When you use Pinterest to promote your business or blog, it can be easy to get wrapped up in creating gorgeous pins. After all, Pinterest is a visual platform, and you’re going to get better results if your pins are attractive. But here’s the thing: You can have the most beautiful Pinterest pins in the world. But they won’t get you many views, repins, or clicks if they’re missing something critical: optimized pin descriptions. Why is it so important to have strong pin descriptions for each pin? And how do you write a good one?
Keep reading below because I’m about to tell you all about optimized Pinterest pin descriptions!
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Why they’re important
It may seem annoying to have to write pin descriptions for the pins you share on Pinterest. But pin descriptions exist for a reason, and it’s not to make your life harder.
Instead, your pin descriptions improve your Pinterest SEO by helping Pinterest figure out what your pins are about. Why is this important? When Pinterest knows what your pins are about, it knows how to categorize them. And when Pinterest knows how to categorize your pins, it’s more likely to display them in relevant Pinterest search results and users’ home feeds. Want someone who’s searching for vegan baking to find your pin about vegan baking tips? Your pin description will play a key role in making this happen.
Note that this is information straight from Pinterest, so you can feel extra confident about relying on it.
Of course, your pin descriptions aren’t important just for helping Pinterest understand your pins. Optimized pin descriptions also help other Pinterest users learn more about the content your pin links to. If you have strong pin descriptions that tell users that they’ll find mega value if they click through to your website, they’ll be more likely to check your site out.
Related: 10 Pinterest tips that boost your traffic, leads, and sales + free Pinterest SEO cheat sheet
How to write them
Now that you know why it’s important to have optimized Pinterest pin descriptions, let’s talk about how to write effective ones.
No more keyword stuffing
Before I explain how to write optimized pin descriptions, I have to say a few words about keyword stuffing. If you have a blog, you probably know that keyword stuffing—cramming keywords into pages and posts—is a bad thing to do on blogs and websites. Google wants website and blog owners to create high-quality content, not just pages and posts that are full of keywords and barely comprehensible as a result. That’s why Google penalizes websites and blogs that stuff keywords into their content.
Related: 5 blog post SEO tips you need to know + free blog SEO ebook
If you’re used to thinking of keyword stuffing as a bad thing, you may be surprised to learn that up until early 2018, many Pinterest experts recommended keyword stuffing in Pinterest descriptions. In other words, they used to recommend creating pin descriptions that look like this.
As you can see in the image, the description for this pin consists of a bunch of keywords strung together. It’s isn’t so much a description of the pin as it is a list of relevant keywords.
Previously, Pinterest didn’t penalize users for stuffing keywords in their pin descriptions. So keyword stuffing used to be a good way for boosting the SEO of your pin descriptions. But this all changed in early 2018. And now, experts recommend writing conversational, keyword-rich descriptions instead. In other words, they suggest writing pin descriptions that look like this:
How do you do this? Follow these 4 simple steps.
Step 1: Write an engaging description
Optimized pin descriptions are engaging. After all, if you want someone who reads your pin description to repin or click on your pin, you have to make the description interesting and appealing. To do this, focus on writing pin descriptions that explain the content your pins link to. For example, if your pin links to a blog post about watercolour painting tips, your pin description should explain this.
In addition to telling people what your pins are about, your pin descriptions should communicate the benefit of clicking on your pins. In other words, what will people discover, learn, or receive if they visit the page or post that’s linked to your pins?
Does it seem daunting to write engaging pin descriptions that explain what your pin links to AND why this content matters? There’s a strategy I use that makes this easier: Instead of writing a pin description from scratch, use the meta description for your blog post or webpage as a starting point. For example, if you’re creating a pin for your blog post on landscape photography tips, use the meta description for the blog post as a starting point.
Remember that your meta description is a brief description that tells Google and other search engines what your blog post is about. Because it already describes the content and value of your blog post, it’s the perfect starting point when writing a description for a pin that links to the blog post.
As an example, here’s the meta description for my blog post on how Pinterest increased my email subscribers by 1018%:
Struggling to grow your email list? Learn how Pinterest increased my email subscribers by 1018% in one year + get the free Pinterest profile cheat sheet.
When turning this meta description into a Pinterest pin description, I modified the copy a bit so that it wouldn’t be an exact duplicate of my meta description text. You’ll want to do this because Pinterest also displays the meta description for your blog post or webpage with your pin:
I also added an additional call-to-action sentence (bolded below) that encourages people to click through to the blog post to get all the Pinterest tips. This sentence spells out what I want people to do when they view the pin.
Wish you had more email subscribers? Learn how Pinterest grew my list by 1018% in just one year. Click through for all the tips and get the Pinterest profile cheat sheet.
Related: How to write a strong call to action for your website + free cheat sheet
Want to skyrocket traffic to your website so you can grow your email list and make more sales?
Download my free cheat sheet on creating the perfect Pinterest account profile.
Step 2: Add keywords
Once you’ve created an engaging and informative pin description, it’s time to add keywords. Keywords are one of the main components in your pin descriptions that help Pinterest understand and categorize your pins. As a result, including keywords in your pin descriptions is key if you want your pins to be visible in people’s search results and home feeds on Pinterest.
If you’ve used your webpage’s or blog post’s meta description as a starting point, your pin description should already contain at least one keyword. For example, the meta description for my blog post on how Pinterest increased my email subscribers already contained the keywords “Pinterest” and “email subscribers.” However, you ideally want to have several keywords in your pin descriptions. When you have several keywords in your pin descriptions, you’ll be able to tell Pinterest that you pin is associated with more categories of content.
Incorporate more keywords into your pin descriptions by thinking of additional keywords that are relevant to your pin. These additional keywords can be more specific versions of your main keyword (for example, “Pinterest marketing”) or keywords related to other topics covered in your post (for example, “email list”).
Having trouble coming up with additional keywords? Use the search function in Pinterest to generate more ideas. Just type your main keyword into the search box and run the search. Pinterest will generate a list of keywords that are related to the one you typed in. You can add them to your pin descriptions.
Remember that even though you want to add multiple keywords to your pin descriptions, you still want your descriptions to be conversational. Aim to weave your keywords into your pin descriptions naturally to optimize your descriptions both for users and for Pinterest.
Here’s the pin description for my pin on how Pinterest increased my email subscribers. I’ve bolded the keywords so that you can see where they are.
Wish you had more email subscribers? Learn how Pinterest grew my email list by 1018% in just one year. Click through for all my Pinterest tips and get the Pinterest profile cheat sheet.
Step 3: Add hashtags
Hashtags weren’t a thing on Pinterest until relatively recently, but there’s no sign that they’ll be disappearing anytime soon.
Just like on Instagram, hashtags allow users to view all of the pins people have shared on a particular topic. For example, if someone wants to view all of the tips on “dining room décor,” they can click on the “#diningroomdecor” hashtag and they’ll see all the pins on Pinterest that contain this hashtag in their description.
To optimize your visibility on Pinterest and get your pins onto hashtag pages, include hashtags in your pin descriptions. Feel free to incorporate them into the copy in your pin description or simply list them at the end. Note that Pinterest recommends including no more than 20 hashtags in your pin descriptions. And always make sure they’re relevant. After all, there’s no point in ending up on the #towtruck page if you’re pinning about taxes.
Here are the hashtags I used for my pin on how Pinterest increased my email subscribers.
Wish you had more email subscribers? Learn how Pinterest grew my email list by 1018% in just one year. Click through for all my Pinterest tips and get the Pinterest profile cheat sheet. #pinteresttips #pinterestmarketing #contentmarketing #leadgeneration #email #emailmarketing
Keep in mind that unlike how Pinterest displays pins in search results and home feeds (where high-quality content is more visible than fresh content), pins on hashtag pages are arranged in chronological order. This means that it isn’t worth your time to add hashtags to older pins you’ve already shared on Pinterest. Unless you use a super specific hashtag, old pins will end up too far down the hashtag page to get much visibility via the hashtag.
Step 4: Vary your descriptions
How do many successful bloggers and entrepreneurs pin so consistently on Pinterest? They share multiple pins for each blog post or webpage they promote on the platform. In other words, instead of creating a single pin for each new blog post they publish, many people create a handful of pins for each one.
Because only a tiny fraction of Pinterest users see any given pin, sharing multiple pins creates more opportunities to drive traffic back to your blog post or webpage. Creating multiple pins for each piece of content or each webpage also gives you more content to share on Pinterest.
However, to ensure that Pinterest doesn’t think you’re sharing spam, don’t share multiple pins with the same pin description. Instead, vary your pin description slightly from pin to pin. Do the same thing if you want to reshare a pin you’ve already shared on a given Pinterest board.
Writing optimized pin descriptions doesn’t have to be hard
Even if you don’t hate to write, crafting optimized descriptions for your Pinterest pins can feel daunting. After all, you’ve got to create pin descriptions that both Pinterest and its users will love.
But the truth is that when you use my 4-step process, writing strong pin descriptions isn’t hard. Just build on existing meta descriptions, incorporate keywords, and add hashtags. And if you’re creating multiple pins, don’t forget to change up your description from pin to pin.
It may take a bit of extra time to write strong pin descriptions rather than mediocre ones. But when you put in the effort to create pin descriptions that tell Pinterest and its users what your pins are all about, you can boost the visibility of your pins, send more traffic to your blog or website, gain more email subscribers, and boost your sales. You can’t go wrong with that, right?
Want to skyrocket traffic to your website so you can grow your email list and make more sales?
Download my free cheat sheet on creating the perfect Pinterest account profile.
