Whether you have dived into Pinterest marketing only recently or you’ve been an avid Pinterest user for quite a while now, it’s possible that you haven’t yet fully optimize your website for Pinterest.
Sure, being active on the platform, finding the right keywords, designing beautiful pins, and creating a fool-proof Pinterest marketing strategy will undoubtedly help you on your way to success.
But have you thought about what should be done on your website?
If not, grab your pencil (or smartphone notes) and read on.
Here’s how to optimize your website for Pinterest in 7 easy steps:
1. Claim your website on Pinterest
One of the first things you should do on the platform as a business owner is to claim your website on Pinterest.
Pins connected to a claimed website will receive better distribution and more engagement than pins from accounts that don’t have a claimed website.
Don’t believe it? Here is an example of the difference in engagement and saves when a website was unclaimed for a short time.
If you haven’t done this yet, check out this articleย that will guide you through claiming your website on Pinterest. No worries, it’s way less complicated than it sounds, and you’ll be done in a few minutes!
2. Enable rich pins
Rich pins carry additional information (and keywords) depending on your pin’s type and synchronize metadata (information) from your website.
For example, article rich pins will contain additional information about you (author) and article, recipe rich pins can show ingredients, and product rich pins can include additional information about your product, such as price or where to buy it.
I highly recommend enabling rich pins to bloggers and business owners! Here’s the step-by-step guide.
3. Add Pinterest optimized images to your blog posts
As a “regular pinner,” I can tell you straight away what bothers me most is when I’m reading an article that I want to save for later, but I canโt.
I have a Pinterest browser extension button installed on my Google Chrome, and when I click on this button, all of the images from the blog post will appear in a pop-up window.
Suppose a blog post doesnโt contain any Pinterest optimized images. In that case, it is highly unlikely that I’ll save it to my Pinterest account (unless it’s a photo for inspiration) since later when I return to my account to find that specific article pin, it will be difficult for me to recognize it (nope, I don’t have a photographic memory).
Anyone who uses Pinterest marketing for growing their business should add Pinterest optimized images to their posts or pages.
The optimal size for images on Pinterest is 1000×1500 px (vertical images), and they ideally contain overlay text. Not all images need overlay text, of course, but if you’re writing an article, it should include at least one Pinterest optimized image (i.e., one pin design).
If you’re a creative entrepreneur with products that have a visual component, like a designer or wedding photographer, consider adding more vertical images to your blog posts – that’s another way to optimize your website for Pinterest. Horizontal images are smaller and don’t catch as much attention as vertical images when pinners scroll through their feeds.
So even though you perhaps personally prefer horizontal images, keep in mind that vertical images perform better on the platform.
Want to know what else you can improve to grow on Pinterest as a wedding photographer? Find more tips in this article.
4. Add Social share buttons to your website
Not all Pinterest users have a Pinterest browser extension installed that pulls all of the images from a specific article or page.
The easiest way to help them save a helpful resource to their Pinterest account is to add Social share buttons to your website. These are some of the best ones.
5. Add Pin It / Save it hover buttons to your website
Another way to make it easier for your readers to pin your images on Pinterest is to add the Pin it or Save it hover button to your website.
This button appears when a website visitor hovers over an image with a mouse pointer, and they can directly pin a specific image to their Pinterest boards.
One of the plugins with this option available is Tasty Pins (and I use this one due to another useful feature described below), but you can find other alternatives online.
PRO TIP: When you install the hover button plugin, make sure it works and pulls information (URL, description); Sometimes, plugins are not compatible with specific themes or other plugins and will not work correctly.
6. Keyword-optimize pin descriptions for your images on the websiteย
Admit it, you haven’t thought about this one, have you? If you have, congrats, you’re already a pro!
Using the right keywords on Pinterest will help index your pins and get your content in front of your target audience.
So, when you add Pinterest optimized images to your blog posts, they should contain keyword-full descriptions.
In the past, it was a common practice to add a Pinterest description to the alt text of your image. However, I would strongly suggest you avoid this as alt text is meant to help the visually impaired understand what the image is about. Adding a bunch of keywords (your pin description) to alt text can actually hurt your Google SEO.
There are two ways you can add pin descriptions to your images on your website;
One is adding HTML text to your images, and the other uses a plugin that elegantly solves this problem.
- Adding HTML text:
In your HTML text editor, find the text of the image and add data-pin description=”[keyword_rich_pin_description] “ to the image html text.
Here’s an example:
<alt=”New England Road trip pin” data-pin-url=”https://bluemarblevagabonds.com/best-new-england-road-trip-destinations/” data-pin-description=”Planning a New England Road Trip in the USA? Whether you’re going on a summer, winter or fall trip to New England, make sure to add these stunning destinations to your New England Itinerary. Here you’ll find the prettiest places in all 6 states and a bunch of things to do in New England! I New England destinations I New England travel I New England fall foliage I ” />
- Plugin Tasty Pins and Grow by MediaVine add additional fields to your image so you can easily add SEO-optimized pin descriptions.
I’m not familiar with Grow plugin, but I love the Tasty Pins plugin because it has another great feature – they have an optional field to add hidden images.
If you do not want a Pinterest optimized image with an overlay text to be seen in the blog post, you upload it there.
When a website visitor clicks one of the social sharing buttons or Pinterest browser extension, a hidden image will appear on their screen, and they will be able to pin it to Pinterest.
7. Add a Pinterest widget to your website
This is certainly not an obligatory step when you optimize your website for Pinterest, but since following users on Pinterest has become slightly more important than it was in the past, adding a Pinterest widget to your website might be a wise idea.
The widget can be added to your homepage, sidebar, or even inside your blog posts, and it invites visitors to follow you on Pinterest. (Ooops, I also haven’t installed this one yet!)
Have you already optimized your website for Pinterest? If not, there’s no better time than now!
Well, unless you’d like to procrastinate a bit more (omg, I get you). In this case, click that social share button under this blog post or your Pinterest browser extension button, find my Pinterest optimized image, and save this post for later! ๐
