Back in the days when I first started using Pinterest, I mainly used it for collecting beautiful quotes, and for inspiration for home decoration. I didn’t realize then that Pinterest is so much more than just collecting a few cute pictures and sharing ideas. It has never occurred to me that Pinterest is actually big business for many business owners, big and small. It does make sense, of course, when you think about it. But if you use Pinterest for personal purposes only, it’s not something you think about. At least… I didn’t. 😉
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Pinterest is Business!
Pinterest has about 175 million active users per month. Of these users, 55% of them use Pinterest for shopping! Pinterest is basically Google’s visual equivalent. And visual search is booming in 2020, which means Pinterest is the place to be! This is especially so for niches that women love. Because 7 out of 10 users on Pinterest are female. However, the representation of niches focussed on men is also on the rise on Pinterest!
If this is still not enough for you to start to set up your very own business account, I’d like to add on top of all that, that 75% of the content that is posted on Pinterest, is shared by businesses. Yes, you read it right… 75%, my friends! Pinterest is extremely effective when it comes to generating more traffic to your site. And more traffic = more sales!
If there are so many business opportunities for grabs on Pinterest for other businesses, there must also be plenty business chances there for you!
So, if you own a fantastic blog/website that is in desperate need to be seen by a bigger audience, you really sell yourself short if you don’t have a Pinterest Business account.
How to be successful on Pinterest?
Now, you wonder, what do I need to get myself a piece of that Pinterest pie?
The first step to Pinterest success is setting up your very own business account.
But remember, apart from you, many others are blogging about precisely the same things as you’re blogging about. The competition is fierce! Therefore, a properly set-up Pinterest account, combined with high-quality content, and a rock-solid Pin strategy is key to getting top rankings for your Pins in Pinterest’s’ search results.
Let me tell you… getting ranked at the top is quite an art. But nothing is impossible. If other people can do it, you can do it too! You just need to know How to do it, have some patience, and be passionate about your blog!
To get you started, I will explain below how to set up your business account. After following these 5 quick steps, you’re ready to embark on your Pinterest adventure with a fully optimized business account that’s set-up for success!
Great! But how do I create a Pinterest business account?
Why do I need a Business account, and what is the difference between a personal and a business Pinterest account?
The first reason you need a business account is that it’s required if you want to make a buck out of Pinterest. But more importantly, you can do much more with a business account. For starters, you can link your website to your Pinterest account and display your website and blog/business name in your profile. This way, both Pinterest and its users will know that any content that links to your blog is original content from this Pinterest account. A business account just gives your blog/company a more professional look and feel!
As a business user, you’ll have access to Rich pins, Promoted pins, and – the best part; your statistics! You can keep track of the number of views and clicks, and which of your boards are the most popular.
Creating A Pinterest Business-account in 5 simple steps:
Step 1: Create A Pinterest Business-account
- There are 3 options: you can add a business profile to your personal Pinterest-account, create a new business account, or convert a personal account into a business account.
- Go to Get A Business Account and follow the steps.
Congrats! You are now the proud owner of a Pinterest business account.🙂 Now, let’s get your account up and running!
Step 2: Optimize your profile
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- Go to your profile and click on Edit.
- Add a profile picture. Tip: I strongly recommend using a clear headshot. People like to know the face behind your brand. Your visitors are more likely to bond to you and your blog when they feel like they know you. I know this might be a scary thing to some of you guys, but you have to overcome these feelings to become successful.
- Display name: fill in your name and your company name. If there is some space left, I also advise to include keywords associated with your blog/brand. This will help other users understand what type of Pins they can expect to be pinned on this profile.
- About your profile: This is the moment you tell your readers exactly what you’re doing and what you stand for. Aim to use as many keywords (for your SEO) as possible!
- Click on Done.
This is what it will look like 🙂
Step 3: Claim Your Website
Go to Claim in the left menu. This is where you can claim your website, to let Pinterest know this website is yours!
Pinterest and its users now know this website is connected to this Pinterest account, and the Pins that link to this website, are in fact, your original content.
This is how you claim your website:
- Enter the URL of your website and click on Claim.
- You now need to verify that you are the owner of this website. There are several options to do this. I think that adding the HTML is the easiest way to do it. That’s how I did it. I used the Insert Headers and Footers plugin to add the HTML tag. If you don’t know how to code, I recommend that you use this plugin too.
- Go to this page if you need any help: Claim Your Website
Step 4: Claim Your Etsy, YouTube & Instagram Account
Go to Claim other accounts to claim your Etsy, YouTube, and Instagram accounts as well!
Step 5: Activate Rich Pins!!
One of the best features of a Business account is the option to activate Rich Pins, which I highly recommend to every blogger and business owner. Rich Pins add more context to your pins. A Rich Pin shows additional information on the pin itself, like a direct link to your website, the title of the article, the description, ingredients, and ratings.
There are 4 different types of Rich pins:
- Article pins – show that they click on a page that tells a story
- Recipe pins – show the ingredients, cooking times, serving information, ratings
- Product pins – show information about the items you sell; price, availability, buy location
- App pins – Users can see your pin leads to an app, and there is an install button to directly install the application from Pinterest!
But there are even more reasons why Rich Pins are fantastic! They rank higher in the Pinterest search results, ánd when you update the data of your blog posts, the data in Pinterest will be updated to the new descriptions automatically!
Don’t forget to check if the metadata is added to your blogs in WordPress. This is where Pinterest collects the data from for your Rich Pins.
My favorite plugin to write meta descriptions is Rank Math. Rank Math is a plugin to help you improve your SEO for the search engines to find and rank you higher. And metadata is an important part of SEO. This is why you can use this plugin to add the metadata to your posts. If you didn’t have an SEO plugin yet, Rank Math is an excellent plugin for beginners. This plugin shows exactly where your SEO needs to be improved, and best of all, it’s free!
By the way, in case you didn’t know, the metadata is also displayed in the Google search results.
Activate Rich Pins:
- Go to the Pinterest URL Debugger.
- Enter a link to a page of your website that you wrote metadata for and click on Validate.
- Once Pinterest has validated your Rich Pins, the additional information will be added to your pins. Looks great, huh? :))
Want to learn more about the best WordPress plugins? Read this: The 15 Best WordPress Plugins Every Blogger NeedsOr do you want to learn more about boosting blog traffic? Read this: 14 Proven Tactics To Boost Your Blog Traffic in 2020!
DONE!
Your business Pinterest account is ready to use! You can now start creating boards, sections, and pins, which I will discuss in detail in my upcoming blog! Want to be updated on the latest blogging tips? Sign up for the She Can Blog newsletter!
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Amazing post! Thanks to this blog I discovered rich pins! This will be very helpful for my blog and pinterest account!💖⭐
Thank you! That’s great, the rich pins are really going to help you grow your Pinterest account much faster. 🙂
Hi Angie, thank you for this post! I was currently out in the look out to grow my Pinterest account :), def. will be trying these steps today.
Happy to hear this is useful to you! 🙂