The Pinterest Algorithm: How to Drive Organic Traffic to Your Blog
Pinterest is a unique social media platform.
Unlike most Instagram, Twitter and Snapchat users, most Pinterest users don’t post their own content but use Pinterest for browsing. This means that users on Pinterest are literally searching for content and inspiration. Your blog can be that content users are searching for.
But Pinterest is crowded – how can you crack the code to be seen on a user’s browse page or Pinterest’s featured sections and make the most out of this social media platform? It’s important to understand how Pinterest’s algorithm works.
But first, let’s re-assure you that Pinterest is worth your blog’s time.
Why Pinterest?
In terms of users, Pinterest is the 14th largest platform in the world ranking higher than Twitter and Reddit with 431 million monthly active users in February 2022. 60% of these users are women, although the male demographic is growing.
A survey of Pinterest users in the U.S. found that 32% of people aged 18-29 years used Pinterest in 2021, as did 34% of those aged 30-49 and 38% of those aged 50-64.
Why do people use Pinterest? 85% of users say they use Pinterest to plan a new project and 70% of users say Pinterest is their go-to for new products, ideas or services they can trust. After all, we are in the age of DIY.
The most popular Pinterest categories are home décor, DIY & crafts, entertainment, education, art, women’s fashion, food & drinks, beauty, event planning and gardening. If your blog content falls under one or more of these categories, the potential is there. So, let’s crack the code to Pinterest’s algorithm.
The Pinterest Algorithm
A user’s home page is populated with pins the platform thinks they will love based on recent activity and from accounts they follow. This is known as a Smart Feed.
Under the search tab on mobile, Pinterest recently introduced a featured section for each day called “Today’s Inspiration”. According to Pinterest, this section is “a source of daily inspiration with curated topics and trending Pins that makes it easy to explore popular and timely ideas”. So while the home tab shows personalized recommendations, the Today section shows popular ideas based on trending searches. If you are featured in this section, Pinterest will notify you via email and push notification (if opted-in). So how does Pinterest choose these pins?
When a user logs into Pinterest, they land on their home feed. “Today’s Inspiration” feed lives under the “Today” tab.
Aside from a user’s previous post engagements, there are four primary factors that determine what pins Pinterest chooses to include in a user’s feed:
Domain Quality: Just like search engines, Pinterest is eyeing the performance of your website and the quality of user engagements.
Pin Quality: This reflects the engagement of your pins measured by saves, pin clicks and outbound clicks. First Pinterest will distribute new pins to your followers’ feeds first and if they engage well with it, they will populate it into other similar users’ Smart Feeds.
Pinner Quality: The more unique content you create, the more favored you are to the algorithm. A quality pinner posts regularly, pins popular content and has solid engagement on their own pins.
Relevance: Like any search engine, Pinterest wants to show pins that are relevant to trending searches and individual preferences. Pinterest will look at a pin title, description and graphic to determine relevance.
Pinterest Feed Factors
Aside from a user’s behavior and previous engagement, these four factors determine which pins Pinterest chooses:
Domain Quality: Just like search engines, Pinterest is eyeing the performance of your website and the quality of user engagements.
Pin Quality: This reflects the engagement of your pins measured by saves, pin clicks and outbound clicks. First Pinterest will distribute new pins to your followers’ feeds first and if they engage well with it, they will populate it into other similar users’ Smart Feeds.
Pinner Quality: The more unique content you create, the more favored you are to the algorithm. A quality pinner posts regularly, pins popular content and has solid engagement on their own pins.
Relevance: Like any search engine, Pinterest wants to show pins that are relevant to trending searches and individual preferences. Pinterest will look at a pin title, description and graphic to determine relevance.
Pinterest will use the post title, description, graphic and link to understand what the pin is about.
Best Practices: Leverage the Pinterest Algorithm
Create a business account and update your profile
To make sure that Pinterest trusts your domain, “claim” your website in settings. On your profile itself, add a value proposition to your bio to showcase what you can offer potential followers.
Use Pinterest analytics
Identify “trending” pins to determine what type of content resonates with your audience and when to post (for example, post about Christmas cookie recipes close to Christmas). You can also use analytics to determine which of your own pins performs best so you can continue to create popular content. In addition to high performing posts, it may help to eliminate pins and boards with poor engagement.
Left: Pinterest analytics dashboard; Right: individual post analytics
Focus on SEO
Do keyword and search term research to populate into your blog and post metadata so Pinterest understands what your post is about. Pinterest is a search engine, so apply similar practices to Pinterest that you would use for SEO. Carry these practices into your board title and descriptions as well. Keep them short, keyword rich and avoid any misleading “clickbait” [https://pursue-persuade.squarespace.com/home-1/mobile-clickbait-julia-luisi?rq=mobile] . (Bonus – Pinterest can actually help your SEO strategy because it adds more backlinks to your site and is a source of web traffic).
Create NEW content on a regular basis
Try to avoid republishing content too often and push out fresh, new content on a regular basis. Even the URLs you include on your pins need to be new.
Vary your pin type
Use a variety of pin types: standard pins, video pins, and Idea pins. Pinterest is investing in Idea Pins as of recent, so these get the best results. Idea Pins are multi-page video pins. It’s best practice to include keyword modifiers such as “the best” or “how to” in the title. These pins should follow a logical sequence and should be between 8-10 slides. Unfortunately for bloggers, Idea Pins don’t link to any external site (like your blog) but it is still good to incorporate these pins for additional visibility.
Pinterest Idea Pins are videos or slides of static images meant to inspire users
Focus on visuals
Use click-worthy images or graphics with intriguing titles for standard posts. Once you’ve identified which visuals work best, you can create templates in Canva or another visual tool to maintain consistency on your profile and quickly create new graphics. Just like for Instagram, these visuals in social media are so important [https://pursue-persuade.squarespace.com/home-1/why-visuals-in-social-media-marketing-are-important?rq=social].
Be an active pinner yourself
Actively pin other high-quality content to your boards throughout the day so Pinterest knows you are a quality pinner.
Pinterest offers bloggers a large field of opportunity to reach users who are actively searching for new ideas and inspiration. Crack the code to Pinterest’s algorithm so you can increase organic traffic to your website and build a community on this flourishing social platform.
Happy pinning!
For more quick tips on improving your Pinterest presence, see these Dos and Don’ts of Pinterest.