Pinterest Business accounts are a totally different beast to conquer if you’re used to using a personal Pinterest account! Using a personal account, it’s all about what appeals to you. Repin things you like, make boards that inspire you, throw the rest to the wind! But with Pinterest Business accounts, there’s a LOT more that you need to worry about. But it doesn’t have to be super intimidating! You can optimize your Pinterest account in no time & start making $$ & driving traffic to your site asap with the optimization tips I’ve laid out for you below. 

Let’s dive in!

Create A Pinterest Business Profile

First and foremost, you’re going to want to log out of your personal account & create a NEW Pinterest Business account. Emphasis on BUSINESS! The business accounts give you more tools to ensure your businesses success on platform. 

Do Keyword Research

Next you’re going to do your keyword research. This is an integral first step before you do any more optimization because you will use this research to help write your title, bio, board descriptions, and board titles. To do keyword research on Pinterest, start with a blank Google doc or Google sheet and answer the following questions: What products or services am I selling or trying to drive traffic to? Who is my ideal audience or ideal client? What questions are my ideal client asking me frequently? What are topics that I commonly cover when creating content?

Use the answers to these questions to get started. Open up Pinterest, head to the search bar at the top of your screen, and start typing relevant topics or phrases into the search bar. Write down the results — what auto populates after you you type your phrase? These are commonly searched for keywords and phrases that you can use to optimize your profile. 

Keep track of all of your answers in a spreadsheet or google doc. You can also go to competitors pages for ideas. What keywords are they using in pin descriptions, titles, and graphics? What are their boards titled? 

There is not solid “stopping” point for keyword research. Stop when you feel like you’re tired of looking. Your keyword research is something you will continuously be adding to, so just get enough done on the front end to feel confident moving forward into profile optimization and content creation. You can always add on later!

Optimize Your Pinterest Title & Bio

Now that you have your keyword research done, it’s time to start filling in the blanks. Go back to your settings & use your keywords to write your profile title and bio. I recommend your name or business name + a “title” that is commonly searched for. For example, “Grace John Creative | Digital Marketing Tips” or something along those lines. 

For your bio, optimize it the same way you would your instagram bio. Describe what you do as concisely and with as many keywords as possible — without keyword stuffing! 

Optimize your Pinterest Boards & Board Descriptions

Next we move on to creating your boards and writing your board descriptions. Create 5 – 10 boards to start out with & make sure that the titles are relevant keywords that encompass a content pillar that you’ll be sharing about a lot. When you create the boards, immediately make them secret, then pin the top 30 recommended pins that populate to that board. This will help Pinterest know what type of content is going to be shared on that board which will better help index posts under the most relevant keyword once you start sharing content to that board. 

Once you have all boards created and pinned to, start writing pin descriptions for them. Your pin description should be ~450 characters long & should use keywords relevant to that board. Make it conversational! Then, you’ll gradually make each board public again. I would say make 3 public per day. You don’t want to do everything all at once or you could get caught in the spam filter. Better to be safe than sorry!

Claim Your Website

Last but not least, you’re going to claim your website! This is the final & most important step of profile optimization because it allows you to track impressions, saves, and outbound clicks through your analytics tab. Claiming your website is different for every website builder, so I won’t go into too much detail here, but I will provide links to a few tutorials below!

To claim your website, go to settings > claimed > claim website > copy the HTML tag > enter your website URL > go to your website builder > insert code into site header > publish your changes > go back to Pinterest & click verify > you should be all set!

Claiming a Showit website on Pinterest

Claiming a Squarespace website on Pinterest

Claiming a WordPress website on Pinterest

Claiming a Shopify Website on Pinterest

Claiming a Wix Website on Pinterest

The Frills

If you want to go the extra mile, you can also create board covers and a Pinterest header image for your profile. These steps aren’t super necessary, they just make your account look that much more put together!

Next it’s allllll about creating & optimizing content, but I’ll cover that in another blog another day!

I hope this was super helpful! If you need more help, you can download my Pinterest Starter Bundle here or hire me as your Pinterest account manager here!

Talk to you soon!

Grace