1- steps to optimize your Pinterest pages

10 Steps to Optimize your Pinterest Page

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Pinterest has exploded in the past year. In December 2011 there were about 7 million Pinterest users.

Today there are 25 million unique monthly visitors and these numbers are growing as we speak.

Pinterest become the 3rd most popular social media network after Facebook and Twitter, and refers more traffic than Bing or Yahoo!

With all these statistics you should be using Pinterest to the max to increase your website traffic, grow your leads and sales!

 

The following 10 steps can help you rocket fuel your Pinterest profile: 

 

Step #1 – Personal Photo

Use a professional head shot of yourself. A brand logo will also work but even for business, a photo of the business founder, especially if they are the face of the company. Having a personal photo instead of a logo can be more powerful. Remember: People buy from people!

Step #2 – About Section

You, You, You!!! Use the 200 characters available in the “About Section” to tell people clearly who you are, what you do and what products or services you offer.  Incorporate your best SEO keywords, avoid being rude and whatever you do, don’t leave it blank!

Step #3 – Location, Location, Location

As Pinterest grows, local search will become more relevant. Get in early by adding your city or state to your About section to be found when people search for your services, products locally. Attract local customers by creating a board about the city or region highlighting local events, famous landmarks even if these are no relevant to your business.

Step #4 – Get Verified

Prior to verification, website URL were hidden on your Pinterest home page that could easily be missed by visitors. However, Pinterst in November made some changes and now verification makes your website URL more visible by placing a bold red check mark next to it and forming a clickable link. This feature increases engagement, and drives more traffic to your site and ultimately boosts your SEO. Follow the link for details on how to verify your pinterest business profile.

Step #5 – Be Sociable

Pinterest is a social network and interacting with others will build relationships, generate interest for your own content and grow your following. So take time to repin, like, follow and especially comment on other people’s pins. The key to using Pinterest is to become part of the community and alwys focus to give more than you get.

Step #6 – Organize your Boards

With lots of focused boards you can create a lifestyle around your brand. Make each board theme specific, use a clear title that indicates what the board is about, add keywords in the description for better searchability and be sure to pin enough content to make it look complete.

Step #7 – Board Placement

The top 2 rows are where visitors focus when they land on your Pinterest page. Make it worth their while by placing your best, most popular and relevant content in this precious Pinterest real estate. Give preference to trending topics throughout the year by moving boards around and don’t forget to make your most eye-catching pin your board cover.

Step #8 – Outside Interests

The best way to increase your followers is to create boards on trending topics such as Food, Home Decorations, Travel, Cars, DIY, all of which are popular on Pinterest. This will help you to attract pinners who would not normally have found you and give your audience an insight into the other aspect of your personality and brand.

Step #9 – Mix it Up

Intense self-promotion is a no-no on Pinterest. Don’t just pin your own content. If you really want to influence people and win friends, share and curate other people’s content alongside your own, so that your boards become a destination for your followers.

Step #10 – Visualization

Pin a variety of content in different forms. Use high quality, eye-catching, colorful images but also include charts and graphs, videos from YouTube and Vimeo, infographics, tutorials pins, and images with text overlays.

 

 

Pinterest Business Pages

Pinterest Business Pages Are Here!

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How to create your official business profile page on Pinterest

It looks like Pinterest is here to stay for long. If you haven’t heard this yet, then it’s news for you. Pinterest just rolled out Pinterest Business Profile Pages. Their goal is to help more businesses provide great content on Pinterest and make it easy to pin from their websites.

 

Because this is very important from a marketing standpoint I want to share with you some great tips to help you position yourself more firmly from a marketing standpoint.

 

First of all create your Business Profile Page on Pinterest!

Pinterest in a short period of time became a serious social media platform, and whether you’re a retailer, online merchant, non-profit organization, brand, designer, blogger, institution, or local business it can provide great marketing value for your organization.  If your organization is new to Pinterest, sign up on Pinterest for a business account. IF you already have an existing account on Pinterest it can be easily converted by following the steps on the business site.

How do Pinterest business and personal accounts differ?

Not much, according to Pinterest.  In their frequently asked questions, they answer this question as follows. “Currently, business accounts and personal accounts have access to the same features.  If you sign up for or convert to a business account, you’ll also receive updates on future products and services that will provide more powerful ways of reaching and understanding your audience on Pinterest.”

Now just remember that there are two sets of terms—one for people and one for businesses.

To be honest even as a social media consultant I was hesitant with Pinterest for its copyright rules. But Pinterest clearly has the power to help brands and companies of all sizes connect on a more personal level with their customers and followers. It can help you highlight a new perspective about your brand that might not always be apparent to your customers at first glance.  And it is a great tool to engage with your audience that if you use it well, can help you listen in to your audience/customers to see what they really want and like.

So what kind of steps YOU should take TODAY to build your brand with Pinterest?

After you set up your Pinterest account for business, the big question remains how to use Pinterst to build your business.

Follow these pinterest marketing tips:

  • Use your company, brand name for easy identification. Signing up with a business profile account allows you to specify your business name (instead of first name and last name).
  • Verify your website! Pinterest recently released a feature for website verification on users’ accounts.

The online verification issue has been an important one since Twitter’s verified status and “blue checkmark” became public knowledge. Brands, celebrities, or groups of significant influence have always been prominently featured on Twitter with the elusive “blue checkmark” – a sign of social superiority and credibility.

On Pinterest when users verify their profile, people will see a checkmark next to the user’s domain in search results, as well as a full website URL and checkmark on your profile (See below).

Pinterest validation - how to validate your pinterest account

The BEST part of the verification is its added SEO boost. Without getting too far into it, the kind of HTML tag that Pinterest appears to be using to display this appears to be what’s called a “Do Follow” link.  What this means is that it specifically tells Google to follow that link in a different way than regular links without that code do.  This in itself is a HUGE SEO boost to your website – and a way to boost your presence online NOW that might not be around forever.

For information on how to verify your website, visit this Support article.

  • Add new Pin-It buttons. Just like Facebook’s  “Like” or “Share” buttons, or Twitter’s the “Tweet this” button, incorporating a Pin-It button on your site will encourage visitors to pin content which helps fostering conversation with your audience and “listening in” to see what generates the most quality engagement.  This is a great way not only to boost the visibility of your business but there is an added SEO benefit every time your graphics are repinned on Pinterest.

Pinterest for Business Validation

  • Incorporate SEO Keyword Strategy for Link Building. More than ever, social media sharing is playing an increasing role in determining how pages rank onWhy?  Quite simply, the role of a search engine is to bring you to relevant, useful content.  One of the ways to measure relevance and usefulness is to see what people are sharing on social sites most frequently.

Knowing that Google indexes Pinterest profiles and personal boards use some well chosen keywords in your board descriptions and profiles (without keyword stuffing!).  Obviously you will pin a variety of content to Pinterest from a variety of sources, pinning from your website to Pinterest provides a rich source of inbound links to your website, increasing your chance of ranking higher in a Google search.

Take advantage of this HUGE opportunity to boost your ranking via search from this rapidly growing, high-authority site.

  • Explore Pinterest collaborative boards! One of the ways social media has improved marketing is by creating a simple channel for communication between brands and their customers.  Marketing used to be about broadcasting your message and hoping it was heard; social marketing is about attracting your ideal customer, providing value, and fostering 2-way communication and community with your audience.  Pinterest’s collaborative boards allow for that kind of communication.  A realtor might use collaborative boards to allow new homeowners to post pictures of move-in day.  A housecleaning business might create a collaborative board to allow customers to post pictures of what they’ve done with their free time, now that they’re not cleaning their homes.  The possibilities are endless.
  • Create “How To” Boards. Does your business offer products or services that might take some explanation to use? Use the power of pictures to demonstrate “how-to” do something that provides value for your customers.  A foods company might post not only the ever popular recipes, but pictures of various cooking techniques for their customers to try. A renovation company might use Pinterest to showcase steps in a featured project.
  • Show case Your Customers. People want to feel famous as well as appreciated – what better way to showcase your brand than to have a board featuring pictures of people using your product.
  • Analyze with Analytics. By looking over your content and seeing which images get liked and repinned the most, you are getting valuable feedback from your customers regarding what kind of content is most valuable to them. Produce content and products that are valuable, and you’ve created a win-win for your business and your customers.

Now is YOUR turn!

What is your favorite way to use Pinterest to brand your business? Did you find this article valuable? I would love to hear – please leave a comment bellow and if interested Sign up to get free blog updates! Do you still need help with setting up your Pinterest Business page? Contact me

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