Searching on Pinterest | Advice from a Marketing Coach
Pinterest: a massive source of potential traffic for creators and businesses. If you need increased brand visibility, clicks, leads and sales through social media marketing efforts? Leveraging Pinterest is huge. This should definitely be an area you focus your efforts on. This is where consumers tend to go first when searching for new products/services!
Pinterest, like Google, is actually a search engine. (More on that in a sec.) The difference between Pinterest and Google is that with Pinterest, you need to leverage visuals. Create appealing images that emphasize your brand and include appropriate hashtags/keywords so customers can find them quickly and easily. This will help when users are searching for something particular related topic areas that align with your business.
Interested in leveraging searching on Pinterest for your business? Then keep reading.
Why Businesses Should Use Pinterest for Search
There’s tons of social media platforms for businesses. Why should searching on Pinterest be a priority? Like I mentioned above, Pinterest acts as a powerful tool for visibility.
Additionally, Pinterest provides several tools businesses can use as part of your overall digital marketing strategy. This includes analytics, which provides detailed information about user engagement data (i.e., likes/shares/comments). Their analytics dashboards that show follower growth over time are helpful as well. Both these features give you additional insight into who is engaging with your content and the kind of content that resonates most. This is a great guide for tailoring more of your online messaging.
There are many advantages with using Pinterest as part of one’s digital marketing strategy, including reaching large numbers of potential customers. But keep in mind there are also some downsides too. The algorithm has changed a lot over the last few years, and it can be frustrating to optimize your strategy. So, you might feel a lack of control over what appears in your feed (as dictated by algorithms). Not every post will appear prominently in feeds.
This is normal with any marketing platform. But a few creators took huge traffic hits when the algorithm changed, so it’s worth mentioning.
Is Pinterest a Search Engine?
A lot of people consider Pinterest just another social media platform like Facebook or Twitter. Technically, however, it is actually a visual search engine. (Similar in some ways to Google Image Search.)
Just like Google, searching on Pinterest lets users search by leveraging search engine optimization. The difference is that Pinterest search has the added visuals. Another key difference is that the searchable content on Pinterest is generated by users. (Pinterest uses user-generated content instead of relying solely upon web crawlers and bots like conventional search engines do.)
Searching on Pinterest: How To
How to Search on Pinterest
The most common way to search on Pinterest is by typing a keyword into the search bar at the top of the home page.
This will bring up results based on what people have pinned, and the results are displayed in order of search volume (highest to lower). Pinterest may also display results it thinks you might be interested in from their own algorithms.
You can also narrow your search by tapping the ‘Advanced Search’ option or using keywords related to what you’re looking for.
Search Pinterest without a Login
Is it possible to use Pinterest search without a login?
It’s possible to search without logging into your account. In fact, some of your Google searches display Pinterest pins as the result!
However, you won’t be able to see any pins associated with your account or get personalized recommendations. Don’t have an account yet but want to experience all that Pinterest has to offer? It only takes a few minutes to sign up and start creating boards and pinning items.
Pinterest Search Not Working
Is Pinterest search not working for you? Sometimes you’ll have small bugs or issues when trying to do searches on Pinterest. If this happens it could be due to slow internet speeds or problems with the app itself. If it’s a small bug, you can wait it out for a few minutes.
It also may help troubleshoot the issue by clearing any cache stored within the app. The next step would be restarting your device completely. And if the problem persists, I’d just reach out to Pinterest support.
Search Pinterest Users
Pinterest has become an incredibly popular social platform. (It currently has hundreds of millions of users.) As such, searching on Pinterest can be a great way to find new ideas, products, and inspiration.
Additionally, though, it can be a great way to do market research, or connect with people you know.
To search Pinterest users, you can use the same search steps as above. But when you get the results, you can filter to show accounts instead of pins, and this can help you find users.
How to Use Pinterest
Tip: How Often Should You Post on Pinterest
Honestly, it depends on your goals and objectives for being active on the platform. Some users may only post once a week, while others may do multiple posts daily. Other factors include how much time you have available and how much content you have access to (e.g., blog posts, images, videos).
Generally speaking, if you’re looking for VOLUME of traffic on Pinterest, you’re going to have the best luck with a high VOLUME of quality pins that are search optimized. I think pinning once daily is a good rule of thumb, but more is more when it comes to pinning. Spending time on the platform also helps the impressions on your account as well.
If you’re looking for high impressions, you’ll also want to make sure to do an Idea pin or two every week. Here are 6 ideas on making your first idea pin.
To make sure your pins reach the maximum amount of viewers possible, it helps to use relevant hashtags and keywords. Use keywords in each post so that people can find them easily from various searches.
Additionally, participating in group boards or joining conversation threads might help visibility. Group boards aren’t as powerful as they used to be, but small, niche group boards are still great.
How to Use Searching on Pinterest in 2023
In the coming years, Pinterest is predicted to grow even more popular as a social media platform and marketing tool. So, if you’ve been thinking about leveraging Pinterest for visibility, there’s no reason not to get started now while it’s still growing.
Basic strategies for mastering Pinterest in 2023 and beyond:
1. Pinterest Search Engine Optimization
The first step for using Pinterest in 2023 is optimizing for SEO.
Search engine optimization (SEO) refers to using the keywords that people are searching for, so they can find what they intend to find. In other words: SEO ensures that your content appears at the top of search results when users enter keywords related to your content.
SEO on Pinterest is much simpler than Google because the “data” is pretty straight forward. To see if a keyword you want to use has volume, just type your idea in the search bar without pressing return. Notice the results that populate. Are there a lot of variations suggested? When you press return to complete the search, are there a lot of relevant pins? These are clues that the keyword you chose might be a good fit.
Additionally, it can be beneficial to include hashtags and relevant links on pins that lead back to other pages within your website.
2. High Quality Boards and Pins
Another important aspect of using Pinterest is creating high-quality boards and pins. Boards are like categories within which individual pins are organized, so they should be named descriptively with relevant keywords.
Similarly, when creating individual pins, it’s important to provide high-quality images or videos. These should accurately reflect the content being pinned since the IMAGE is part of the SEO and being shown to the right people. Furthermore, accompanying captions should provide additional information with keywords about the pin.
Make sure the caption text is intriguing enough to get people to click through and learn more about what you have shared.
4. Using Video on Pinterest Search
Using video on Pinterest can also be successful in drawing attention towards your brand or content. Videos offer a unique way of storytelling compared to static images or written text. When creating videos for Pinterest, it’s best practice to keep them relatively short – usually no longer than 1 minute. Pack as much information into them as possible without becoming overwhelming for viewers.
5. Searching on Pinterest for Traffic
Finally, driving traffic towards your page on Pinterest is key for increasing engagement with what you post there. You can do this by sharing links across multiple platforms. For example, driving email subscribers to your account.
You could also try influencer marketing partnerships or collaborations with other brands/influencers. If you go the collab route, find people who have an overlapping target audience with yours on their own channels outside of Pinterest itself. Additionally, joining group boards related to your niche can help get more eyes onto your posts quickly. This is due to their larger user base size compared with individual accounts.
6. Next Steps
By utilizing these strategies outlined above, businesses and individuals alike should be able to successfully capitalize on growth opportunities presented by using Pinterest in 2023 while maximizing ROI from your efforts spent on the platform.
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