Let’s kick this post off with the ugly truth – if your pin descriptions are not optimized, no one will find your beautiful pins. This my friend, is a tragedy! When written correctly, pin descriptions can help your pins show up in Pinterest search results and the home feed, ultimately leading to more engagement with your pins and more visitors to your website. In this post you will learn exactly what you need to do to craft pin descriptions for your pins that will get more eyes on your content and more traffic to your site!
Why Are Pin Descriptions So Important?
When you think of Pinterest, you’re probably thinking of a bunch of pretty pin graphics that give you the answers to all of life’s problems. This is 100% true, but in order for Pinterest to show a user what they’re searching for, they have to know what the pin is about.
Contrary to popular belief, Pinterest is not a form of social media, it’s actually a visual search engine – more similar to Google than it is to Facebook or Instagram. That means search engine optimization (aka the strategic use of keywords) is key to your success on the platform.
Pinterest figures out what a pin is about through keywords, which are primarily housed in – you guessed it – your pin descriptions! (as well as a few other places but we’ll get to that later). With a good pin description, your pins have the potential to bring traffic to your site for months and sometimes years!
Elements of a Great Pin Description
When writing your pin descriptions they should include the following elements to help you show up in search and entice the pinner to click through to your website.
- Relevant Keywords
- Full-Length Sentences
- Call To Action
- Important Details
Including Relevant Keywords
If you missed it earlier – Pinterest is a visual search engine! This is often a huge “ah ha!” moment for people so if this is you right now, you’re not alone. If you’ve been thinking of Pinterest as another form of social media, making the mind shift to thinking of Pinterest as a search engine is going to change your world!
The key to a great Pinterest keyword or keyword phrase, is getting into the mind of your ideal client or customer and figuring out exactly what they might type into the search bar. The more keywords you add into your pin descriptions, the higher your chance is of getting shown to your ideal client in the search results and on the home feed.
That being said, it’s important that your keywords are relevant to the content you’re pinning. If Pinterest finds that your pin is linking to completely irrelevant content, it can be seen as spammy and Pinterest may not circulate your pin to very many people. Yes, Pinterest can and will make this link between your content and the pin. The more confidence you give Pinterest that your pin and your content relate, the larger your reach on the platform will be.
Using Conversational Sentences
After reading about keywords you may be tempted to just list out all the keywords you want to rank for in your pin description and call it a day. This is a very bad idea. Keyword stuffing is considered spammy behavior on Pinterest. It might even get your account suspended!
The best way to fit the keywords you want to rank for in your description is to use them naturally in conversational full-length sentences. Remember, people are actually reading your pin description to see if it’s worth their time to click over to your website. Be as descriptive, enticing, and clear as possible. Make sure the pinner clearly understands how they will benefit if they click through the pin to your website. A confused pinner most likely won’t convert.
Add a Call-To-Action
Adding a call-to-action in your pin description helps encourage people to click through the pin to your site. Sometimes people just need to be told what to do and like magic… they’ll do it. According to a study done by Pinterest of 21,000 pins in 2018 – Using clear, actionable wording and a strong call to action increased email signups 70% and online sales by 6%.
Adding a call-to-action doesn’t have to be complicated. It can be as simple as saying “read the full blog post to learn more” or “head over to the shop and check it out.” You can also add a call to action on the actual pin itself if you choose to use text overlay on your pin design.
A Couple More Important Details
When conducting the study mentioned earlier in this post, Pinterest found a couple of super cool discoveries to help you convert pinner’s using your pin description.
If your using Pinterest to grow your email list, you’re gonna want to take note of this one. In Pinterest’s 2018 study, they found that including your business name in the first sentence of the pin description leads to a 54% higher conversion rate for email signups. I mean come on, that’s straight-up wizardry! To double up on those amazing results, doing this will also help increase brand awareness on the platform.
This next one is for e-commerce and product sellers. If you want to sell more products, do this. Pinterest found that adding a price to pin descriptions increased sales by 28%. You can activate rich pins on your account and the price of your products will show up automatically on your pin. Activating rich pins will also help you increase domain authority on Pinterest and give Pinterest more confidence when distributing your content to its users.
The Big Picture
If you lost focus and scrolled all the way down here [I’m totally guilty of this] here are your main takeaways: use strong keywords, complete sentences, and call-to-actions in your pin descriptions.
This will not only help the pinner understand what your pin is about but it will also let Pinterest know what your pin is about and increase the probability of you showing up in search. The more you show up in search the higher the chance your target audience will find you and convert into loyal fans and paying customers.
If you liked this post and want to learn more tips and tricks on how to optimize your Pinterest account to get free traffic, leads, and sales to your business – be sure to grab the free Pinterest Quick Start Guide above before you go!
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