Imagine 1 pin getting thousands of clicks back to your website, your product, your service, your opt in page or your podcast! This can happen my friends, its called going viral on Pinterest! Once a pin goes viral, it not only brings immediate traffic to your blog and followers to your Pinterest page, but it also seems to boost your ranking in the platform’s algorithm.
A lot of what makes a viral pin isn’t necessarily what you may think. Yes, creating a beautiful pin that stands out is a big part, but there is so much more technical stuff that goes along with this. In todays post I am sharing the 3 essential ways to create a scroll stopping, viral pin on Pinterest.
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Write About Stuff Your Audience Needs, Wants and Cares About
Niche and Topic & Keyword Research
If its a blog post, an instagram post, a podcast episode, a youtube video, you first need to create a piece of content that your audience goes crazy for. Before you create the content, you need to do keyword research to understand what keywords they are using to search for that type of content.
The easiest place to look for keyword ideas, is within Pinterest. Head over to the search bar on Pinterest. Start typing in words that you believe your customers/audience would be searching to find that type of content. Like google, you will start to see the most popular phrases or (Long tail keywords) associated with that keyword in the drop down. Play around with topics and keyword phrases to learn the language people use when they are searching for that idea/topic. Doing this keyword research will really help you identify the words and copy you should use for your blog/content and then the words you use for your pin graphics and pin descriptions.
Open a google doc and keep a spreadsheet of your keyword research. This will help you when you create more content and pins for the same topic. You want to look at different variations of words around the same topic.
When you start creating your pins, you can use these different variations of keywords for your pin graphics copy, the titles of your pins and in your pin descriptions. You will notice some do better than others, and you can use that data to keep making your pins better and more attractive to your audience.
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Create Scroll Stopping Pins
Pins That Make People Click Again and Again
Pinterest is a visual search engine, so ideally your pins should look attractive. You can create pins using a plain image and then adding your descriptions or you can create pin graphics which is what I highly recommend you start off doing.
Pin graphics can be made using Canva.com
Canva is amazing because they have existing design templates you can work off of, so for all you non graphic designers, you can still create gorgeous pins in minutes. See below for some examples of pins I have created that have done very well.
A lot of work that goes into Pinterest is testing out your content to see what is working for your audience and what isn’t working. This could be different design styles when you make your pin graphics. It could be using different types of images, different colors, different fonts.
Here are a few general rules when it comes to creating pins.
- Pins should be 2:3 ratio (canva.com has already made pin templates so you don’t have to figure out which size to use)
- Keywords made bold, highlighted, or extra clear in some way
- Warm colors tend to be more inviting but this does depend on niche
- Include a call-to-action, like click here, buy now, or learn more
- If you’ve used a busy background image, put a block of white behind your text and play around with the transparency
- Try making 2-3 different pins for each post, make them completely different in order to see what works best, then hone in on different aspects to pinpoint why your pins are or aren’t working
- Pick a background image relevant to your keyword, topic or niche
- Include the title (which should include your keyword ) and variations of this on each pin
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Keywords Keywords Keywords
Pinterest is a search engine, so you must use keywords
I talk a lot about keywords because Pinterest is more like a search engine, so you have to be very strategic about how you use it. Simply posting an image and hoping and praying it will be seen isnt realistic. You have to use keywords. You have to fill your pin with keywords that your audience is using on pinterest to find your content.
Where you should be adding keywords when you create your pins.
- Pin Title
- Pin Description
- Pin Graphic Name ( when you create a graphic in canva and save it to your laptop that image should also have a search friendly name.
Below is an example of a pin that I created that is infused with keywords. Here, my ideal customer or audience is an entrepreneur who is looking to start a subscription box business. So they head over to the Pinterest search bar and start typing in phrases like “How Can I start a subscription business” How to start a subscription box business” “How to launch a subscription box business”
When I created this pin, I already knew a few phrases people were searching for because I started off doing some keyword research (go back to step 1 of this post).
Step 1: I created a pin graphic in Canva.com. I used keywords ON the graphic as you can see
Step 2: When I downloaded the pin graphic to my laptop, I saved the image using keywords. This image was saved as:
How-to-start-a-subscription-box-business-my-story-marketing-by-kerrie.jpg
Step 3: I created the pin in Pinterest, I added a title enriched with keywords, I also added my business name in the title.
Step 4: I created a description that would entice someone to click because I offered them a chance to get a free 15 step guide. It’s important to include call to actions in your pins to get people to click.
Step 5: Save your pin to a relevant board. Make sure you are saving pins to very relevant boards. For example this pin would be included in my subscription box related boards.
Here is another example of a pin I created for a product business. This is using an example of a regular image instead of a pin graphic. It’s good to keep testing your pins to see what performs best for you. Currently this pin is one of the best performing pins for this business.
For this specific pin I used a rather simple title but using words that people are searching for on Pinterest. The description also includes many keywords like ” plush dog toy” and I include a call to action for them to click to learn more about the product. I chose this image because its bright and vibrant and I know my audience for this company loves puppies. Before even posting this pin, I knew it would do very well because I really understand the audience.
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Interested in using Pinterest for your business and want to DIY? Enroll in my online course called “Pinterest for Business 101.” This is an online course (that you can netflix and binge in one weekend) that will teach you how to use Pinterest for your business to make money, sell products and services, increase traffic and more.
For other free resources on Pinterest, I encourage you to check out my free guide on how to 5X your website traffic with Pinterest with Pinterest or Pinterest for beginners guide and Pinterest tips to attract your ideal customer.
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