.

The Pinterest SEO strategy I use is based on what I have learned and tested on my own account.

FYI– You will also need to come up with your Pinterest SEO strategy that works for your account.

Be flexible and willing to try new things because Pinterest will make changes, or updates to improve the platform.

One change that Pinterest has been communicating to creators is the focus on “fresh pins”

Fresh Pins are defined by Pinterest as images or videos that haven’t been seen before. 

You can create new pin images or videos that lead to a new blog URL and upload them to Pinterest.

You can also create new pin images for older blog post.

This would be considered a “fresh pin”. I recommend creating 3-5 fresh pin images per URL.

Important to note-do not repin the same image/url combination over and over in the same day.

This can indicate spam activity and lead to account suspension

Pinterest has said that it “favors fresh pins” over repining your own content, or saving others pins.

If you are repining on Pinterest this is fine, however I would focus more on your own content.

When it comes to how many pins should you pin a day? You will get many answers on this question.

You should experiment here, but I suggest to not exceed more than 15-25 pins per day.

This would be a combination of your pins and relevant 3rd party pins if you have a newer website with little content.

If you have a large amount of blog content I recommend pinning 80% your own and 20% others content, up to 100% your own.

Pinterest Search

The Pinterest search bar is a great starting point to find relevant keywords for your pins.

Using the Pinterest search bar you’ll want to type in keywords in your niche and discover the most searched keywords.

When you type in your search term you will be given additional related options.

These options show up just below the search bar and are terms people are also interested in.

In the example image we are doing our search for “Pinterest SEO” and directly below the search bar we are given other related terms users are searching.

A couple of things to consider when doing your research. The term may be broad and have lots of competition.

In order to get Pinterest to

• 1. understand your pins
• 2. rank your pins.

Use a long tail keyword!

This would be a keyword that is made by combining different search results that are more specific.

You can use the related terms Pinterest provides for you, or use a simple method that is very effective.

How do I Search on Pinterest

Our target keyword is “Pinterest SEO” and for this exercise you will simply use each letter in the alphabet to find your long tail keywords.

So we type “A” after our main keyword and look for a relevant suggestion.

We then do the same for each letter-B, C, D, E, F. In this example when we get to “F” Pinterest shows a relevant long tail keyword “Pinterest SEO (for) bloggers.

My blog post is all about ranking your Pinterest pins.

In the post I make sure to use a variety of different keywords including “Pinterest SEO for bloggers”

I also make sure to use this long tail keyword in my pin description, the alt text for the image, blog post URL, and part or all of the term on the pin.

The goal is to tell Pinterest what your content is all about using keywords properly can lead to your pins being discovered by Pinterest.

The example image here shows 2 of my pins that each lead to the same blog post ranking in search.

“Pinterest SEO for bloggers”

Using this search method you will come up with different related search terms.

The more terms you discover the better your chances at getting multiple pins to rank on Pinterest search.

I went through the entire alphabet and came up with a few great long tail keywords.

“Pinterest SEO ranking”

The goal here is to get as many pins ranking per blog post as possible. So making 3-5 SEO optimized pins per URL can be a great way to drive additional traffic to your content.

“Pinterest SEO strategy”

In this image I used numbers after my main keyword. This gave me another popular keyword to rank a different pin.

“Pinterest SEO 2020”

Rank Pins Using Pinterest SEO and Tailwind Scheduler

As an approved Pinterest scheduler you can use Tailwind to automate your pinning. This can of course free up your time to do other things.

To stay within best practices limits do not schedule a single pin to more than 10 boards.

Make sure to use the suggested time intervals that Tailwind displays.

Basically follow any the suggested pinning frequency Tailwind recommends and you should be fine.

UPDATE-In some online circles it was said or believed that Tailwind could be causing issues with pins from lower engagements to decreased blog traffic.

Pinterest has stated that if you pin directly on their platform or using an approved scheduler there will be no difference in the pins reach.

Get your first month on Tailwind FREE here

With my pinning strategy I use Tailwind to schedule pins for 2 weeks.

While pins are in circulation I also manually pin to show consistency on the platform.

In my Tailwind que is a combination of my pins and 3rd party pins.

I keep the ratio between 70% my pins to 30% 3rd party or 80% my pins to 20% 3rd party.

For the record you can also use the native Pinterest scheduler and schedule your pins.

Why I keep my Tailwind subscription is for convenience.

Tailwind makes it easy to schedule, and keeps your pinning activity in alignment with Pinterest best practices.

You also can schedule according to when your Pinterest audience is engaged with your content because Tailwind examines your profile to see when people are most active with your pins.

Besides all the other great benefits, Tailwind offers extra insights on your analytics.

My favorite part of Tailwind is that it’s a major time saver.

After setting my pins for two or three weeks I’m able to work on a number of different things to grow my websites audience.

Tailwind Tribes

Tribes are similar to Pinterest group boards. What’s great about tribes is that there are rules for posting pins.

Rules are pretty simple but basically require each tribe member to share pins from other members.

This means all pins that show up in a tribe should be shared eventually.

This means more exposure to your pins which helps grow your reach.

Each tribe you discover will have its own set of rules, just make sure to follow them and you will be good.

Track Pin Performance

I worked in sales many years ago and the phrase of the day was “where ya at”

When someone asked you this it didn’t mean your geographical location. It means what are your sales numbers?

This is something you want to track in your Pinterest account so you can gage performance.

Use Pinterest analytics to see how your pins are performing.

You can find pins that do well and create similar pins. (I obsess just a bit when it comes to the numbers.)

Also check your Google Analytics to see what type of traffic numbers you have coming to your website.

Its crucial to your success as a blogger to always know “where ya at”.

I would suggest that while writing and promoting your blog, to monitor your analytics and be aware of all aspects of your business.

You can set goals for your business, reach different milestones, and grow your brand to the level you desire.

In Conclusion to How to Rank #1 on Pinterest

I will continue to experiment and work on extending my reach on Pinterest.

As I find methods that are working I will update this post to keep you all informed.

You should bookmark this and check back from time to time for those updates.

Until then all the best to you in your blogging journey!

Related reading:

• Getting Started With Pinterest For Beginners
• Pinterest Search Tips That Explode Website Traffic
• Pinterest Marketing Strategies

Now over to you

Are you a Pinterest veteran? What tips or advice would you have for our readers? Leave a comment below.

Pinterest SEO Strategy to Rank #1 on Pinterest