I’ve been an avid Pinterest user since “the beginning”. I don’t want to write a specific year here, since I don’t wanna feel old, but you get the idea – for quite some time.
Of course, I was just an average user, enthusiastically saving motivational quotes (while mastering the procrastination in my student years), tattoo ideas (Still doing this, oops), and travel inspiration (Yep, still doing that. A lot.). At that time, it didn’t matter AT ALL whether my Pinterest profile was optimized. Why? Well, it was just for me, of course – and I didn’t have any “plans with it”.
Besides Pinterest becoming my “love at a first pin” (I mean, no better way to waste time than endless scrolling when you should be studying, right?), I soon realized Pinterest is my platform to go since it is different from other social media. Why? Well, because Pinterest is actually not a social media, it is a visual search engine. You know, like Google with photos where you come to find inspiration and you don’t need to compete to get “the numbers”.
A few (ok, a lot of ) years down the road, when I got serious about travel blogging, something clicked (aka the “aha” moment) – “Hey, but Pinterest can be an amazing source of traffic!” What if I would dig into it a bit more – I’m already spending a lot of time on it (yep, a lasting love), why not make something out of this? I know, it took me long lol.
And I did. I created a Pinterest business account and I started. I read. I studied. I signed up for Tailwind (and fell in love). I read more. Tried this and that. And to my surprise – it worked! And more importantly, it worked in 2019, when I was losing my mind and having a strong love-hate relationship (er – with the emphasis on the second one) with other social media.
Look, that’s what happened in just a couple of months of “taking Pinterest seriously”:
I mean, what?! I was thrilled!
Try doing that on Instagram! 😀 (btw, you can be super-nice and follow us anyway, we’ll be eternally grateful)
It wasn’t long before friends started to ask for my help and I quickly realized that I really enjoy helping others leverage the power of Pinterest! I mean, it’s kinda satisfying to see that curve grow! And that’s how Sandra S. Media was born 🙂
Now, there are a lot of factors that are important in Pinterest marketing. But an optimized Pinterest profile is an essential part of it. Actually, as a Pinterest manager that’s the first thing I tell my clients – if necessary (and it’s almost always necessary), we have to make a profile makeover (or at least optimize a few things). You gotta have a solid foundation to grow from.
Remember when I said, Pinterest is a visual search engine? So, it all comes down to these two things: VISUAL + SEARCH. You’ll want to make your Pinterest profile visually appealing and SEO optimized at the same time to stand out.
Ok, so enough of my babbling, let’s get down to work and optimize your Pinterest profile!
Just to let you know…
If all this below will sound like too much research and work for you and you kinda feel lost – hey, I’m here for you! Ok, that sounded cheesy.
No, but for real – if you need any help with Pinterest – I’m gonna shamelessly invite you to check out my services.
Either you need somebody to do all the work for you or you just need a few tips to start moving in the right direction – I’m happy to help. And you can always shoot me a message if you have any questions or you feel overwhelmed by the amount of information. Will answer asap!
9 STEPS OF PINTEREST PROFILE MAKEOVER:
1. OPTIMIZE YOUR NAME
The first thing that you’ll want to do is to optimize your name. And although this seems like an obvious step, it is often overlooked.
What’s your business about? Are you a travel blogger, an artist who makes jewelry, a personal coach, or a wedding photographer?
By adding a short description to your (business) name, you’re not only helping Pinterest gods to classify you (Yep, I know, it sounds weird, but I guess that’s what Pinterest gods do), but it will also help others to find you if they search for a specific business.
Because nobody will look for “Pintastic Solutions” (boo-hoo). But – they just might look for a Pinterest manager and that’s where my profile may pop up!
Plus, if anybody clicks on your profile when they scroll through Pinterest and they notice an amazing pin (Yes, yours, of course!) they’ll know immediately what your business is about and if it’s something they’re interested in, they just might start following you right away (but, to increase that chance even more – keep reading! 😉 )
2. TAKE A LOOK AT YOUR PROFILE PHOTO
What kind of profile photo do you have currently? Is it your logo? Or a blurry photo, a beach selfie, or perhaps you’re so tiny that somebody would need a magnifying glass to find you? 😉
If your brand is an established and well-known one (you know, if you are, er – Netflix), then by all means – keep using the logo.
But people are curious by nature and they’d like to know “the face behind the brand”! Since this is a business we’re talking about, it’s still important to remain “kinda” professional (that’s why I said ditch that beach selfie – unless you design swimsuits, and you’re the one-man-band and market them as well, that is).
When someone looks at your profile photo, you’ll want to show them your brand and your personality (er – so passport photo is out of the question as well). If you offer services (i.e. coaching, social media management), then focus on the personality part – it’s not utterly necessary to have a “behind a computer” photo 🙂
Bright, close up photos that tell a story are your way to go!
Hey, you can also download a printable checklist to make sure you don’t forget anything while doing a makeover!
3. OPTIMIZE YOUR BIO
Pinterest gives you an additional 160 characters to tell something about your business – so use them well!
Ideally, your bio will reflect your profile name and photo and tell Pinterest & users who you are (+ something about your personality) and what you can do for them.
So, sorry to disappoint you (Er – not sorry at all), but it’s not really about you, it’s about THEM!
While it’s still important to use keywords (You know, Pinterest algorithms, and all that), you don’t want your bio to look like you just stuffed in as many keywords as possible – keep it natural.
I know, it sounds like a lot of pressure to put everything in a sentence or two AND keep keywords in mind AND sound natural, but don’t stress too much about it – you can always change your bio if you get a better idea.
Or you can write down several different descriptions and ask somebody else for an opinion – a fresh perspective is always helpful.
Here’s an example: A photo that shows who we are, our personalities, and there’s a WANNABE New York in the background (we should travel to NY this year, but I guess 2020 is all about #stayinghome). The bio supports the idea and tells a reader what they can expect to find on our Pinterest profile and on our blog.
My Pintastic Solution profile is focused on how can I help potential clients and tells something about my personality – (em, hopefully, all the good things! 😉 ).
Psst – don’t get discouraged by the low number of monthly viewers. I only have this account so that people can find me, so there’s no need for its growth.
4. DITCH NON-RELEVANT BOARDS
What story do your boards tell? Are they all relevant to your niche or are they kinda “all over the place”?
It’s ok if you’re slightly obsessed with cute puppies (who isn’t?) or the latest fashion trends, but if you’re a travel blogger or a business coach, these boards are not relevant to your niche and you’re giving Pinterest (and its users) mixed signals. And remember – you don’t want them to hesitate when it comes to the question of following you (and click-through to your website).
ALSO: If you want your personality to shine through and you really really want, you can still keep a board or two with your personal interests. But don’t overdo it – your potential client is interested in how you can help them, not in your hobbies.
Otherwise, go through all of your boards, and either archive non-relevant ones or change them to “secret”.
IMO, it’s better to archive them since Pinterest is following all your steps (creepy, but true) and if you’ll be browsing “latest swimsuit trends”, your home feed will be suddenly full of swimsuits instead of the high-quality content from your niche that you can pin on your boards.
When I was giving a Pinterest consultation to a friend who makes quiet books for children, I forgot I was using my travel account to search for pin examples – and for the next week or so, all I’ve seen on my feed were quiet books and DIY toys for children. My mum would be probably thrilled to see what I was looking at ( er – but that’s another story), but I was less happy since I had to specifically search for the quality pins for my boards.
You can always create a personal Pinterest account where you can pin everything that your heart wants. Especially cute puppy photos.
BUT…if you’re totally ok with your feed being diversified then keep these as secret boards.
However, the bottom line – stick to your niche to give the right impression to the potential client.
5. MAKE SURE YOUR PINTEREST BOARDS ARE SEO OPTIMIZED
Keywords no. 3 or another place where Pinterest SEO is important. While you might be tempted to give your boards cute/funny/innovative names, here’s one place where “simple” is – well, smart.
“Hidden corners of BlueMarble” might sound like an interesting name, but Pinterest will prioritize a straightforward name like “Unique places in the world”. Why? Well, because nobody types “hidden corners of BlueMarble” in a search bar, that’s why.
Also, avoid using too broad names – i.e. name “DIY” doesn’t give Pinterest the best signal of what this board is about – is it about DIY clothes, DIY children’s toys, DIY wedding decorations or something else?
So, when naming Pinterest boards, be specific and keep it simple.
Another place where you can tell Pinterest what the board is about (with the ultimate goal to show it to a lot of people who are searching for that topic) is a board description. When adding descriptions to boards, use a good portion of keywords to help place the board in the “Pinterest universe” correctly.
6. MAKE THOSE BOARDS PRETTY
Pinterest is a visual search engine (hey, I’ve talked about this on Instagram as well) and when somebody lands on your profile, the first impression matters (Remember how mums were telling us to comb our hair before aunt’s visit? Kinda like that).
And what’s one simple thing that will make your Pinterest profile stand out? BOARD COVERS.
They are a super simple way to make your profile look professional and create a cohesive brand identity.
While not using board covers will not have a direct negative impact on your brand, having them just might:
✅ Give a better overall impression (remember every time you find a stunning profile and you get this tingly feeling “Omg, that’s gorgeous, I just gotta follow this!”) = yaaay!
✅ Increase brand awareness
✅ Last but not least – make it easier for you and for users to find a specific board (yes, when having 40 boards, this surely saves time)
7. CREATE THE “BEST OF BOARD”
If you don’t have “Best of board” yet, create one immediately. On other boards, you pin your own pins and relevant curated content and especially if you don’t have a lot of content yet, your pins can get “lost” among others.
It’s important to make it as easy as possible for users to find all your content (products!) and that’s what this board is about.
Easy peasy, right?
8. REORGANIZE BOARDS
When you make your “Best of” board, make sure you put it in a place where everyone who visits your profile will see it immediately– at the beginning.
If your profile is full of group boards, mixed with your own boards, and your “best of” board is hidden somewhere in between, that second in which users decide whether it’s worth following your content won’t play to your benefit.
Move your boards to the beginning and reorganize them according to relevance – the boards that have a lot of your content or are highly relevant to your niche should be the ones at the top.
In addition to that, evaluate whether you have boards that could be combined. If you have more boards with very similar content they can be merged into one.
An example: I had a board about Overlanding and Overlanding South America. I realized I was struggling with what to pin in each of those & the content was really similar at the end. So, I merged those two boards into one and deleted duplicated pins.
On the other hand…do you have enough boards to represent all of your content? If not, create a few (besides, creating boards from time to time also gives the signal to Mr. Pinterest that you’re active on the platform). You can also add a few boards that you know your target niche audience would be interested in.
The last thing to check is how many pins your boards have. If there are less than 20 pins (or perhaps only a few!) on the board, switch that board to “secret” until you fill it up.
Half-empty boards just don’t give the right impression.
If I’m gonna find a profile with a bunch of interesting boards, only to realize it’s nothing on them…I’ll feel like I was misled and certainly won’t follow it.
So, I recommend keeping these boards secret until you fill them up – either by browsing through Pinterest or by scheduling high-quality pins through Tailwind tribes (I don’t know for you, but that’s my preferred way to go).
9. DELETE UGLY PINS
Yes, I said it – I used the word ugly. Sorrry. But no worries, we’ve all been there.
This is a task even I’m avoiding to do (and thus making the “procrastination monster” super happy) because it is as tedious as it sounds.
You probably wonder “Why is she talking about deleting, and not pinning instead?”
But here’s the thing – Pinterest can recognize pictures as well (Surprise, surprise. Er – not really).
So, it just might decide that pins with blurry, ugly photos and unrecognizable fonts are low quality and not worth being shown to more people.
You might think that’s not your problem since those aren’t your pins. Well, here’s bad news – if you’re pinning such pins on your boards, Pinterest will associate them with your profile and also your own board will get lower exposure!
That’s a bummer, I know.
So, make yourself a big cup of coffee/tea (or better yet, pour yourself an enormous glass of wine if it’s afternoon – you might need it 😉) and schedule a couple of hours in your day to go through boards and delete pins that are eye-hurting (sorry for being harsh).
If it happens that now when you’ll look at your pins with the critical eye, you’ll realize they just might fall in that “ugly category”… no worries again! Schedule a couple of more hours and create a bunch of better-looking ones! But if you think that nobody can be less talented for pin design as you are, outsourcing pin design is a solid option as well. Yes, yes, I do that too 😉
Pinterest has a feature where you can bulk delete pins – just head over to the board and on the right corner click the icon with “two lines and dots” and “Select Pins to move or delete.” Then you manually select pins and click on one of the options – you can either copy, move or delete up to 50 pins at once, which will save some time (but you’ll still have to identify which are those pins).
And – you’re done!
If you followed all these 9 simple steps you should now have a kickass Pinterest profile that will stand out and please the mighty Pinterest gods (which equals more exposure!) and make users click that follow button.
GOOD TO KNOW: The number of followers is just a “vanity metrics” at the end since you can have tons of followers who aren’t engaging with your pins – but you do want followers who are interested in your content – which ultimately leads to more clicks. Additionally, if those followers are engaging with your content, Pinterest will also subsequently show your pins/boards to more people who aren’t following you (yet). [and this is where Pinterest resembles social media]
💡 Pssst, don’t forget – whether you’re using Pinterest for a while or you’re a total newbie to the platform (we all were at one point!) but feel overwhelmed with this DIY Pinterest profile makeover – you can always hand it over to me. I can either do all the work for you (and you can focus on the more important stuff, like sipping gin&tonic on a terrace) or we can work together step-by-step (Zoom, Loom, screenshots, Skype, whatever you prefer!) and transform your profile into an amazing foundation that will drive traffic to your blog or website.
Are you wondering what others think about my work? Click here to find out. 🙂
In any case, I recommend downloading my free printable checklist, so that you won’t miss any steps while optimizing your Pinterest profile.
Because – checklists are REAL saviors. I use them all the time. Like, all the time. I even have a checklist of checklists. No kidding. Any other checklist lover here? Anybody?? Hands up! *raises both hands and legs*
Cheers to the Pintastic Pinterest profile! 🙂
Don’t have time to optimize your Pinterest profile right now? Do you have a doctor’s appointment, a gym session, or a date (with the procrastination monster)? No worries, just pin this for later! 🙂
