Sep 1
Today I’m going to share with you how to set up and optimize your Pinterest for business account. If you are a service provider or blogger you need this for your business. Pinterest is a fantastic tool for growing your business and/or blog. There are a ton of benefits for getting your business account set up and implementing an effective Pinterest strategy. Here is what you will learn….. So let’s get started..
- Create a Pinterest for Business Account
- Claim your website and social media accounts
- Enable Rich Pins
- Optimize your Profile
- Create Boards for your Ideal Audience
- Research Targeted Keywords
- Designing click worthy pins
Create A Business Account on Pinterest
There are a couple of ways to create your business account on Pinterest. The first way is to convert your personal account to a business account, or you can create a new business account. I would not recommend creating a business account under the umbrella of your personal account though.
First thing to do is head to Pinterest.com(Marketing on Pinterest | Pinterest Business) and click on create a free business account. This will walk you through the setup process for your new Pinterest Business account.
Claim your Website
Claiming your website for your Pinterest for Business account involves adding a piece of HTML code or a HTML file to your website. There are a couple of different ways you can do this and, luckily, they don’t involve any coding skills!
My favorite way to claim a website with Pinterest is using a WordPress plugin called Yoast SEO.
It is a plugin that I recommend having on your website even if you weren’t using it for this step, but even more so it makes enabling rich pins (Action 3 in our 3 Cs) super easy!
Okay, so let’s go through the steps to claim your website with Pinterest…
Step 1: Get your HTML tag from Pinterest
While logged into your Pinterest account, select “Edit Settings” from the drop-down menu (the 3 horizontal dots found in the top right-hand corner of your screen). Then click on “Claim” from the left side menu.
Enter your website’s URL in the “Claim your website” box provided and then hit the “Claim” button (it will light up red after you add your URL).
Then select “Add HTML tag” from the options provided and hit “Next”.
Pinterest will then generate a HTML tag just for your site (see below). If you are using the Yoast SEO plugin to claim your website, then you will only need the section of code in between the speech brackets after content= (so in this example, you would need the code starting with 7 and ending with b).
Copy this code and head to your WordPress dashboard.
Step 2: Add your HTML tag to Yoast SEO
After you have installed and activated your Yoast SEO plugin, head to the Yoast SEO dashboard from the left-hand side menu and select the “Social” tab.
You can fill out your social media links here but they are not necessary for claiming your website with Pinterest.
Next, head to the Facebook tab and ensure “Add Open Graph meta data” is enabled. (If not, select “Enabled” and then hit the “Save changes” button.)
From there, go to the Pinterest tab and paste in the code you copied from Pinterest into the “Pinterest confirmation” box. Once entered, hit the “Save changes” button.
Step 3: Head back to Pinterest to finish claiming your website
All that’s left to do now is head back to Pinterest and select “Next” and then “Submit”.
Pinterest will check your site and activate your claim once it sees you’ve added the HTML code. If everything was okay, you’ll see a globe icon with a tick in front of it to indicate your website has been claimed.
Enable Rich Pins
Rich Pins are an important part of your Pinterest marketing strategy! They give important data about your blog posts and content that help you rank in Pinterest search. In this blog post, I’m sharing how to use the Rich Pin Validator and how to enable Rich Pins on your website in only a few minutes!
Let’s activate those rich pins! The easiest way to do this is to grab the URL of a BLOG post (do not grab your home page URL) and enter it in the Rich Pin Validator here (and click enter):
When you are successful, it should look like the image above! If it doesn’t work, check to make sure that you are using a blog post and not your home page URL. If you are activating a product pin, be sure the quantity and/or price of the product is pulling properly.
(Side note, Rich Pins can sometimes take some time to be activated and have been known to glitch. It is still worthwhile to activate them using the validator.)
*link to your blog post that is dedicated to rich pins
Optimizing Your Pinterest Profile
When it comes to your Pinterest profile the number one thing is to optimize it to reach your target audience. This allows your target audience to find you by simply searching a few keywords. The most common mistake I see business owners make on Pinterest is not creating a profile to target their ideal customer.
There are three ways to effectively optimize your profile to attract your target audience.
- Fill out your Bio completely
- Place keywords in your profile name and description
- Profile photo of yourself is highly recommended.
Conduct Basic Keyword Research
Keyword research is when you actively look for the words your audience is searching for with regards to products, services or general information to solve their problem.
Keep reading as I will explain the types of keywords in more detail a little bit further on!
First option is to use the search bar within Pinterest. Start typing in a keyword you think your ideal audience would use to search for what they are looking for. Within Pinterest it will give you alternatives to that keyword. For example if you are researching Airbnb Interior design, you’ll notice other keywords that people are searching for will pop up here. See below image.
Once you hit search for the category you typed in, relevant posts to your search topic will pop up. If you scroll down, you might run into more related search keywords that appear similarly to in the image below. Overall, your goal should be to find about 10-20 keywords per subcategory.
The second place to look is trends.pinterest.com. Here you type one of your categories into the search engine, and the results are words/phrases that are most commonly searched for by people looking for your topic. Trends also lets you compare your keywords, seeing which ones are used more often, and when are the most popular times that people search them. For example, when I type in Airbnb Decor, the suggested keyword I get is Airbnb Ideas decor and airbnb decor room ideas, along with other related keywords.
Review Current Boards
Look over your current Pinterest boards if you’ve converted a personal account to business and hide irrelevant boards to your business. Create business specific boards that speak to your ideal customer. You’ll want to create 7-10 of these boards and make sure to include keywords in your board descriptions. Needing ideas on how to create boards for your business check out this blog post.
Create Click Worthy Pins
Optimizing pins: using the correct size, keywords in pin titles/descriptions
Pins are the images or videos that make up your Pinterest Boards. Want more Visits to your brand? Make sure that your pins are the correct size.
The optimal pin size is 1,000px by 1,500px, or a 2:3 ratio.
Also, a very important step is adding your keywords into the Pin titles and descriptions. This will help your pins rank higher on Pinterest when people are searching.
Follow me on Instagram and feel free to tag me when you’ve created your Pinterest profile.
