10 Ideas to Pave the Way to Pinterest Success!

I'm back! A few weeks ago, I introduced some ideas to you that will take your Facebook and Twitter to the next level. Today, I want to focus on Pinterest! It's no secret that Pinterest can be a HUGE source of traffic for your blog, but it can be even more beneficial with just a few tweaks to what you're already doing. And if you're not utilizing Pinterest to your advantage, it's a perfect list to get you started!

1. Verify your site. Not only does it help with credibility, but it increases your search rankings as well! It's not too hard to do it—embedding a little bit of code will do it. There's also a plugin that you can use if you're on WordPress.

2. Create Company-Specific Boards. While you will not want to have just your company's items on your Pinterest account, you'd be remiss if you had none. This is a great place to showcase your blog posts, latest products, company designs, etc.

3. Create custom board covers for your company boards. You don't have to make a ton, just enough to convey what your company board is about. This helps with branding and consistency.

4. Install a Pinterest Browser Button. This is largely a time-saver, but when you're working during the day and you see something that would fit on one of your boards, you can pin it easily using the browser button. It's also helpful if you're uploading your own pins!

5. Watermark Your Photos. You know how a typical session on Pinterest goes—you sit there, see things you like, and you pin them to your boards. Later, someone pins that pin to his/her board and so on down the line. At some point, your original pin is many miles away from you—the original source—and unless you have a watermark on your images, you lose credit for the pin!

6. Vertical Images Get Repinned More - Depending on how you like your images in your blog posts and on your site to appear, this one can sometimes be a bit harder to accomplish. However, it's a proven fact that vertical images not only look better, they perform better by getting repinned more often.

7. Always Use Text Overlay. This not only gives your image and pins more branding, but it entices the Pinterest user to click, read, and repin your content because it tells them what the pin is about. Look at the image below from PostPlanner. If they had not used a text overlay, would you have any idea what that post was about? Maybe a little, but definitely not enough to want to open in it.

8. Choose Your Words Wisely. If you’ve used your alt-description correctly, it SHOULD pick those up in your Pin description. If not, either go back and edit it or make sure your Pin has a description using pertinent keywords hashtagged. Here are two examples: one showing when alt tags were used correctly and the other that wasn't as great.

9. Use Your BEST Images. Pinterest (and all other sites) are ALL about the images, so make them as good as you possibly can. You don't have to be a PhotoShop wizard to do this; you can use free sites like PicMonkey and Google Photos to edit and enhance your images. The difference will surprise you. Look at these images from Food Network. You'll want to pin them AND make them because they're so beautiful!

10. Mixed Pins. Mix up your pins! They don't have to be all images; they can be any of those listed below! Variety is always a good thing, and it helps you avoid feeling like you're in a pinning rut!