How To Rank High With Pinterest SEO Even If You Don’t Have Any Followers
- Aug 15, 2022
- 6 min read
Written by: Silvia Myers, Executive Contributor
Executive Contributors at Brainz Magazine are handpicked and invited to contribute because of their knowledge and valuable insight within their area of expertise.
Pinterest SEO is a highly sought-after topic as it allows you to rank on top Pinterest searches and have an exponentially higher reach with your ideal audience on this platform. There are a few important tools that help with SEO on Pinterest and whilst some of these tools are paid, you can achieve great success with the free tools as well. The added bonus is that if you optimize well for Pinterest Search Engine Optimisation (SEO), you also get additional exposure from Google searches and get organic traffic to your website that is totally untapped but we can touch on that later why is that and how it works.
So who does this work for? What I'm going to be showing you will work for you if you're new to Pinterest in general and have not dived into SEO yet but also if you’re experienced and have spent a bit of time on the platform and are looking for some Ninja tips and tricks on how to make this work better for you. So let's dive into this step by step.
No Followers Needed To Rank High With Pinterest SEO In Less Than 30 Days
To really nail Pinterest SEO, the first thing you need to understand is how this platform actually works. The thing is that very few people realise that Pinterest is not a social media platform and therefore, it is not a popularity contest.
The way you want to think about Pinterest is that it is a search and a planning platform, which means that any content you've got on Pinterest, no matter how long it's been, can be optimized with the right keywords, or Ninja Phrases, and can actually deliver results over time. In other words, this means that it can deliver traffic to your online store and can deliver sales if you do the essential SEO work for Pinterest.
Let me elaborate on what this means. Unlike Facebook, Instagram, or even TikTok, platforms that support trending viral content, Pinterest index content over a longer period of time and it doesn’t care about hashtags ‒ it cares about the words you use.
Also, the trending social media platforms that give new content visibility only for a very short period of time also limit your reach by the number of followers you’ve got on the platform. On the flip side, Pinterest does not care about the number of followers you’ve got it only cares about how relevant your content is to its users ‒ which again goes back to the keywords and Ninja Phrases you use.
This also means that you can easily rank on top on Pinterest and get an incredible reach if you get your Pinterest marketing right. In fact, some of the online stores we’ve worked with have received over a hundred thousand impressions and triple the amount of traffic to their online store with literally just eight or nine followers. And all they needed to do for the results to start showing up in days was to just make a few small tweaks.
Essential Pinterest SEO tools
There are some essential Pinterest SEO tools that you might want to use to find the right keywords that will allow you to start ranking at the top of the searches. As I said at the beginning, most of these tools are free whilst some are paid.
My favourite Pinterest SEO tools are completely free because they’re native to the platform and can be found within the platform itself.
Take for example, the Pinterest search bar. When you start typing a keyword inside the search bar, you will see some suggestions being offered to you by the tool. These are the best place to start as these represent the beginning of the search for what we call Ninja Phrases, which are the untapped search terms that will create a domino effect for your business.
My next favourite tool is the suggested searches which are essentially Pinterest showing you what other people frequently search for. You’ll find it just by scrolling down on your search and it will be displayed either in the middle of your screen or sometimes I’ve seen it displayed on the side as well. These suggestions are super powerful because they give you a clue about what kind of questions is your ideal audience asking.
And when it comes to paid tools that I like using for Pinterest SEO, high on my list is a tool called SEMrush. It’s definitely not the only tool out there and you’ll need to find one that will work for you, but the reason why I like it is that it allows me to deep dive further into my ‘Ninja Phrases’ and find more in-depth information such as what are more specific volumes for each of these phrases and how easy or hard are they to optimize for SEO.
The reason why that’s important is because if you’re just starting with Pinterest SEO, you want to make sure that you go for phrases that are less competitive even if it means that they get less traffic. Start small, go big overtime, that’s the whole idea.
Besides these three there are really great tools helping you find Pinterest keywords such as Pinterest trends or the Pinterest Ad features ‒ and you might be also interested in deep diving into the 7 Pinterest Keyword Tools to nail your Pinterest keywords search.
Basics for SEO on Pinterest are done, what’s next?
Now that you have your keywords ready for SEO and Pinterest, you're probably asking, what do I do next?
This part is super easy. Essentially what you need to do is take your existing Pins and Board and insert your Ninja Phrases inside the Pin titles, Pin descriptions, pin alt texts and also rename your Pinterest boards according to what you want to rank for on Pinterest.
It’s important that at all times, you don’t sound like a robot and don’t do any ‘keyword stuffing’ as we call it in the industry, but that you actually elaborate on what your product is, give it a proper description and make sure it adds value to the user. The only difference will be that you’ll be empowered with knowing what phrases you need to do to achieve your Pinterest SEO goal.
One of the major mistakes I see with SEO and Pinterest is that entrepreneurs focus so much on the pins but don’t give their boards enough attention. This is a major mistake that can literally be solved in less than thirty seconds and will do wonders not just for your Pinterest SEO but for your SEO in general.
Why is that? Because remember how I mentioned that Pinterest is a search and a planning platform. Well because of that, Google absolutely loves Pinterest as it provides unbiased curated content which is exactly what users are after when they’re doing their research. So in order to rank high not just on Pinterest but also in Google searches you’ve got to do what the platforms want.
In other words, this means to use the Pinterest hierarchy properly and inside your Pinterest board that will be SEO friendly, insert multiple Pins related to that topic as that will increase the curation effect and will make it rank higher not just for Pinterest but also for Google.
Ok, we’ve covered the basics now so it's time for you to go and implement it. Choose your favourite Pinterest SEO tool, find your keywords, create pins using these keywords and insert them inside your boards. Start small, go for the untapped and unnoticed and then go big. It can take less than an hour of work with the potential to deliver traffic and sales for your online store for a long time to come. Once you’ve done the work and if you have any questions, just let me know, I love hearing your success stories. And if you’d like to learn more about Pinterest Traffic or some relevant case studies on how this could work for you, we’ve done the hard yards for you.
Silvia Myers, Executive Contributor Brainz Magazine Silvia Myers is co-founder of Traffic Ninjas, teaching product makers and brand builders how to sell their incredible products online without having to discount or spend their hard-earned cash on things that don’t work.
Together with her husband and co-founder, Kristen, Traffic Ninjas equip eCommerce stores with an underground Ninja method specifically designed for small business owners, teaching them how to be profitable and sustainable and actually earn an income from selling their products.
The Traffic Ninjas community has grown from Sydney, Australia to 35+ countries around the world with small business owners achieving amazing results.
