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Social media platforms have earned a reputation for being notoriously tight-lipped about how they work. This can be really hard on those of us whose job it is to understand and keep up with industry best practices! It seems as if social media decision-makers try to avoid disclosing new features being tested or updates being planned. It’s almost as if they’d rather bewilder users with changes than work with them to ensure a smooth changeover. If you’ve ever tried to transition a toddler from one activity to another, you know that surprising people with an unforeseen change is not a great strategy!

Although Pinterest is more search than social, this platform is no different when it comes to being mysterious. Even if you’re a long-time user of Pinterest for Business, you can still find yourself questioning whether you’re following current best practice. Pinterest is widely known for quietly testing new features without any warning or explanation to its users. You may notice a new feature in your app one day and find yourself asking, “Is this how Pinterest works now?” That feature may be here to stay, or it may silently disappear a few weeks later, leaving you wondering if you imagined the whole thing!

Considering the culture of mystery that we’ve become accustomed to in the world of digital marketing, it’s truly refreshing when someone from the industry steps forward to tell us exactly how to best use their product. Pinterest has done just that on several occasions over the course of the past year. You’d better believe that Pinterest enthusiasts like me were sitting on the edge of our seats, listening with both ears!

I took the information gathered straight from the source over the past year and compiled it into this list of ten Pinterest best practices you should be implementing right now. It’s so valuable to get this type of guidance directly from Pinterest. It’s like they’re giving businesses a road map to success! Take this advice from Pinterest and adjust your Pinterest marketing strategy for what’s happening right now on the platform.

1. Look at Pinterest through the lens of search, not social.

If you’ve read anything that I’ve ever written about Pinterest before, you’re probably already tired of hearing this. So I’ll just get this friendly (but crucial) reminder out of the way: Pinterest is a search engine and not a social media platform. This is a simple point, but understanding it is essential to your success on the platform.

Businesses that approach Pinterest with the same strategies used for social media will not be able to reach their Pinterest audience effectively. If you can determine how your Pinterest audience searches for content, you can use that knowledge to leverage the power of SEO at every opportunity. And there are tons of opportunities! We’re talking Pin descriptions, board descriptions, hashtags, and even the “About Your Profile” section of your Pinterest for Business account. We’ll get into these SEO details later (see Pinterest Best Practice #5), but Pinterest Best Practice #1 is an important paradigm shift for many businesses and we need to be clear on this before we go any farther.

2. Optimize your Pinterest for Business profile.

If you’re using Pinterest for business, then please make sure that you’re using a Pinterest for Business account. It’s free and easy to do, but it’s vital to your success on Pinterest. If you haven’t already upgraded from a personal account, you can read this for a step-by-step explanation of the best way to do that.

Despite the fact that most Pinterest activity takes place wherever Pins are shared (away from your profile), it’s still important to make sure that your Pinterest for Business profile is optimized for whoever finds it. When Pinterest introduced the Follower Tab, they did say that it may result in more users looking at profiles. Knowing this, your profile should be enhanced to draw in any potential new followers.

There are a few different areas of your profile that Pinterest best practice recommends you optimize for maximum impact. First, use your “about” description as a call to action. Reference your best lead magnet and prompt users to click the link for access to it. You can even switch your URL so that it links directly to the correct landing page. Most Pinterest for Business profiles only use this field to link to their homepage. With minimal effort, you can turn it into a great opportunity for capturing leads!

The next point to consider when optimizing your profile is the arrangement of your content. The first thing users see when visiting your Pinterest for Business profile is your profile cover. You can easily style this area to align with your brand’s aesthetic by linking to your “Best of” board, or the board that contains only your original content. The tilted Pins in your profile cover will now show the content you’ve created. These images automatically update to show recent activity whenever you save new Pins, so it’s definitely worth customizing this area of your profile to showcase your own content.

Another area where you can optimize the presentation of your content is in the arrangement of your boards. Pinterest currently lets you select five of your top boards to be shown on a “Featured Boards” carousel directly below your profile information. You can also arrange your boards so that visitors to your profile will see the most relevant boards first. Pinterest best practice recommends featuring your “Best of” board first, followed by your top performing boards. If your profile has boards containing seasonal content, try moving them around as the seasons change so that other Pinners will be more likely to see them near the top of your board list when they’re most relevant. Finally, any group boards you Pin to should be placed at the end of your board list.

3. Make your website “Pinterest-friendly.”

If you’ve already established a business account, you’ll want to be sure that you’ve also enabled Rich Pins to add Rich Data to all of your Pins. Rich Pins provide more context about your Pin by showing extra information directly on the Pin. Another great feature of Rich Pins is that this data travels with the Pin wherever it goes (even if another user changes your Pin description).

Rich Data helps Pinterest learn how to distribute your content more broadly. Enabling Rich Pins is an essential Pinterest best practice to follow because it helps to keep your Pin optimized and it gets your content in front of a wider audience beyond your followers. Enabling Rich Pins is easy, and you can do it right from the Pinterest Help Center.

Once you’ve enabled Rich Pins, you’re ready to take the necessary steps to ensure that your content is easy for others to share on Pinterest. First, make sure that your images show the “Save” button when readers hover over your Pinnable images. Installing this button is a subtle method of pointing out to your audience that they’ve discovered a Pinnable image. It’s a nice, gentle call to action for them to Pin your content! Some themes have this feature built right in, or you can grab a Save button directly from Pinterest.

Make it easy for your audience to follow you on Pinterest by including a Pinterest “Follow button” along with the social follow buttons on the top, side, and bottom of every page. Using a plug-in like Social Warfare makes this really easy. You can also include related boards for your readers to follow at the end of every blog post. If you’d like to highlight some of your recent Pinterest activity, try using the Pinterest Widget Builder to create a “follow widget” for your sidebar.

Finally, you can come right out and ask your readers to follow you on Pinterest. Don’t worry about sounding salesly; people respond well to strong CTAs! Encourage your readers to engage with your Pins by adding photos or comments to the Pins they’ve tried. Pins that attract this kind of engagement are seen by the Pinterest algorithm as being more valuable. Your most engaging content will then be suggested to other Pinners and get a boost in search results as well.

4. Design eye-catching, aesthetically pleasing images.

Pinterest is a visual platform, so you need to commit to creating beautiful, click-worthy images that will look great in users’ feeds. If you can’t delegate this task to an art director, graphic designer, or Pinterest VA, use a design tool like Canva to compose your images. Canva allows you to easily style your images by adding a text overlay with your brand’s fonts, colors, and logo.

The first thing you need to consider when creating a Pin is image size. Images need to fit a vertical 2:3 aspect ratio or they will not receive additional distribution beyond your followers. Preferred image sizes are 600px x 900px or 735px x 1102px (which is the Pinterest template size on Canva). A Pin can be as long as 1260px, but it may be cut off on mobile. Pinterest has said that you don’t need to go back and update all of your old images to fit the 2:3 ratio, but you do need to be sure that you’re following this Pinterest best practice moving forward.

When creating your images, remember that they should show Pinners what they’ll find after clicking through to your website. Pinterest best practice is to do this by adding a text overlay to your image. The use of text overlay has been shown to consistently improve the performance of Pins. It’s especially effective when it clearly explains what the image is about or includes a strong call to action.

Tastefully branding your images helps to build trust with other users. Additionally, it helps Pinterest to know that you are the original source of that Pin. Adding a small logo or other branding to the top center or bottom center of your Pins is recommended. Avoid logo placement in the lower right-hand corner of your Pins, as it may be obstructed by Pinterest’s product icons.

5. Leverage the power of SEO.

Pinterest best practice is to write Pin descriptions for each and every image you create. Not only does this make your Pins more appealing and useful to other users, but it’s also a great opportunity to leverage the power of SEO. Image file name doesn’t matter too much for Pinterest anymore. We’ve been advised by Pinterest to focus on writing keyword-optimized Pin descriptions instead.

Your SEO Pin descriptions allow your content to show up when people are making relevant searches on Pinterest. It makes Google happy too! If you’ve enabled Rich Pins (as recommended in Pinterest Best Practice #3) this info will stay with your Pin wherever it goes, even if another user changes your Pin description.

Don’t “keyword stuff” your Pin descriptions. That just doesn’t work on Pinterest. Select one or two keyword phrases for which you’d like to rank in search and focus on those. The most effective way to choose keywords for your Pin descriptions is to know your target audience and to keep in mind what they might be searching for on Pinterest. I often use Pinterest’s Guided Search feature to discover which keywords people are searching for in relation to my content. When entering search terms on Pinterest, the suggestions that appear in the colorful boxes under the search area can be used as helpful recommendations for keywords to include in your Pin descriptions.

Now that Pinterest has embraced hashtags, we need to remember that users are both searching for hashtags and clicking on them. Although it’s possible to add up to 20 hashtags to a Pin description, it’s most important to focus on quality and relevance here. Pinterest best practice recommends adding 3-5 relevant hashtags, including one branded hashtag. If you’re trying to target a local audience, you can also help people in your area to find you by using local hashtags.

Pinterest has told us that new Pins with hashtags get wider distribution than those without. This is especially true on the first day that a fresh Pin is saved to Pinterest. Because hashtags are mainly used by the Pinterest algorithm to learn what to do with new Pins, it is not necessary (nor a good use of your time) to go back and add hashtags to your old Pins. You should definitely adopt this Pinterest best practice moving forward, though!

Beyond your Pin descriptions, it’s also important to deploy your SEO skills when naming your boards and writing board descriptions. Brainstorm some search terms which might lead users to your content and use those keywords to name your boards and write your board descriptions. We know that popular Pins can help a board rank in search, and the reverse is true as well. A good board description can help to boost its Pins in search results too! Be sure that you’ve optimized your board descriptions with relevant keywords and hashtags as well.

6. Pin as much of your own fresh content as you can.

We now know that Pinterest prioritizes Pins saved directly from the original source over re-Pins. Pinterest best practice recommends that you (the content creator) be the first Pinner of your own fresh content. It’s still great when your followers re-Pin your content from Pinterest or Pin directly from your website. Both types of engagement amplify your content and signal to the algorithm that your Pins are valuable and worth distributing. It’s important, however, that the first Pin of fresh content comes directly from you.

Rather than just re-Pinning it from Pinterest, Pin your fresh content directly from your website onto your most relevant board first. This way, your new Pin can bring along with it all the relevant keyword data from its original board. What defines fresh content? Pinterest now defines fresh content as:

• a new Pin from your site (something you’ve just published)
• an old Pin with an updated Pin description
• a new Pin (image) with a description you’ve already used on a previous Pin

This is great news! We now know that Pinterest loves fresh content posted directly from the source, and it’s easier than you think to generate fresh content for Pinterest. You don’t need to publish a brand-new blog post to generate fresh content. Fresh content can be generated simply by changing a Pin description, as long as it matches the content with which it’s linked. You can also take an old post and create a new Pin for it. If the old Pin description did well for you and you want to use it with the new image, it will still be recognized by Pinterest as being fresh content!

7. Pin consistently.

For so many failed Pinterest for Business profiles, lack of consistency was the cause of their demise. Your likelihood of success on Pinterest depends heavily on your commitment to Pinning consistently. It’s in your best interest to develop a marathon mindset and commit to Pinterest for the long haul.

Consistent Pinning is labor-intensive and requires patience, but it’s essential for your success on the platform. To test-drive a Pinterest for Business account or to revive a previously abandoned account, commit to Pinning every day for a minimum of six months. It truly will take at least six months to find your place on Pinterest and to see exactly how consistent activity on the platform impacts your traffic.

When it comes to daily Pinning, there’s no magic number or exact recommendation. The good news is that Pinterest does value consistency over volume. You don’t need to pin 100 times a day to be successful. In fact, there is a widely-held theory that Pinning that often could actually negatively impact the distribution of your content. Pinterest best practice is to Pin at 15-30 various times each day. If you’re struggling to come up with that many Pins each day, then focus on consistency. Pinterest would rather see you save just five Pins per day rather than saving a truckload of Pins one day and none the next.

If Pinning 15-30 different times every day for the next six months sounds impossible to you, I totally get it. Doing all of that manual Pinning would definitely be impossible for me too! Thankfully, there are third-party tools that schedule your Pins in bulk, weeks ahead of time if you want. This is how I do most of my Pinning, and I love being able to do a month’s worth of Pinning all in one shot. Then I can return to thinking about things other than Pinterest!

I use Tailwind as my scheduling tool, and it has been an absolute lifesaver for me. Tailwind has been an official API partner of Pinterest since 2015, and this partnership has resulted in a very smooth user experience. Scheduling your Pins a month in advance with Tailwind keeps you active in the eyes of Pinterest, the same as if you were live-Pinning every day. There is zero downside to using Tailwind, and a huge benefit for a small monthly investment. It’s one of the few tools that I pay for, and one that I personally couldn’t function without! You can learn more about Tailwind and get a free one-month trial here.

8. Do NOT delete Pins. Just don’t.

For a short while, this was a hot debate among influencers in the Pinterest marketing community. The argument was that deleting old, underperforming Pins would increase a profile’s overall engagement rate. Although this theory was debunked and the debate firmly settled a while ago, it’s still a common question among new Pinterest for Business users. It’s worth mentioning again, and the answer is clear: Pinterest best practice does not include deleting Pins.

One underperforming Pin will not impact the success of your other Pins. In fact, your sad little underachiever may go on to enjoy a resurgence in relevance or popularity later. Pinterest is pretty amazing that way! Although lackluster Pins might not receive much distribution, they will not have a negative impact on the distribution of your other Pins either.

Don’t waste your time deleting old or underperforming Pins. Leave them right where they are. Instead, have a look at your analytics and try to determine why certain Pins didn’t resonate with your audience. Use that data to guide your content creation process moving forward, and you’ll find yourself feeling tempted to delete fewer of your Pins.

9. Serve as a resource for your audience

The most successful Pinterest for Business profiles know their target audience well. They’ve determined how their audience is using Pinterest, they’ve found them on the platform, and they are meeting their needs with relevant content. This goal of becoming a resource to your audience should inform every decision you make regarding Pinterest.

The most effective way you can serve your Pinterest audience is to provide them with a steady stream of awesome content. Although you want to prioritize your own content for distribution, you should also be curating content from other influencers in your niche. Pinning the content of other users is not only Pinterest best practice, it’s also part of being a good citizen in the Pinterest world.

Although it’s been established over and over that Pinterest is a search and discovery tool (not social media), there are still important social aspects of Pinterest that you need to consider. As a good Pinterest citizen, you’re expected to interact with the content of other users. Save to your own boards the content from other Pinners that will resonate with your audience.

You may have people try to tell you that there is a “magic ratio” for original vs curated content, but Pinterest has reaffirmed that this is not the case. That’s a relief for someone just starting out, because if you only have 10 articles on your brand-new blog, it would be impossible to maintain a ratio of 70% original content to 30% curated content while maintaining consistent Pinning 15-30 times per day. Just keep in mind your goal of serving as a resource for your audience, and Pin the content that your following will find useful.

10. Pay attention to your analytics.

When I first started out on Pinterest, I avoided looking at my analytics as much as possible. I knew that stuff was important, but I found it all really hard to decipher. And the part I was able to understand was pretty depressing! Like so many others just starting out, it was discouraging to be working so hard, only to have my analytics remind me that I just wasn’t getting any traction yet.

Now, I can’t wait to check in on my Google, Pinterest, and Tailwind analytics! They give me a ton of information about what’s working for me and what’s not. I can tell which of my Pins and boards are doing well and use that information to guide my future content creation.

Now that I have a better understanding of my analytics, I feel like I’m never at a loss for content creation ideas! When my audience engages with a certain type of content, they’re telling me that they want more of the same. When a topic falls flat, I don’t bother spending any more of my time on that subject. It’s amazing to have access to such valuable information. Don’t ignore your analytics – learn your way around them and take advantage of the trends they reveal! It’s like someone is giving you a customized content-planning guide for the next week, month, or year.

Conclusion

While this information is current, a lot of it is timeless too. No matter how Pinterest changes as it transitions to a publicly traded company, it will always be a search engine, and it will always be Pinterest best practice to write SEO Pin descriptions. Regardless of what new features they test, it will always be Pinterest best practice to focus on the creation of beautiful, inspiring, vertical images. It doesn’t matter what new updates Pinterest decides to roll out. It will always be best practice to be a good Pinterest citizen and curate the content of other creators. Regardless of how the algorithm changes (and it will), Pinterest best practice will always involve monitoring your analytics and using that data to inform future decisions and content creation.

Moving forward, how will you use these 10 Pinterest best practices to guide your Pinterest marketing strategy? Were you already implementing most of these practices, or do you have some adjustments to make? I would love to hear how you’ll be using this information to grow your brand on Pinterest. Leave me a comment below and let me know!

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