Keyword Strategy for Pinterest SEO: The Definitive Guide (2020)

I feel like Pinterest is this little secret that nobody really knows about. When you think about growing your business and how to drive traffic to your site, Pinterest isn’t really the first thing that comes to mind.

When I first started using Pinterest, I honestly had no idea what a HUGE difference it would make.

Pinterest was a total gamechanger for my blog and now generates more than 40% of total traffic to my site.

So yes, Pinterest is essential to growing your blog and using keywords the right way is key to that strategy. Because Pinterest is a search engine (just like Google!) and targeting the right keywords on Pinterest ensures people will find your pins.

Without doing keyword research, you’re basically creating content blind.

Updated Feb 2020:

By optimizing for Pinterest SEO, my pins have reached over 440K impressions in a single month. Breaking that down, it means Pinterest drives an average of 20K-25K impressions to my content per day.

Impressions: The number of times your pins were seen. Source: Pinterest Analytics.

In the last 30 days alone, my content has been seen almost half a million times through pins! 

Related: How to Set Up Rich Pins on Pinterest in 5 Minutes

In this comprehensive guide I’ll cover:

What are keywords on Pinterest?

Keywords on Pinterest are words you use to let Pinterest know what your pins are about in order to rank them in Smart Feeds and search results. Adding niche-specific keywords in your pin description and image helps Pinterest users find your content.

Secret to finding keywords on Pinterest

The secret to using keywords on Pinterest is to niche down and target a specific audience. Targeting the right keywords lets you reach people who are searching for a specific topic on Pinterest.

Pinterest has a very powerful search function – at the top of your Pinterest account, you will see this search bar:

This is how people find content and it’s key to them finding yours. So targeting the right keywords in your pin descriptions will help your pins appear in specific search results.

Instead of targeting a very broad keyword like ‘blogging’, you can niche down and target more niche topics such as:

• blogging for beginners
• blogging tips
• blogging for money

Narrowing your focus and optimizing around niche keywords will increase the likelihood of ranking highly on Pinterest’s Smart Feeds and search results.

Related: 10 Ways to Drive Massive Pinterest Traffic to Your Blog

How to find niche specific keywords that people are searching for

There are 2 ways to find niche specific keywords that your audience are looking for on Pinterest:

• Pinterest’s auto-suggest
• Pinterest’s guided search function

Pinterest’s auto-suggest to find broad keyword ideas

Pinterest’s auto-suggest helps you find broad keyword ideas based on your primary topic.

Your primary topic can be 1-2 words, describing your industry / niche. Don’t get too specific here, you want the initial keyword research phase to be as broad as possible.

Pinterest’s guided search function to find long-tail niche keywords

Next, use Pinterest’s guided search function to find more specific, long-tail keywords.

The guided search function is simply the ‘colored tiles’ under the search bar. You’ll have to hit enter on a keyword first and those colored tiles will appear.

Voila! You’ve got a TON of specific, long-tail keyword ideas to optimize your pins around.

Pinterest Ads: Keyword Planner

I recently started using Pinterest Ads and found this amazing feature in the campaign setup:

Pinterest Keyword Planner!

You need a Pinterest Business Account to use Pinterest Ads. At the top left, navigate to ‘Ads’ > ‘Create ad’.

Create a test campaign and click ‘continue’ to the ad group level.

Scroll all the way down until you see this ‘Keyword’ section.

Now, type in your primary keyword. Start off with a generic seed keyword, like “blogging” for example.

Pinterest’s keyword planner automatically suggests related keyword ideas with their monthly searches.

That is a goldmine of information! What we can do next is choose 10-15 keywords from that list with the highest search volume and use them in our pin titles and descriptions. Such as:

• blogging tips
• awesome blogging
• blogging info
• blogging life
• blogging inspiration
• better blogging
• blogging tips ideas

High volume keywords have at least 10k-100k in monthly searches. The benefit of choosing keywords with high search volume is high traffic potential. You’ll reach more people by optimizing your pins with high volume keywords.

And Pinterest tells us how much your estimated audience size would be if you promote your ads with those keywords:

Voila! That’s how you can drive more traffic to your pins by using Pinterest’s ad platform to find high volume keywords.

4 Key Areas to Optimize for Pinterest SEO

There are four key areas to optimize for Pinterest SEO in your pins:

• Pin title
• Pin description
• Image
• Destination link

Craft a catchy pin title to attract more traffic

Titles, titles, titles!

Your pin title should be the headline of your blog post or page. Add your primary keyword in the title and craft a catchy title.

Generally, adding numbers and power words in the title attracts more click throughs!

Add keyword-rich descriptions in your pins

Think about what keywords people would type to find your content. Pinterest is a search engine, so we have to use SEO.

Adding keyword-rich description to your pins will help rank your pins on Pinterest Smart Feeds and attract more traffic to your site.

• Summarize in 1-2 sentences what your linking page is about.
• Sprinkle 8-10 niche specific keywords in your pin description.

Most people neglect this part or they just add their title in the description. No no, friend. You’re missing out big time if that’s all you’re doing for Pinterest SEO.

Pin Images

Did you know Pinterest uses Smart Lens technology to read your image and find related images?

That’s how Pinterest finds related pins to show you based on the pin you clicked on. So when you’re creating your pin image, include your primary keyword.

This plays an important role in your pins getting found by the right people and might boost its virality too.

Destination Link

Pins are in fact links to the original source of your image, meaning your website. That’s how Pinterest provides traffic to your website. People view your pins and click through to the destination link.

At this stage, all we have to do is paste your blog post or page URL to drive traffic from Pinterest.

Finally, Pinterest Boards.

A Pinterest board is where you save your pins. Use keywords in the board title and board description. Easy peasy.

I recommend creating at least 4-5 boards to segment and house your pins.

• Board 1: Main board with all your pins (i.e, LeanneWong.Co)
• Board 2: Primary blog category pins (i.e, SEO)
• Board 3: Primary blog category pins (i.e, Pinterest Tips)
• Board 4: Primary blog category pins (i.e, Content Strategy)

Each board will be optimized towards a specific topic. For example, my board about SEO will contain all my SEO related pins.

This boosts the topical relevance of my board for SEO content and boost its ability to show up when people are searching for ‘SEO’ on Pinterest.

YAY! That’s my entire process for keyword strategy for Pinterest SEO. If you enjoyed this guide, feel free to share it around!