How To Monetize Your Pinterest Traffic Without Ads

Do You Know How To Monetize Your Business On Pinterest Without Ads?

If you've ever wondered how business owners sell on Pinterest and make money without running ads, then you need to read this blog post.⠀

Let’s look at three specific ways you can monetize your account, your Pinterest audience, and your pins. ⠀

But first - If you want to sell on Pinterest, one thing you have to remember is YOUR CORE AUDIENCE has to FIND you there. The only way to do that is by using keywords and keyword phrases they are searching for. Use those keywords in your profile, boards, and pins.⠀

3 Ways To Monetize Your Pinterest Business Account Without Ads

Get Eyes On Your Content.

Wherever it is. Blog posts, YouTube videos, podcasts, social media. Wherever you have content - create pins that direct people to your content. By getting more eyes on your content you can sell your services, digital products, or courses. Create the pins and they will come. ⠀

Grow Your Email List.

This is a no-brainer, right? I know you hear this everywhere. It's not a joke. Create pins for your freebies. Freebies lead them where - to your email list. Once they sign up for your email list, all of your email content should (eventually) nurture them to a product or service you can sell! ⠀

Affiliate Marketing.

There’s a smorgasbord of entrepreneurs and bloggers that use Pinterest as a way to sell their products using affiliate marketing. If YOU buy a course or a product and it WORKS - odds are the person you bought it from has an affiliate program. Who's a better salesman for a product  someone who actually used and found value in it. What do you need to do? Wait for it...create pins for it. ⠀

No matter who you are or what you sell, Pinterest can be an effective tool to grow your audience and sell⠀

Start planning your Pinterest monetization strategy today! ⠀

Spring Clean Your Pinterest Business Account

Spring is almost here!

Are you excited? I AM! I LOVE spring. It's my favorite time of the year. It's not too hot, nor is it too cold. I can wear sandals on my feet and kick it to work in a pair of capris instead of long pants. 

I Love Spring! 

People tend to clean and organize in spring. You'll probably see many posts on Pinterest about how to spring clean spaces and areas of your home on Pinterest real soon if you haven't already. 

Well, how about we (yeah you and me) spring clean our Pinterest boards! 

However, our spring cleaning will not involve manual labor or the strong smell of cleaning solution, cause who in the heck wants to smell that? 

Not me. 

I usually do my "spring" cleaning at the end of the year. I love to go through my closets and get rid of any clothes I know I'm not going to wear anymore and my kitchen to get rid of containers with no lids (don't you HATE that!). Plus, I receive that last little tax break before I have to file my taxes when I donate items to Goodwill. Those donations help me every year. 

So let's get to it. 

How To Spring Clean Your Pinterest Business Account

At least two to three times per year, you need to go through your Pinterest boards and make sure they are correctly optimized and organized. Think about it. How many times throughout the year do you add a new board? I do it quite a bit. But some days, I do it so quickly that I might not keyword it appropriately so people can find it. I wanted to get that board up quickly so I could post a blog post in it. 

So...what do you need to spring clean?

Spring Clean Your Pinterest Profile

Take a glance at your Pinterest profile. Does it still reflect your mission or niche? Do your profile picture, description, and boards communicate what you do and whom you serve? If not, make those changes now. 

Have you taken a new picture lately? Change out your profile picture and make sure you change it on your other social media platforms too. Remember - you want consistent profile pictures on all of your social media accounts because it makes a big difference in brand identification.

Update your description with keywords that tell pinners your focus. Something might have changed in the last year about your business, so you want to make sure your profile reflects that. 

Have you created an awesome new freebie? Add the link to your freebie in your profile description. 

Spring Clean Your Pinterest Boards

Scan your Pinterest boards. Now, this part may take a while, depending on how many boards you have. But, I urge you to scan each one of your Pinterest boards. 

If you have any boards that do not reflect who you are and what you're currently doing in your business, make them secret. Don't delete them because you don't want to lose the analytics or followers of that specific board if you have any. Make it secret. BUT, before you do, take a look at your Pinterest analytics.

Analytics -> Overview -> Scroll down to “top boards.” Toggle between impressions, engagements, link clicks, and saves. If that board is in your top boards, do not make it secret because that board is driving traffic to your website, and you don't want to lose that traffic. Consider updating with an additional title (see below) and updated description. 

Look at the board titles. Does the title need to change, or do you need to update it? For example, I had a board titled Squarespace. However, after much thinking, I switched it to Squarespace + Wordpress. Yes, they are two different entities BUT, they both deal with websites and hosting. I'm not a website developer, nor do I create sites for people, but I know that deciding whom you want to be your web host provider is a big deal depending on what your business is, so I chose to combine them and have one board dedicated to those two topics. 

Next, look at your board description. Keywords are important. Update the description of your board with keywords AND hashtags relevant to the topic of your boards and the pins you save in them.

If you need help deciding what you need to name board or what keywords/hashtags - use the Pinterest search feature to assist you with that. 

When you complete a search on Pinterest, you will see what keywords people use to search in Pinterest along with boards that have those keywords, and Pinterest accounts as well. Use the keywords that pop up in your titles and descriptions in a natural way that describe your boards. 

Spring Clean Your Pinterest Account With A Featured Board(s)

You can feature boards on your Pinterest business account in two places. Above your profile name and below your profile name. Here's how to do that if you haven't already. 

How To Choose A Board To Feature Above Your Pinterest Profile Name

Click on the pencil in the top right corner.

Click "choose a board."

Under "feature a board," click the board you want to be featured.

(OR) 

Under "feature pins," choose either the latest pins or recent activity. 

Click done.

My suggestion - choose your brand board under "feature a board." If you selected your brand board, all of YOUR pins are above your Pinterest profile name. But, it is your choice.

How To Choose Boards To Be Featured Below Your Pinterest Profile Name

Click the three dots in the top right-hand corner.

Click edit settings.

Scroll down to the bottom to "featured boards." 

Click on edit

You can pick up to five boards to be featured. It's your choice.

Click the drop-down arrows and choose 1-5 boards to feature. 

Click "save."

Now - above your Pinterest profile name, you should see a selection of pins from the board you chose. And, up under your Pinterest profile name, you should see pins from the boards you selected featured and scrolling on your profile. 

BONUS: Do you want your Pinterest boards to be in a specific order? 

If so... here's what you need to do. 

On your Pinterest profile, click on "see all boards." 

To the right, above your boards, you will see an oval that probably says "last saved to." You can change your board order by clicking on the drop-down arrow. You have five choices: last saved to, A to Z, newest, oldest, or drag and drop. Choose your board order and easy peasy, your boards are in order. 

That's it! Your Pinterest boards are officially spring cleaned! 

Don't want to spring clean your boards yourself? I'd love to do it for you. Click here, and I can audit and spring clean your boards for you. 

If you are looking to stay up to date on everything on Pinterest and get Pinterest marketing tips, follow me on Instagram where I post tips and strategies to help you with your Pinterest business account and skyrocket your Pinterest marketing out of this stratosphere.

Do NOT Be This Pinterest Business Owner!

Why A Business Owner Should Use Pinterest?

1. Grow your email list

2. Increase brand awareness

3. You can sell both products and services

Pinterest is the perfect hybrid of search engine and social media. The algorithm is set up so that if people are searching for a service or product you provide, you will show up in their feed. The algorithm helps you reach people who are looking for you! 

BUT - Don’t Make These Mistakes on Pinterest

#1 DON’T Treat Your “Business Account” like it’s your “Personal Account.”

Always remember that the content in your Pinterest boards is not for YOU.  The pins are for your potential audience, readers and your ideal client. On your personal account it’s okay for your board to be messy, to not have descriptions and for your profile to not be filled out, but your business account should portray a clear idea of what you do and how you can help other people. When thinking about what to pin on your Pinterest business account, always keep your client in mind; put yourself in your client’s shoes. Think: Is this something he/she needs help with? Is this something he/she’s searching for. 

#2 DON’T Create New Pins Every Time You Pin

Creating Pinterest images from scratch every time you pin on Pinterest is not ideal. It takes time and it’s not efficient. Find 3 or 4 designs that work for you that you can use over and over again with minor tweaks and use them every time you pin. Your branded pin images will show a clear picture of who you are and will be a quick way for your regular followers to become familiar with you and they’ll know that your pins provide value. 

RELATED: HOW TO CREATE CLICKABLE PIN IMAGES WITH CANVA

#3 DON’T Forget About Hashtags

Hashtags on Pinterest work the same way as everywhere else and you should definitely use them in your pin descriptions. Pinterest recommends using 1-2 relevant hashtags per description and it’s possible to use even more. Hashtags should be descriptive and specific and relevant to the content you are pinning. 

RELATED: HOW TO STRATEGICALLY USE HASHTAGS ON PINTEREST

#4 DON’T Forget About Keywords

Just like hashtags, keywords are HUGE on Pinterest. Remember, when pinners come to Pinterest, they are SEARCHING for something!!! Your business name, your Pinterest profile and ALL of your pin descriptions need to have relevant keywords. Keywords tell Pinterest what your board is about and what your pin is about. A good rule to follow is to have at least 3-4 keywords in each description. 

RELATED: KEYWORD SEARCH USING THESE 4 EASY TOOLS

#5 DON’T Focus on Vanity Metrics

A common misconception on Pinterest is the higher the monthly viewers and followers, the better. Both of these numbers are vanity metrics. Yes, they’re nice. Yes, it looks nice when someone sees you have one-hundred thousand monthly views. Yes, pinners are “seeing” your pins.  BUT the numbers that are more important are the engagement numbers. All the monthly viewers number means is that Pinterest has put your pin in front of the eyes of that many pinners. It put your pin in their feed and they scrolled by. However, if they are not interacting with her pin: clicking through to your website, saving your pin, or sharing your pin on “their” boards, they are not engaging with your content. You want interaction not just to be seen. Yes, those numbers up into the thousands are nice, but if they are not clicking through to your website, those numbers don’t mean much. 

#6 DON’T Pin Content Not Meant for Your Ideal Client

The purpose of your Pinterest business account is to attract your ideal client. That means you need to pin what your “client” will be looking for - not what YOU need or what YOU will be looking for. The point of your account is to target THEM. If you are a social media manager pinning about recipes - that’s not for your client - that’s for you. When you pin you need to focus on what problem your client is trying to solve? What do they need? What questions are the asking? In addition, share other people’s content. If you only pin and promote “your” stuff - it becomes spammy. So make sure you pin other pinners helpful information too. If you are a new blogger or business owner a good ratio to start with is 80/20. 80% others, 20% yours. As you get more content/products you can increase to 50/50 and then 80% you and 20% theirs. But the most important thing to remember is to provide VALUE! Be the source your ideal client or ideal customer is looking for. That means YOUR content! The faster you can create content to share, the quicker you will get to 80% you and 20% theirs.

#7 DON’T Be An Inactive Pinner

The one thing Pinterest does not like is an inactive pinner. Pinterest wants to see you pinning on a routine basis. They want you to be consistent. This means blogging at least once a week or pinning a product at least once a week. BUT, you need to be pinning something every day!! Pinning only once a month or sharing others content only once a month looks like an inactive account. The number of pins you pin a day is not as important as being consistent and pinning “something” every day. So if you are a new blogger or business owner and you don’t have a lot of content, this is why using Tailwind and Tailwind tribes can help your account stay consistent because as long as you keep your queue full, you’re always pinning, even if it’s only 3-4 times a day and Pinterest will always recognize your account as an active one. 

#8 DON’T Make It Hard For Pinners to Pin From Your Website

The point of Pinterest is to skyrocket your visibility and drive traffic to your website and blog posts. Adding a pin it button (also known as hover button) for your website images makes it easy for your readers to share your posts and images to Pinterest. With a pin button, the user can save your post to their Pinterest board in just a few clicks. It’s a huge save time saver and increases the chance of your pin being saved!

Sooo...do I need to put your Pinterest business account in Pinterest time out? Have you made any of these Pinterest mistakes in regards to your Pinterest business account? If you have, I hope these tips and tricks have helped. 

Do you need help with your Pinterest account? Check out my Pinterest services. I can manage your Pinterest account for as little as $130 per month if you’re a new blogger or new business owner! 

Creating The Perfect Pinterest Business Account: Extras

We have made it to week 6 of the Creating The Perfect Pinterest Business Account blog series. 

Last time we discussed when to pin and the importance of being a consistent pinner on Pinterest. If you missed any of the other previous weeks you can go back and read the previous posts by clicking on the links below. 

Over a six week period I’m going to be sharing everything you need to do to create the Perfect Pinterest business account. 

Week 1 - Creating The Perfect Pinterest Business Account: Getting Set Up

Week 2 - Creating The Perfect Pinterest Business Account: Your Profile

Week 3 - Creating The Perfect Pinterest Business Account: Your Boards

Week 4 - Creating The Perfect Pinterest Business Account: Eye-Catching Pins

Week 5 - Creating The Perfect Pinterest Business Account: When To Pin

Week 6 - Creating The Perfect Pinterest Business Account: Extras

This week is all about Extras!

Who doesn’t love EXTRAS!!!

This is a shortlist of “extra” things you can do to create a perfect Pinterest business account. 

Set Up A Featured Board List On Pinterest

1. Go to your profile

2. Click on the three dots in the top right corner.

3. Click Edit settings

4. Scroll to the bottom

5. Click “edit” featured boards

6. Pick up to 5 boards to feature

7. Click Save

Get A Tailwind Account

Tailwind is a Pinterest approved scheduling tool that allows you to schedule your pins to Pinterest. Instead of spending all day long posting your blog posts to Pinterest, you can use Tailwind and schedule out all of your pins for the day, week or month! Click here and get a free one month trial (100 pins). 

Join Tailwind Tribes

Tailwind Tribes are groups of bloggers on Pinterest who are in a similar niche. They come together as a “tribes” to share and promote each other’s pins. You can join a Tailwind Tribe and share other people’s content (queue them up in your scheduled pins) while others are also able to share your content. The more people who see your pins, the more repins your pins can get. You can join 5 tribes for free with the basic account. 

Related: How To Use Tailwind With Pinterest

Curate Your Pinterest Home Feed

When you log into Pinterest and go to your home page, the pins that show up there are curated based on the latest activity, boards, and favorite topics. If you begin to see pins you’re not interested in, you can do the following steps. 

1. Click on the three dots in the top right corner

2. Click “tune your home feed”

3. Turn “off and on” the recommendations in the last column and that will help curate your home feed with pins you want to see. 

4. Once you’re done, go back to your home page. 

Related: Why You Can’t Afford To Ignore Pinterest

A Few More Tips For Your Pinterest Business Account

• Follow at least 50 niche relevant pinners (after you follow those 50, try to follow at least 2-3 new people every week

• Don’t focus on vanity metrics - focus on engagement, saves, and click-throughs to your website

• Create Board covers. It is not necessary but if you want them - create a square image related to your board using your brand colors

Well, that’s all folks!  

If you followed all of the steps from the last 5 weeks, you should have a FABULOUS Pinterest business account.  

This was week 6 of the Creating The Perfect Pinterest Business Account series! Again, if you missed weeks 1 through 5, you can click on the links above to read about how to set up your Pinterest business account. 

Hop on over to Instagram and tell me in the comments if you’ve successfully gotten started on Pinterest. 

Also, please pin this blog post on your Pinterest business account, I’d sure appreciate it. 

Want Help Planning Your Pinterest Pinning Strategy? Schedule a Pinterest Strategy session with me here. I’d love to help. 

Xoxo

Raquell

Creating The Perfect Pinterest Business Account - When To Pin

Affiliate Disclaimer: This blog post may contain affiliate links where I earn a commission if you sign up through them. However this in no way affects my recommendation. If I recommended it, I have actually used this tool and highly recommend it.

We have made it to week 5 of the Creating The Perfect Pinterest Business Account blog series. 

Last time we discussed the fact that you need Eye Catching pins to attract your ideal client and the importance of creating pins on a regular and consistent basis for your new AND old pins. If you missed any of the other previous weeks you can go back and read the previous posts by clicking on the links below. 

Over a six week period I’ve been sharing everything you need to do to create the Perfect Pinterest business account. 

Week 1 - Creating The Perfect Pinterest Business Account: Getting Set Up

Week 2 - Creating The Perfect Pinterest Business Account: Your Profile

Week 3 - Creating The Perfect Pinterest Business Account: Your Boards

Week 4 - Creating The Perfect Pinterest Business Account: Eye-Catching Pins

Week 5 - Creating The Perfect Pinterest Business Account: When To Pin

Week 6 - Creating The Perfect Pinterest Business Account: Extras

This week is all about When To Pin! 

Are you ready? 

There is no "magic number" of pins you should be pin every day. 

Gasp! 

Yep, I said it. 

The most important thing you need to remember about pinning on Pinterest is that you need to pin consistently...EVERY DAY! 

No one can really tell you that you should pin 5 times a day or 30 times a day because it really all depends on your blog and your audience and your niche and your TRAFFIC!  

If you’re a new blogger there’s no way you can pin 30 times a day because you don’t have that much content. 

Now, I’m not going to tell you that pinning 30 times a day isn’t fabulous...because it is!!! But YOUR goals with Pinterest should dictate how much you pin. 

So...let’s get into it. 

Pin Consistently Every Day

The number of pins you pin per day will start with a low number if you are new to blogging and Pinterest, but it SHOULD grow over time.  Start off with 3-5 pins every day. Then, when you are blogging regularly and your traffic starts to grow, increase that to 5-10, 11-20, 21-30 pins per day. 

That’s A LOT! 

I know it is and it’s scary to think about pinning that much and being on Pinterest that much. However, there’s a handy tool you can use that will help you with those numbers and I’ll get into that later. Once you’re pinning into the high numbers and you have a steady stream of traffic, you can back off that number. Why? Because if you’ve built up a following, no matter how many times you pin, your audience is going to come back to YOUR pins because they trust you. THIS is when you can decrease the number of pins you pin to Pinterest. But if you’re just getting started and you’re trying to increase the amount of traffic that visits your website, you need to pin A LOT! 

Remember, Pinterest likes consistency. Start low, increase in increments and once you gain a consistent following, you can decrease the number of pins (if you want to). 

Manual Pinning vs. Scheduled Pinning

If you’re going to manually pin, come up with a ratio that is good for your schedule. A person who pins 30 times per day can pin 10 pins in the morning and 10 pins in the afternoon, and 10 pins in the evening at a minimum of 6 days per week. The worst thing you can do is pin all your pins on one day and at one time and then ignore Pinterest the rest of the week. 

Consistency means pinning every day and at different times of the day because you don’t want to seem spammy! 

You should also experiment with what times work best for you. When are you getting the most traffic to your website? THIS is when you should upload a good majority of your pins. If you get a lot of traffic at noon and a lot of traffic in the evening, split your pinning up between those two times. Check your Google Analytics regularly to find out the high time visitors are on your site.  

If you are going to use a scheduler, then I recommend Tailwind. Tailwind is a Pinterest approved third party scheduler. With Tailwind you can schedule ALL of your pins based on their algorithm recommended times or times you select. You also get the benefit of Tailwind tribes that you can add your pin to (other people will share your pins) and the Tailwind SmartLoop (where your evergreen pins can be scheduled on an on-going basis as long as you’re a member of Tailwind). 

If you want to try Tailwind out, click here, and you can get your first month (100 pins) of Tailwind free. If you need help with Tailwind set up, I offer this as a service. Click here if you’d like me to set it all up for you. 

How To Pin Your First Pinterest Pin

The FIRST copy of a pin from your blog should be uploaded from your blog and pinned to the most relevant niche board you’ve created and your own (a personal board, not a group board) in Pinterest. The first pin from any blog post, (the first time you introduce any pin to Pinterest), should go to a broad but niche specific board. 

After that, you'll pin it to your other relevant personal boards and relevant group boards (spread out over a period of time - not all at the same time). But ALWAYS ALWAYS pin it to YOUR most relevant niche board first. 

Share Other Pinterest Content In Your Niche

When a pinner is on Pinterest their main goal is to “curate” content. They want to find the most information they can about a specific topic. Your goal is to help them curate that content by pinning relevant content from third parties (content that is not your own, but still in your niche) to your boards.  

It is very important to pin RELEVANT third party content to your boards. It helps the board gain context and Pinterest will know what that board is about. 

If you start a new board called "Scarves", then do a search on Pinterest for scarves, and pin a few of the top results to your board. Pinterest ALREADY thinks those pins are about scarves, so when you put those pins on your board, you are teaching Pinterest that YOUR board is about scarves as well.  

After you sign up for Pinterest you will begin to receive emails from Pinterest where they suggest items for you to pin. Pin those items to your boards as well. It further assures the algorithm of what your content is about. 

Include At Least 3 Hashtags for Every Pinterest Pin

When you pin a new pin to Pinterest, you can now add hashtags just like you do on Instagram. However, you should only use about 2-5 very niche hashtags (including a hashtag specific to you).  

If you can't find a hashtag that's exactly what your pin is about, add hashtags that will attract the same audience.

Pinterest wants you to introduce new content to its platform weekly, if not daily. The benefit of having lots of old content is that new pins for the old content count as fresh content. However, the best kind of content is new posts that have just been published and they tend to do better on the algorithm. 

If you don't have time to post new blog posts every few days, make new pins for old posts and try to create brand new content at least once a week. By creating new pins for old content, and creating new weekly content, this means you a lot of pins circulating and bringing in traffic. You never know when one will go VIRAL! 

RELATED: How To Strategically Use Hashtags On Pinterest

Keyword Rich Descriptions

Remember, keyword-rich descriptions are important when describing your pins. I mentioned in week 3 how important it is to create descriptive and keyworded titles for your boards. This is equally important for each one of your pins. When you create your pins you will be allowed to describe what your pin is about! Don’t skimp on this section. Describe in detail what your pin is about using at least 2-3 keywords your ideal client will search for on Pinterest and also include a branded hashtag for your pin. For example, I include the hashtag #skyrocketvirtualsolutions with each one of my hashtags in addition to 2-3 descriptive hashtags. 

RELATED: Keyword Search Using 4 Easy Tools

Well, that’s all for this week! 

If you followed all of these steps, you should be ready and know how and when to pin on Pinterest. 

Next week is our last week so come back and get a TON of extras that will help you with your Pinterest pinning strategy. 

This was week 5 of the Creating The Perfect Pinterest Business Account series! Again, if you missed weeks 1 through 4, you can click on the links above to read about how to set up your Pinterest business account. 

Hop on over to Instagram and tell me in the comments if you successfully gotten started on Pinterest. 

Also, please pin me on your Pinterest business account, I’d sure appreciate it. 

Want Help Planning Your Pinterest Pinning Strategy? Schedule a Pinterest Strategy session with me here. I’d love to help. 

Creating The Perfect Pinterest Business Account: Eye Catching Pins

Affiliate Disclaimer: This blog post may contain affiliate links where I earn a commission if you sign up through them. However this in no way affects my recommendation. If I recommended it, I have actually used this tool and highly recommend it.

We have made it to week 4 of the Creating The Perfect Pinterest Business Account blog series. 

Last week we discussed the fact that your Pinterest boards are what brings your ideal customer or client to your Pinterest profile. If you missed any of the other previous weeks you can go back and read how to set up your Pinterest business account and how to optimize your Pinterest profile. 

Over a six week period I’m going to be sharing everything you need to do to create the Perfect Pinterest business account. 

Week 1 - Creating The Perfect Pinterest Business Account: Getting Set Up

Week 2 - Creating The Perfect Pinterest Business Account: Your Profile

Week 3 - Creating The Perfect Pinterest Business Account: Your Boards

Week 4 - Creating The Perfect Pinterest Business Account: Eye Catching Pins

Week 5 - Creating The Perfect Pinterest Business Account: When To Pin

Week 6 - Creating The Perfect Pinterest Business Account: Extras

This week is all about your Eye Catching Pins! 

Creating clickable pins on a regular basis is a must with Pinterest. Part of your on-going Pinterest strategy should include creating pins...for your new pins AND your old pins on a continual basis. 

So let’s talk about creating Eye Catching Pins for your Pinterest Business Account. 

Pinterest “Pin” Graphics Should Be Vertical and Have a 2:3 Ratio

The ideal pin size for a Pinterest graphic is 2x3 / 600px X 900px. You can make longer pins if you feel the need to do so, but do NOT make them smaller than this. This size is ideal for people who are looking at a pin on their computer or on a mobile device. 

Create a Minimum of 3 Pins for Each Blog Post/Product/Recipe 

Every pin is not going to appeal to everyone. Remember, Pinterest is a “visual search engine” so how your pin looks at a first glance is what’s going to appeal to your ideal client. In addition, creating more than one pin allows you to test out different phrases/titles and pictures, especially if you decide to promote a pin. 

Text Overlay is Easily Readable (especially for mobile)

Make sure the text you include on your pin is easily readable and is in direct contrast to the images on your pin. Don’t use “light” text on a “light” background or “dark” text against a dark background because it will make your pin very hard to read. You want your text to “pop” on the image so it will draw the eye. 

Name Your Images with Keywords

When you upload your images to your website make sure you name the image with a keyword similar to what you are blogging about or what your product is. Don’t leave the image name as “image101.”  You want your pin to show up on Pinterest AND Google and naming your images helps with this. 

All Pins Need to Lead to a Post/Landing Page/Product - NOT your Homepage

I can not stress this enough. Everything you pin to Pinterest needs to lead to a SPECIFIC blog post, landing page, or product page. NOT YOUR HOME PAGE!!! Pinterest likes NEW content. If everything you pin sends pinners to your homepage that is NOT new content. Pinterest is going to think it is more of the same (or spam) and will not push your pins to the front of the “feed” so make sure you link your pin to the exact page the content is located. Plus, you don’t want pinners who actually want to read your content to go to a page that does not contain the information or product they are looking for. Nothing irritates me more than clicking on a pin to read about something and the link takes me somewhere else. Pinners will lose trust in you if you do that.  

Use Your Brand Colors and/or Logo and/or Website URL on Each Pin

When you create a pin, you want to use your brand colors on every pin. EVERY PIN!!! You picked those colors for a reason. They mean something to you. So, use them in your marketing. On Facebook, Instagram, and Pinterest - use your brand colors so YOU stand out from the crowd. “Your” tribe will recognize pins that belong to you. A good idea for Pinterest pins is to create mock-ups that you can alter each time you create pins so it won’t take you an enormous amount of time because creating different pins each time you post a blog can be time consuming. But, if you find 4-6 designs you really like (or get someone to create them for you OR buy a bundle you can use over and over IT WILL SAVE YOU TIME!!! I brought this great bundle from Melissa LeMay (The Graphic.Maven) for $25 and it’s all I use now (this is NOT an affiliate link - I just really like her designs). So if you have a creative design flair and can do it yourself, create about 4-6 mock-ups you can use OR find someone to create them for you OR buy a bundle of pins from a graphic artist or a Pinterest Manager who includes creating pins in their packages (like me). 

In addition, include your logo or your website url on every pin. Again, this is about branding and getting pinners used to seeing your content and what you put out. Do not leave this step out. 

That’s all for this week! 

If you followed all of these steps, you should have everything you need to create Eye Catching Pins! 

Next week we will talk about When To Pin to your Pinterest Business Account! 

This is week 4 of the Creating The Perfect Pinterest Business Account series! Again, if you missed any of the previous weeks you can go to any of the links below to read about Getting Set Up, what to include in your Pinterest Profile, and how to set up your Pinterest Boards. 

Week 1 - Creating The Perfect Pinterest Business Account: Getting Set Up

Week 2 - Creating The Perfect Pinterest Business Account: Your Profile

Week 3 - Creating The Perfect Pinterest Business Account: Your Boards

Hop on over to Instagram and let me know how it’s going. 

Also, please pin me on your Pinterest business account, I’d sure appreciate it. 

Want Help With Your Pinterest Pinning Strategy? Schedule a Pinterest Strategy Session with me here. I’d love to help. 

Creating The Perfect Pinterest Business Account - Your Boards

Affiliate Disclaimer: This blog post may contain affiliate links where I earn a commission if you sign up through them. However this in no way affects my recommendation. If I recommended it, I have actually used this tool and highly recommend it.

We have made it to week 3 of the Creating The Perfect Pinterest Business Account blog series. 

Last week we discussed setting up your Pinterest Profile. If you missed that blog post you can go here to read all about Creating The Perfect Pinterest Business Account: Your Profile and you can go here to read all about Getting Set Up. 

Over a six week period I’m going to be sharing everything you need to do to create the Perfect Pinterest business account. 

Week 1 - Creating The Perfect Pinterest Business Account: Getting Set Up

Week 2 - Creating The Perfect Pinterest Business Account: Your Profile

Week 3 - Creating The Perfect Pinterest Business Account: Your Boards

Week 4 - Creating The Perfect Pinterest Business Account: Eye Catching Pins

Week 5 - Creating The Perfect Pinterest Business Account: When To Pin

Week 6 - Creating The Perfect Pinterest Business Account: Extras

This week is all about your Your Boards. 

The content in your Pinterest boards is what brings your ideal client or customer to Pinterest business account. The title of your board or the keywords you use to describe your board is very important because it is how you will be found when pinners search. 

So let’s get to it. 

Create a Brand Board

The first board you need to create when you begin your Pinterest business account is a brand board. This brand board is for your content and your content only!!! You will never save anyone else’s content to this board. You may even have a case where you might have more than one brand board. If you blog AND you sell products, create a brand board for each. 

Create 10-15 Boards Relevant to Your Audience

Before you begin creating boards for your Pinterest business account, take some time and think about your target audience/client. Why does your target audience use Pinterest? What are they searching for? These are the types of boards you need to create for your account. Even if you never create a blog post or product related to that board (you should though), you need to have that board on your account. Remember, a user on Pinterest is curating content!!! They are searching for things to buy AND save to come back to. You want them to come back to YOUR boards and if they know YOUR board has the best content, it will keep them coming back. 

Personal Pinterest Boards Need to be Secret on a Business Account

Better yet, you need a separate personal Pinterest account altogether. Have you ever heard of the phrase “going down the rabbit hole.” If you combine your personal account with your business account, you could end up there once you log on and see your Pinterest feed. However, if you don’t want the headache of having two accounts, then any personal board you create needs to be secret. The purpose of your Pinterest business account is to attract your ideal client/customer. A board on your account called “fall scarves” when you are a Social Media Manager doesn’t fit and is not why your ideal client is seeking out content on your account. It’s going to stand out. So do yourself a favor and have a seperate Pinterest account for your personal use, or, make all of your personal boards secret. 

Each Pinterest Board Needs a Minimum of 10 Pins

Before you make any of your boards “open” to the public, they need at least 10 relevant pins inside the board. This content does not have to be all of your content. It may not even be ANY of your content in the beginning, but you need to have a minimum of 10 pins before you make it public. You do not want empty boards on your business account. 

Create Descriptive and Keyworded Titles for Each Pinterest Board.

I can not stress this enough. 

Descriptions and keywords matter. 

It is how you are found on Pinterest. Always remember that Pinterest is a visual search engine. The titles you come up for your boards is important. Scarves for example is a very broad topic. But “red scarves” or “winter scarves” or “plaid scarves” is more descriptive. If I’m looking for a purple scarf for a black and purple outfit, as a Pinterest user I’m going to search for “purple scarf” not just scarf so think about that when you create your boards. 

READ: Keyword Search Using 4 Easy Tools

Create Descriptive and Keyworded Descriptions for Each Pinterest Board

I’m going to say it again…

Descriptions and keywords matter. 

When you create your board, there is a section that allows you to describe what you board is about! Don’t skimp on this section. Describe in detail what your board is about using at least 2-3 keywords your ideal client will search for on Pinterest. 

Well that’s all for this week! 

If you followed all of these steps, you should have optimized and perfectly keyworded Pinterest boards with about 10-15 Pinterest boards that exemplify your Pinterest business account so your ideal client can find you on Pinterest. 

Next week we will talk about Creating EYE CATCHING PINS for your Pinterest Business Account!

This was week 3 of the Creating The Perfect Pinterest Business Account series! Again, if you missed week 1 or 2, you can go here or here to read about how to set up your Pinterest business account and your Pinterest profile. 

Hop on over to Instagram and tell me in the comments if you successfully set up your Pinterest business account and profile. 

Also, please pin me on your Pinterest business account, I’d sure appreciate it. 

Want Help Planning Your Pinterest Pinning Strategy? Schedule a Pinterest Strategy session with me here. I’d love to help. 

Creating The Perfect Pinterest Business Account: Your Profile

Affiliate Disclaimer: This blog post may contain affiliate links where I earn a commission if you sign up through them. However this in no way affects my recommendation. If I recommended it, I have actually used this tool and highly recommend it.

Hey! You’re back and that is AWESOME! Thank you so much! 

Last week we discussed setting up your Pinterest business account. If you missed that blog post you can go here to read all about Creating The Perfect Pinterest Business Account: Getting Set Up! 

Over the next six weeks I’m going to be sharing everything you need to do to create the Perfect Pinterest business account. 

Week 1 - Creating The Perfect Pinterest Business Account: Getting Set Up

Week 2 - Creating The Perfect Pinterest Business Account: Your Profile

Week 3 - Creating The Perfect Pinterest Business Account: Your Boards

Week 4 - Creating The Perfect Pinterest Business Account: Eye Catching Pins

Week 5 - Creating The Perfect Pinterest Business Account: When To Pin

Week 6 - Creating The Perfect Pinterest Business Account: Extras

This week is all about your Pinterest Profile. 

Your Pinterest Profile is the first thing your potential ideal client or customer is going to see when they find your profile on Pinterest so having the perfect Pinterest profile is very important! 

So let’s get right to it. 

Pinterest Profile Photo

You can use either your business logo or a picture for your profile photo. Some people are of the mind that you should use your picture because it’s more personal, but I believe it’s truly up to you what you use. I use my logo. 

Here’s someone else who uses their picture. 

You choose what is best for you. 

Pinterest Bio

Your Pinterest bio should state your mission (what you do and who you help). It should include a call to action (link to a lead magnet or your website). In addition, it should be keyword optimized with a minimum of 2-3 keywords about your business. 

Here are some examples! 

Because you claimed your website last week when you created your Pinterest business account, your Pinterest business account will automatically have a link to your website (see all of the profiles above).

Keyword Your Pinterest Profile

I can not stress enough how important it is to include those 2-3 keywords in your profile description. Remember, Pinterest is a visual search engine…

Let me say that again. 

Pinterest is a SEARCH ENGINE!!! 

That means it relies heavily on keywords to provide their users with the optimal experience to find what they are looking for. That means you need to include keywords in your profile so that pinners can find YOU!! 

Now don’t get me wrong, I don’t want you to flood your profile description with a bunch of keywords. 

Do.  Not. Do.  That. 

Please don’t do that. 

So, put a spark in your creative juices and come up with a beautiful, creative way to describe your business, in natural sentences, using keywords. 

Well that’s all for this week folks! 

If you followed all of these steps, you should have a perfect Pinterest Profile set up for your Pinterest Business Account. 

Next week we will talk about Creating The Perfect BOARDS for your Pinterest Business Account!

This has been week 2 of the Creating The Perfect Pinterest Business Account series! Again, if you missed week 1, you can go here and read about how to set up your Pinterest business account. 

Hop on over to Instagram and tell me in the comments if you successfully set up your Pinterest Profile. 

Also, please pin me on your Pinterest business account, I’d sure appreciate it. 

Want Help Planning Your Pinterest Pinning Strategy?

Schedule a Pinterest Strategy session with me here. I’d love to help. 

Creating The Perfect Pinterest Business Account: Getting Set Up

Affiliate Disclaimer: This blog post may contain affiliate links where I earn a commission if you sign up through them. However this in no way affects my recommendation. If I recommended it, I have actually used this tool and highly recommend it.

Getting started with Pinterest can be overwhelming for business owners if you’ve never used Pinterest before or if you’re used to utilizing Pinterest personally. 

A Pinterest business account is completely different from a personal one. On your personal account it’s okay to pin about that shade of lipstick you want to buy or that recipe you want try next Thanksgiving. All of those pins are for you!

And that’s okay.

Keep your personal Pinterest account so you can continue to pin the things you like for your personal life. However, a Pinterest business account is not for you!

It’s for your ideal client.

It’s for your target market.

It’s for the pinner who wants to buy your product or service. So, pinning about that scarf you want to buy your sister for Christmas is not for your business account. 

Over the next six weeks I’m going to be sharing everything you need to do to create the Perfect Pinterest business account. 

Week 1 - Creating The Perfect Pinterest Business Account: Getting Set Up

Week 2 - Creating The Perfect Pinterest Business Account: Your Profile

Week 3 - Creating The Perfect Pinterest Business Account: Your Boards

Week 4 - Creating The Perfect Pinterest Business Account: Eye Catching Pins

Week 5 - Creating The Perfect Pinterest Business Account: When To Pin

Week 6 - Creating The Perfect Pinterest Business Account: Extras

For week one I want to talk about getting set up on Pinterest for a business account. 

Before you start, come up with a title that includes the name of your business and at least one niche keyword. If the name of your business does not include what you do, then tell people what you do in the title as well. 

Once you come up with your name, you’re ready to create your Pinterest Business account. 

Create A Pinterest Business Account

Creating a “business account” is important because a business account allows you access to seeing analytics, it allows you to confirm your website, you can promote pins, pin buyable links and enable Rich pins for your account (more about that later). Also, Pinterest terms of service requires you to have a business account if you are going to pin as a business. 

Go here and follow the directions to create your Pinterest business account.

Claim Your Pinterest Website

Go here and follow the directions to claim your website. 

Once you verify your website, you will have access to the analytics of all of your pins. This is very important because it helps you with marketing. 

Note: Make sure you follow the directions for your specific website host. It might require extra steps. 

Enable Rich Pins for Your Pinterest Business Account

This is where the fun begins. Rich Pins allows Pinterest to show extra details about your Pins.

There are three types of pins: product, article, and recipe. Product pins allow your customer to see exactly how much your product is and information about the pin right on the pin. Article pins and Recipe pins automatically update if and when you update the pin. 

Go here and follow the directions to enable rich pins. 

Well, there ya go! 

If you followed all of these beginning steps, you have successfully set up your Pinterest Business Account. 

Next week we will tackle:

Creating The Perfect Pinterest Business Account Profile!

This is week 1 of Creating The Perfect Pinterest Business Account !

Hop on over to Instagram and tell me in the comments if you successfully set up your Pinterest Business Account. 

Please pin me on your Pinterest business account. 

Want Help Planning Your Pinterest Pinning Strategy?

Schedule a Pinterest Strategy session with me here. I’d love to help. 

Xoxo

Raquell

What is Pinterest Marketing

Affiliate Disclaimer: This blog post may contain affiliate links where I earn a commission if you sign up through them. However this in no way affects my recommendation. If I recommended it, I have actually used this tool and highly recommend it.

Pinterest marketing is using Pinterest as a tool to increase awareness about your business. Pinterest marketing is not just for bloggers. It’s also for small business owners, entrepreneurs and online business owners who want to increase their online presence. Pinterest was created to drive organic traffic back to your website to help increase awareness of your brand or business.

Pinterest is a search engine, but it is unique in that it is a visual search engine that allows users to share visual content, similar to Instagram. However, every Pin can be linked back to your website or other content. It doesn’t matter what product or service you are selling, you can always use Pinterest to make more people aware of your business and lead them to buying from you.

Pinterest users typically use the platform to save ideas and products they want to  remember or come back to later. Pinterest is for planners. Planning for Christmas. Planning for Thanksgiving. Planning for a Trip. Planning for a party. 

You get the picture. 

Pinners use it to bookmark articles or blog posts they want to read later. 

Pinterest is for inspiration, research and buying!

When you use Pinterest for marketing, the idea is to tell your followers that YOU are the go-to business to find useful and reliable information.

So, let’s get down to it. 

I am not going to reinvent the wheel. There are a LOT of other bloggers who have already written great articles about how to do a lot of these things so if you need help in setting any of this up - go read their blog post (it will be linked) and then come back here to finish up reading so you don’t miss any of these valuable steps. 

15 Strategic Ways To Market Your Business On Pinterest

1. Set Up Your Pinterest Business Account

2. Claim Your Website

3. Determine who your Pinterest audience is.

   1. Ask yourself these questions: Who is my ideal client? What are they looking for on Pinterest? Who do I want to serve? 

   2. Once you answer these questions, use this as inspiration when you create your boards, products, blog about, and what you Pin on Pinterest. 

4. Get familiar with Keywords (SEO for Pinterest)

   1. Research keywords

   2. Add keywords to your pin titles

   3. Add keywords to your descriptions

   4. Add keywords to your image file names before uploading 

5. Create Pinnable Images

   1. Pinterest images should be long and narrow to take up the maximum amount of visual space and get noticed! I use Canva to create my pin images. They are 735 pixels by 1102 pixels. 

6. Create 10-20 Pinterest Boards

   1. Think about your business and come up with a minimum of 10 boards you can create. Ideally, you should have 20 but if you can come up with 10, you should be good to get your account started. 

   2. Use keywords in your board titles and make sure you select a category for each board to help people find it and so Pinterest will recommend your board as well.

   3. Inside each board, you want to pin a minimum of 10 pins. Those first 10 pins on the board should be top quality and evergreen in nature. In addition, the first pin you pin to the board should be a blog article written by you or a link to one of your products. But always remember, these pins should be relevant, valuable, and useful

7. Enable Rich Pins

   1. There are five types of Rich Pins: movie, recipe, article, product, and place.

   2. When you apply for Rich Pins, it gives you real-time information about your pins which helps you direct more people to your site.

8. Pin YOUR Content

   1. Use keywords in your descriptions. 

   2. Link your pin back to your website or blog

   3. On your website, include a pinnable image on each blog post

9. Repin others Content

   1. Remember the goal of YOUR board is to make sure your users know that YOU are the go-to board for relevant, valuable, and useful content. This content should include yours AND others.  

10. Share your pins and boards on your other social media. 

11. Post frequently 

    1. You should post between 5-30 new pins to your boards every day. This means your own unique content and repinning the content of others

    2. Warning! Do NOT pin all 30 new pins within a 5-minute span. Spread your pinning throughout the day. You can use a schedular like Tailwind to help you with this. 

    3. Click this link and get a free month of Tailwind. (This is an affiliate link. That means I will receive a small commission at no extra cost to you.

12. Follow other boards in the same niche

13. Watch your analytics (Pinterest, Tailwind and Google). 

    1. If you have not set up Google Analytics for your website DO IT NOW!! Google Analytics gives you a really good measure of who visits your website. 

14. When you’re ready, try using Promoted Pins

15. Use a Call To Action Pin

    1. Just like a call to action on a social media post, include a call to PIN. For example: pin this for later!

Pin This For Later

There you have it! If you’ve read to the end of this blog post and followed all of these steps AND read the other blog posts/pages I’ve linked, you should be all set to market on Pinterest. However, if you have read through all of this and you still feel overwhelmed, please reach out to me and I would be more than happy to set up your Pinterest Business account and/or Tailwind to get you started.  As a Pinterest VA (Manager) I provide a one-time fee for Pinterest and Tailwind set up and I also provide monthly management services. You can see my prices here. 

See you on Pinterest! 

Xoxo

Raquell