With over 70 million followers as of June 2013, Pinterest has become a social media powerhouse with its visual marketing potential. This digital soft board not only lets you retain your favorite ideas and DIY hacks without searching for a pen, but Pinterest can also be an effective platform to get your business ideas noticed and enhance your social media presence through Search Engine Optimization. After all, a picture is worth a thousand words, and Pinterest uses just that to be an effective player on your SEO team.
A few SEO-friendly strategies and using the most common keywords in your image captions, is all that Pinterest requires to help your website rank better in the search engine results and direct traffic to your business website. Your re-pins and traffic leads may ultimately translate into higher sales for your business, and therefore, it is essential that your Pinterest presence is instrumental in boosting your SEO. Start improving your SEO today by following these simple Pinterest tips:
1. Optimize Your Pinterest Profile
SEO begins with optimizing your own profile. Just like your profiles on other social networks, search engines pick some information off your Pinterest page such as your Pinterest username and About section, and therefore, it is highly recommended to use your brand name or top keywords to name your Pinterest profile.
The About section only allows a 200-character space to concisely portray your business idea and brand image. It is imperative that you optimize it with keywords to maximize your visibility in search results and use the same description as your other social media profiles to ensure consistency.
2. Make the most of Social Signals
A social signal simply refers to a link from different social media profiles to your blog or website. For example, if you hit the ‘Pin it’ or ‘Retweet’ button while reading a blog post, it becomes a social signal for the blogger and indicates social activity on their website.
In addition to being a social proof, your site can also earn rewards from Google for its social signals, which ultimately triggers your SEO. Maximize your social signals by interconnecting your Facebook, Twitter and other social media accounts to your Pinterest profile and regularly engage in cross-sharing popular pins from high-traffic sites like Youtube, LinkedIn and Google+.
3. Build Specific and Focused Boards
It is a great feeling to have your notifications bar flooded with re-pin notifications, but when it comes to Search Engine Optimization, it is actually your boards that can make or break the social engagement on your Pinterest account. Your boards are your first impressions on browsers, and are therefore, instrumental in increasing your following, as well as your SEO ranking.
Keep your board titles brief and captivating, optimizing them with the most common keywords. When using Pinterest for SEO purposes, use imagery as your most powerful weapon in gaining popularity. Choose the best image for your board cover to persuade pinners to follow that board.
4. Establish More Backlinks
The secret to your pinning success lies in creating more of your own genuine pins. This is because every time a pin is pinned or repinned on Pinterest, a backlink is created to lead pinners back to your website, and therefore, the more your pins get shared, the more targeted traffic gets redirected to your website. Backlinks can spectacularly increase your visibility and online reputation and be invaluable for your brand’s SEO because search engines take them into account when determining relevancy.
When you upload an image to Pinterest, make sure to link them back to your full website, product catalogue, landing page or blog post. Also make sure your account is Verified First.
5. Organize your Board Categories
From Animals & Pets to Women’s Fashion, Pinterest offers 38 categories to organize your boards, and help pinners find their desired boards. Organize your boards into the most appropriate categories to enhance and ease the user experience and boost your search engine visibility. If you can’t find a category that represents your business or brand, it is best to go for the closest match and optimize your image captions with your brand name and keywords.
6. Organize Your Rows
A majority of pinners don’t bother to scroll further than the top two rows when deciding to follow a board, and therefore, it is vital that the first two rows of your board are able to convince your target audience to follow you. Get into a habit of positioning your best, brand-centric content in your top two rows to increase your audience, increase the leads to your company website and boosting your SEO.
7. Seek Fresh Content
Take this one as a rule of thumb when using Pinterest to climb up the SEO ladder. You may find it easy to repin the most popular content from other users’ boards, but a little research and effort into seeking new and appealing content may go a long way in earning your Pinterest profile, and eventually your website, more followers.
8. Utilize the caption area for keyword-rich descriptions
Although Pinterest allows its users 500 characters to describe their pins, most pinners usually resort to monosyllabic captions or simple periods to adhere to Pinterest’s rules. An ideal caption length lies between 100-200 characters; make use of hashtags and keyword studded captions to rank better in Pinterest’s search results as well as to improve SEO.
9. Pin catchy images with descriptive file names
Your picture may be worth a thousand words, but remember that whatever you save your image as, will become its default name on Pinterest. You certainly wouldn’t want the mouth watering image of your restaurant’s bestselling Spinach Ravioli to appear as ‘ACV200932-300×200’!
Get into the habit of picking a descriptive name for your images, preferably product names, as well as adding your brand name and keywords to get noticed. This strategy may be little-known but can provide great SEO benefits particularly on picture-based sites like Pinterest.
10. Get yourself noticed!
Optimizing your SEO through Pinterest primarily requires you to make yourself visible to search engines and other prospects. If you are new to Pinterest, make sure you turn off the ‘Hide your Boards’ option within the settings bar to make your boards appear within search results. This is potentially the most crucial mistake new pinners make and can drain away all their Pinterest marketing efforts.
Don’t forget to Pin and Share! 
