Late month, I had a couple of in-town consults with newbie business owners. One of the things I noticed was the lack of a Pinterest strategy they had for their business. Truthfully, there was no Pinterest strategy, it was an after thought to say the least. As new business owners, I understand there is so much already on your plate from launching, shipping, product launch, customer acquisition, blogging, and more to deal with.
Establishing a winning Pinterest strategy doesn’t take hours upon hours of work. Once, you create a plan that works for your business your ready to go. Here are 5 little tips that you can start using today.
Pinterest Images & Sizing
There are numerous articles on Pinterest that say all your images need to be pretty and vertical to go viral. This is not necessarily true but a good guideline to live by. I wrote the article, Small Business Tax Write Offs , almost two years ago. Even to this day, I have 100+ page views a day from this post being pinned. As, you can see it’s very simple. However, 80% of Pinterest users are women, so having visually stimulating images is a good marketing strategy. In addition to that fact, when you are on your laptop, tablet, or phone, vertical images take up more real estate vs horizontal images. I have both options on this site.
If you need help making graphics for your blog post, I suggest using PicMonkey. It’s a free website that you can use. Follow the tips from the “Designing Call To Action Banners” article to make your images.
Naming Images
This is a huge one that most people skip over completely. Ever wonder how images appear in the Google Image Search option? People have optimized the images and product photos with the right words. Naming your sugar scrub, “ss_photo_1”, does nothing for your website’s SEO. A better name would be “Happy Holly’s Orange Sugar Scrub”. Someone might know you’re Happy Holly, but those who don’t may search on Pinterest or Google with the phrase “Orange Sugar Scrub” and then they stumble upon your product. Name your photo’s prior to uploading them to the website.
Alt Tags
Have you ever wondered why there is a pre-written script or description about images, when you pin from certain sites? This is because the person decided to take the extra time to add it. Most websites have the option to add it when uploading the media. You are not using this stuff with keywords, that is bad SEO practice. Make sure you are writing a witty description that describes your image.
Headers
If you read most blogs or websites that have an abundance of information on one page, you may notice that they break up the text with various headers. Header tags help your website with SEO. Utilize H1-H6 throughout your website text to help optimize your site.
Pin It Buttons
You no longer need to install the Pinterest extension plugin to your tool bar to pin. Neither does your audience. Installing the standard “Pin it” button is common on most websites. With others you have the option to download the plugin. You can either customize it if you choose. Just make sure you have it for all your images not just at the footer of your site. Customers want to pin your articles and products. Make it easier for them.
Sometimes the simplest things can have the biggest impact on your business. When you incorporated all these tips into your website and blog, it will help your business establish a winning Pinterest strategy that will help your company grow. How much thought have you put into your website? How it is optimized for Pinterest?
