How to Set Up Your Pinterest Account

Setting up your Pinterest account is always scary for people. Some just start it off and don’t realize they are hurting themselves by not setting it up right.

There are so many aspects that go into a successful Pinterest account you really need to start your account off right or get it set up as it should be.

This post is all about how to set it up the right way. If you don’t want to set it up and want to hire a pro hit the shop link above and I’ll set it up for you.

Business Profile That’s SEO Optimized

The first thing you have to do is make your profile a business one. Yes, just do it. After your account is set up you need to confirm your website. It seems way harder than it is so people get intimidated by it. Head to this Youtube video if you need help with it.

Now you can start pinning “rich pins” which show the title and pull the description. Rich pins tend to get re-pinned more than the regular pins.
Remember Pinterest is a search engine where people go and type things in the search bar. SEO stands for “Search Engine Optimized.”

And if you are familiar with SEO you know that every little thing comes into play when Pinterest decides what to put in front of the reader.

Your profile, username, bio, boards descriptions, category, etc.

Pinterest Profile Photo

I go back and forth with what works best for my clients for their profile photos. If you are an eCommerce site or product seller use your logo. If you are a blogger or influencer use a picture of your face.

Photo quality matters too, having poor quality photos does not look professional and scream click to find out more.

Pinterest Display Name

Not to be confused with your profile name. Your profile name is the name put in the link after Pinterest. For example, my blog is at www.pinterest.com/hudsonfarmhouse

My Pinterest display name is Hudson Farmhouse – Home Decor + Lifestyle. Home decor is a category on Pinterest and my main blog topic.

Pinterest Profile Description

Keep the same things in mind about SEO when it comes to the description. Add as much relative keyword as possible. By doing this, you are creating more of a chance to let people find you and your pins when searching for items.

Finding the right keywords will bump up your pins in the search results. Find keywords but typing in the search bar.

Do not use any other keywords tools like Google trends or their free keyword planner. Those are for Google and completely different for Pinterest!

Pinterest Board Categories

In my opinion, this is the biggest part of setting up your account and honestly where all of my clients go wrong. I mean all, not most!

I go into deep detail about how to find the right categories in my Pinteres hacks ebook. It’s something I unfortunately only share in my ebook because it’s part of my “strategy” that helps my clients become so successful. I explain how to find the right categories and which ones are the best.

Pinterest Board Descriptions

The same thing goes here as well as SEO is huge and can’t be skipped. When you create your business Pinterest account, create about 10-12 boards to start.

Head to this blog post to read about what boards to use for niches.

Each and every board description needs to use the allotted 500 characters. Please don’t be lazy and skip this step.

Type out each description using long tail and short tail keywords.

Short tail keywords are usually one or two words in total.

If you want your pin to rank higher, then you need to learn how to use long tail keywords too.

Long tail keywords are typically four or more words.

Use a mix of both in full sentences and stuff as many keywords throughout that you can.

Pin Images and Graphics

I am not going to go into pin graphic design because that is something that is covered everywhere and everyone tends to have different opinions about what works and does not work.

But to be brief use easy to read fonts, professional photos, and branding.

Now let’s dive into stuff most “experts” don’t share. For each page, you are promoting you need images and graphics. This is where people get confused.

I see time and time again people just sharing their product photo and hoping it’s going to get clicks.

Product photos do not do well on Pinterest.

Graphics and lifestyle photos do the best.

Graphics are photos with text and should contain a call to action. A really catchy title and clear picture of what the reader will get when they click on the pin.

I use a title generator for catchy title ideas.

You do not need to add the graphic to your website. You can manually upload the pin graphic on Pinterest in the upper right hand corner by clicking on the plus button.

Upload the graphic, add a title and use all 500 characters in the description. Paste the link to your product. Simple. It takes about 2 minutes and you have a graphic sending people to your product.

For each product page, blog post, affiliate link whatever you are promoting try and shoot for 2 graphics at least and continuously add new ones of the next few months.

This another problem I see constantly. People pin one time and hope it’s going to take off. Typically if your pin does not do well you need a new design.

You also have to continue adding new ones. Pinterest can be very rewarding but it takes work and consistency!

Pinterest and Tailwind

If you aren’t using Tailwind it’s a must. I know you’ve heard of it or are already using it but I’ll just drop these few things below to reiterate. Quote from Small Biz refined

Quote from Small Biz Refined:

Why is Tailwind so important for business owners?

There are many reasons why Tailwind is so powerful for small businesses and creative entrepreneurs. Here are the big ones:

You can schedule pins at optimal times so you don’t have to be on Pinterest when you don’t want to be (yes, that means you can finally take a vacation!)
It increases your reach & traffic on Pinterest by incentivizing other pinners to share your pins
It saves you time by making it easy to find content to share
You can easily loop your pins and schedule intervals to re-share your content without spamming
You can track which pins you’ve already pinned to your own boards & your group boards (and how long ago you shared them)

How Many Pins Do I Pin

Unfortunately, there is no clear answer. It totally depends on how many pins you already have and your content.

Let me give you an example so you at least have an idea.

If your account has around 10 boards and each board has less than 100 pins you need to be pinning a lot.

You should pin at least 25 per day. And that’s where Tailwind comes into play. You don’t want to have to sign on every day and pin 25 manually.

Speaking of manually some people swear by it by I have success not manually pinning and only using Tailwind.

Pinterest 80/20 Rule

This is something I follow for new accounts and tend to change up the combo once the account is established.

Again unless you don’t have over 500k impressions or even more you need to pin other people’s content more.

I have found so many of my clients only pinning their stuff or like 50/50 and their accounts don’t take off because Pinterest has no clue what they are pinning about.

Do not be afraid to pin your competition pins and accounts that are more successful than yours.

It comes down to your products and photos/graphics needing to be better and be clicked on over your competitions.

Let me share another example to help with any confusion. Let’s say you sell kids dresses. It is totally ok to have a board dedicated to kids’ dresses with other kids’ dresses in the board.

I actually recommend it. Most people do not go to your boards and look into each one of them.

Please go back and reread that sentence so it really sinks in.

Most pinners do not go on your profile and click on your boards.

People find you in searches!

They have no clue what you pinned in your board. They only see the search results Pinterest shows them.

And Pinterest is more likely to put your pin in front of them in search results over others if your SEO is done right.

Don’t worry about optics so much you really need to focus on SEO and not skipping any of the steps.