Pinterest SEO: 9 Tips To Rank At the Top of Pinterest Search

Intro

While the greatest part of the Internet users is spending their time on TikTok, other platforms seem like something from the middle age. Pinterest is one of them. But if marketers don’t use a particular social platform in their daily life, it doesn’t mean that their target audience does the same. That is why many effective marketing strategies are often overlooked. To make sure that you reach your audience effectively, make decisions based on data rather than feelings.

Let's take a look at Pinterest’s statistics. Pinterest’s audience counted roughly 400 million monthly users worldwide. As of 2022, the majority of these users are women in the 25 to 34. In fact, 80% of Pinterest users are interested in the home and garden, food and drinks, DIY, and crafts categories. Over two-thirds of total Pinterest’s audiences live in the USA. Does the data coincide with existing information that you already have? Then your brand is supposed to be on Pinterest. And this guide will help you make the most of it.

If you want to take advantage of Pinterest search, you need to gain visibility there. It’s known that organic search is the only way how people discover relevant content there. So, users should be able to discover your content in Pinterest search to engage with it and get involved with your brand. That is why Pinterest search optimization is a crucial part of your brand content marketing. Let’s dive into how Pinterest search works, and how exactly you should use this platform to grow your brand.

That's why we found an expert Guide created by Osborne Digital Marketing, an award winning SEO agency to help you rank your local electrical company higher in Google.

How does Pinterest search work?

Many people consider Pinterest as a social media platform, but it’s not. Pinterest is a visual content discovery engine. The only reason people visit Pinterest is to find some extraordinary ideas and inspiration, not to stay in touch with their friends and connect with new people. There are even no chats, comments sections or any other ways to communicate with other users on Pinterest. Pinterest might be very useful at social media marketing purposes.

So, now you know why people use this platform. Let’s discover how Pinterest search works. Actually, the entire Pinterest is driven by a search bar that’s located at the top of the page. It’s similar to Google’s image search results interface. That’s why the only way to find the content you need there is to use the Pinterest search bar. Suppose you’re looking for a pasta recipe. You should tap that phrase on a Pinterest search to get numerous pasta recipe images to choose from. When you discover the one you like, you can save it to your board, making it visible or private to the other users.

SEO strategy involves taking into account its key ranking factors when developing your Pinterest search strategy. These factors include domain quality, topic relevance, pin quality, and pinner quality.

Pinterest determines domain and pinner quality by the content consistency, uniqueness of the content, and the amount of engagement your pins receive.

Topic relevance refers to keywords that you include in the description of your pins and your bio.

Pinterest tracks freshness, and the amount of engagement your content receives, to know whether your pins are high-quality or not.

In this blog post, I’m covering some tried-and-true tips to boost your domain, pins, and pinner quality in order to make the most of Pinterest search.

1. Set up your Pinterest profile properly

One of the easiest ways to improve your discoverability on Pinterest search is to incorporate your keyword into your username. It will be included in your URL, which is a powerful signal for Pinterest that your pins are relevant for a specific query. Moreover, a keyword included in the URL lets users to quickly understand what your page is about. Good user experience is always a good idea. Trust me.

In addition to your username, it’s worth filling the “about me” section with relevant keywords too. Make sure your bio accurately reflects your brand as well as helps to get discovered on Pinterest search.

It’s also smart to include a profile picture that grabs users’ attention and makes the best impression.

2. Include a link to your website

Pinterest gives users the option to add the link to their website next to the bio section. That means featuring your website helps Pinterest to understand your page better, allowing you to rank higher on Pinterest search faster. Next, it will also increase clicks and drive traffic to your site.

So, if you want to look more official on Pinterest, claim your website. There are several ways to do it, but some of the easiest methods include verifying yourself as a merchant and simply claiming your website in account settings. Verify yourself as a merchant to let Pinterest search know that your company is legitimate. As an additional bonus, you will get access to more metrics in your Pinterest Analytics. It will help you to get valuable insights about your performance on Pinterest search.

3. Create original, engaging content

When trying to get to the top of a Pinterest search, it’s essential to provide the audience with thumb-stopping content. But how can you ensure users want to engage with your pins and, in turn, help you to grow your business? Two words: audience research.

Use the existing information about your audience to create captivating content for your Pinterest feed. Do they love inspirational aesthetic pictures? Focus on them. If they’re interested in more useful content, create infographics and so on. There are numerous design tools to create an engaging feed with relevant visuals. Mega Creator is a great tool to start. With plenty of ready-made templates and a huge collection of stock graphics, it lets you create captivating content even if you don’t have a design background.

Your audience will be more than happy to discover content that resonates with their needs and values at the top of the Pinterest search.

4. Share pins with the right ratios

When it comes to increasing your reach on Pinterest search, paying attention to every detail is crucial. The ratio of your images is more important than ever before. Why? You may ask. Because the algorithm is placing priority on content with the optimal ratio on Pinterest search results. Giving the right ratio to your images takes 15-50 seconds while increasing your chances to attract the right people. Who doesn’t love the easy ways to get visibility online, right?

The ideal ratio for your image is 600×900 pixels. What is more, Pinterest supports video pins in the following formats: square videos in 1:1 format, vertical ones with 9:16, 4:5, and 2:3 ratios, and horizontal with 16:9.

5. Write a compelling title for your pins

Pin’s title is another important indicator of content relevance used by the Pinterest algorithm. It impacts directly on whether your content has an opportunity to get at the top of Pinterest search or not. Moreover, it’s usually that piece of information used by the users to decide which pin to click on. That is why you need to create compelling titles. Keeping them short and descriptive, while also including your keyword, will place your pin in front of the right eyes on Pinterest search.

6. Include your keywords in pin’s description (not visible on Pinterest search)

Pin’s descriptions aren’t a ranking factor on Pinterest search. Moreover, it isn’t visible on search results, so it can’t influence your pins’ click-through-rate. But it doesn’t mean that you should miss it, because a well-crafted description is a good relevance indicator for a Pinterest algorithm. So consider creating descriptions for your pins to gain more visibility. Description tips are incredibly easy and similar to the title writing rules above:

• Keep your sentences short and descriptive
• Include keywords whenever possible
• Include CTA to drive traffic to a website

7. Add descriptive Alt text to your pin

Pinterest Alt text is a feature that allows you to manually add alternative text to make an algorithm to better understand your photos, illustrations or clipart images. You may say that this feature is supposed to improve the platform’s accessibility, but you can also use it to your advantage by adding your keywords there. So, you provide an inclusive Pinterest experience and improve your SEO efforts at the same time.

But remember that your main goal is to make descriptive Alt text, so users can hear the right description through a screen reader. You can’t write “red car on a green background”, if there is a sheep clipart in your image.

And if there is an opportunity to include your keywords, so they look naturally and relevant, add them too.

8. Optimize your boards

Pinterest gives users the option to search not only for a single pin, but also for boards. So, you need to optimize them for Pinterest search to get them discovered too. Start from giving a proper names to your boards and include your keyword there. Board names shouldn’t be creative or fun, it should only let users and search algorithm know what your board is about.

Additionally, be sure to add a detailed description with keywords to every board. It’s also important to follow a rule: «one board — one topic» to provide the best user experience.

9. Be consistent with your content strategy

With numerous pins created for Pinterest each day, it’s easy to forget the importance of consistency. Invest time to implement every tip from this guide, so the Pinterest algorithm can learn faster what your pins are all about. Only consistency will help you place your content in front of the relevant users as they browse Pinterest search results.

The bottom line

There you have a list of the best ways to grow on Pinterest. Make the most of these SEO tips to consistently optimize your pins and boards to boost your visibility on Pinterest search and grow your brand.