With over 450 million active users every month, Pinterest is a platform you don’t want to ignore as an online shop owner. According to the platform, 89% of its users use Pinterest to decide what they should buy next. So whether you’re a small business or sell all over the world, Pinterest is worth investing your time in. Want to start using Pinterest for your business or want to get more out of it? In this post, we’ll explain how Pinterest works and how you can get the most out of it. You’ll also find out how Yoast SEO can help you reach your goals.
Pinterest explained
Unlike common belief, Pinterest is not simply a social media platform. It’s also a visual search engine. Users browse the platform for ideas, called pins, that often link to other websites where you can read more or buy something. The pins are vertically shown images with an optimized meta description that provides the pin with context.
What’s cool about Pinterest is that it can actually show your pins in the feed of people who don’t know you yet. This is quite easy for Pinterest as its algorithm creates a personal feed for all of its users. This feed is based on someone’s recent search history and the people, boards, and topics they follow. When a user likes a pin and wants to save it, they can pin it on one of their own boards. This board is a collection of pins that they can easily go back to when they want to look at these pins again. When a user saves a pin, this pin is also automatically shown in their friends feed, increasing its reach even more. So if you optimize your own pins well, it can go viral if it reaches the right audience.
In contrast to social media such as Facebook and Twitter, a pin can generate traffic to your website for months to come. In fact, it’s more common for a pin to generate more traffic a few months after you put it live, as the power of sharing is incredibly important on Pinterest. Consider it a snowball effect: the more your pin gets repinned, the more Pinterest learns about your pin and who would enjoy seeing it in their feed. It bases this knowledge on the boards it’s placed on, the pin’s description, and the people who interact with it. That’s why a pin that doesn’t seem popular at first, can actually bring you more traffic after a while. When it’s been shared more and Pinterest has a good idea of what the pin is about.
How to claim your content on Pinterest using Yoast SEO
Pinterest has two types of accounts: personal accounts and business accounts. If you have an ecommerce site, make sure your account is a business account. You can read more on how to do this on Pinterest’s page about getting a business account. After that, make sure to link your account to your website and claim your content on Pinterest.
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This article was written by Camille Cunningham and originally published on SEO blog • Yoast.