For obvious reasons, businesses big or small are often guilty of spending a gigantic amount of money to get high traffic to their websites. Sometimes huge budgets are created for ad campaigns diversified across several platforms, and sometimes a lot of time and money is spent on creating and optimizing exclusive content.

Though these are important strategies for any business to survive online and attract more audience, there is however one strategy that helps you build that organic traffic that many believe is a godsend for your website – behold The Pinterest!.

The Pinterest Strategy

Time and again, Pinterest has proven its worth to all sorts of businesses especially those in fashion, lifestyle, arts, self-improvement, photography, health/fitness,  or education. According to Hootsuite, Pinterest is the fourth most popular platform in the US and ranks before Twitter, LinkedIn, Whatsapp, and Snapchat. 

Why is Pinterest so popular?

I’d like to point out a few facts:

• With over 3 million users, Pinterest inspires people to create projects or search for ideas, styles or trends.
• Pinterest is different from other social media platforms because the images attract more visitors than other forms of content.
• In the US, over half of the social-savvy millennials look for new ideas on the platform, and they’re increasingly likely to buy the things they Pin.

• Not only does Pinterest reward captivating images, other features that were recently rolled out such as the ‘Product Pins’ and ‘Shop the Look ads’, have allowed retailers and their audience the convenience to shop directly through the platform.

Without a doubt, Pinterest is an addition to any visual marketing strategy for product and service-centric businesses.

6 Pinterest Tips To Get You Organic Traffic

Now that we know and understand how Pinterest is a great visual discovery tool, let’s take a look at a few tips that can go a long way in building organic traffic to your website.

1. Pinterest is a Visual Discovery Engine and not a Social Media Platform

Pinterest is a visual discovery engine tool and therefore your images speak ‘a thousand’ words (metaphorically) as it focuses on driving your audience’s attention to what you have to offer. Therefore, it is important to pick the right images that draw your viewers’ attention, with the right resolutions, and with the right amount of text to pull them in. Do not overflow with your text. It has to be as concise and to the point. 

2. Your Audience are ‘Moment Planners’, so think like one

Timeline is a very crucial element for your Pinterest audience as they are habituated to search as ‘moment planners.’ This means that any important moments of their life such as birthdays, graduations, games, valentines, bridal shower, bachelor parties, weddings, baby showers, retirement, picnics, and so on is searched by your audience ahead of time. 

Remember, they are looking for inspiration or their next best idea. For instance, they would search with phrases like ‘what to wear for prom’, ‘how to organize a small office party’ or look up ‘bridal dress styles that are trending this year’.

Therefore, before offering a solution to your audience on Pinterest, think like a planner when you design pins. Think of keywords that your audience may be looking for to relate to their moments in life or craft messages on your pins like a planner to get a good start on your traffic. 

3. Use keywords to create boards and their description 

Given that your pinners already know what they are looking for, they are more complex now than ever. That’s why it is important to optimize your board description with keywords that your users or pinners are most likely to look for, so that relevancy is established with your business and audience.

For example, if I were to search on Pinterest for “Social Media Marketing for Business”, I will be offered Pins that have these Keywords in their description along with a few other accounts or boards that use these keywords as shown in the screen below.

Note: There are three parts to this search-

1. The exact phrase that is being searched, in this example, “Social Media Marketing for Business.”
2. Suggested search terms featuring additional keywords to help refine a search (for example “social media marketing business startups”)
3. Board titles or accounts that match the search term

What does this even mean?

This example suggests that in order to optimize your Pinboards, you need to be spot-on with your list of keywords and be very specific about topics that you want traffic to. Being extremely thorough on your niches and targetting one board for every topic with the right keywords should be your central focus to gain more traffic.

How do you add keywords to your board?

Like from the example above, if I were to optimize this topic – “Social Media Marketing for Business“, I would make sure that-

1. I have a Pinboard related to the topic.
2. And then I would simply log into my account and type in this phrase exactly on the search bar and viola copy the search lists as keywords.

Note: You can save this list to your Word doc, Excel sheet or Notepad in case you may have to re-use it for other pins on your board.

3. Next, I would head over to the relevant Pin board, and click on the ‘Pen’ like icon to insert the keywords as shown below.

Now enter the keywords in your Description box and click on Save.

I would repeat this process for the other boards as well.

4. Use Visually Appealing Images 

According to 2019 Pinterest seasonal insights, 83% of weekly Pinners have made a purchase based
on the content they saw from brands on Pinterest. This platform offers a huge opportunity to get in front of your audience early in their decision-making process. By creating the next big idea that your audience may need in the form of visually relatable and appealing pins with a precise message or call to action, you can positively succeed in increasing your conversions.

And don’t forget to add some keywords to your image. Make sure your blog post title is accurate, and have relevant hashtags that apply to your topic. Usually, 3-4 hashtags are good enough.

5. Build relevant Pinterest Backlinks

Backlinks are a perfect recipe for success for any website as long as the Internet exists. Posting variations of content on social media platforms are a great and common way to build backlinks to your website, pinning on Pinterest can work in a similar way provided you take note of the following:

1. Use a clear and concise username that reflects your brand or business. Many choose to keep it the same as the business or website name.
2. Avoid keeping a half-completed user profile. The about, location, and website fields should all be filled with your updated business information, along with a relevant profile picture. Your audience should have access to all your business-related info by viewing your profile.
3. Use eye-catching or appealing images while creating your pin. Remember using poor images or poorly tagged pins is not only embarrassing but may also set you back in terms of SEO.
4. While creating a Pin, give your image a small description that includes the keyword of the page where the image lands and a direct link to the page. You can also place the website link at the bottom of your image. This would help you earn two deep backlinks that will boost the credibility of your website.
5. Research well on the keywords used in your industry and pin content that your audience would want to be related to. Also, create boards that are relevant to your business and industry and add those researched keywords in the Pin description.
6. Lastly, don’t forget to embed pins on your blog or website so that who so ever stumbles upon your images can save his/her next best idea from your website to his/her Pinboard.

Pinning increases brand exposure and is an essential component when it comes to driving traffic to your website.

In addition to the above tips, consistently pinning several images a day on Pinterest can give your brand immense exposure. For starters, pinning at least 20-30  a day would make sure that you get some views in the crowd.

What other tips or tricks do you employ to get organic traffic from Pinterest?

I’d love to hear from you in the comments below.

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