5 Common Mistakes You are Making on Pinterest

You read that Pinterest is a major driver of referral online traffic, so you jumped on board. You created a Pinterest business account, linked your blog or business website, and started uploading some pin images. You added the Pinterest icon link to your site. You started following other pinners.

Time goes by but little activity develops. You’re frustrated.

What is going on here?

It may be that you are making one of several common mistakes. Read on.

You are Using the Wrong Pin Dimensions

I see plenty of accounts where the blogger or business owner has simply taken their Instagram images — often small and horizontal — and uploaded them onto their Pinterest home page. Unfortunately, these pins may never show in other pinner’s home feeds. Why? Because Pinterest best practices has evolved. The company now states that pins should be vertical in a 2:3 ratio. The optimal size is 600 pixels wide and 900 pixels high. The change was made because some 80% or more of all users access Pinterest via smart phones, according to the latest research. Simply put, pins conforming to this optimal size and orientation are going to lead first and look best on small screens.

Your Pins are Ugly

No offense, but I’ve seen some pretty awful looking pins out there. This makes no sense as Pinterest is a visual platform. It should surprise no one that people like to look at pretty pictures! Colors, staging, perspectives, contrasts…all such elements count. Humorous images are also attention-getters. Plus, the right font style and size can make a huge difference. If visual design is not your top skill, you should consider handing over this part of pin creation to a freelance graphics designer or a Pinterest virtual assistant.

You are Not Optimizing Your Pin Descriptions

Pinterest recommends that you use longtail key words in pin descriptions, and now they also allow up to 20 hashtags per pin. This is a huge step forward for search and discovery. Users can now type a key word or phrase or even a hashtag in the search window and get better results. If you want your pins to rank higher in the Pinterest algorithm and show up more often in search results, you should definitely research the best key words and hashtags relevant to your pin’s topic and then use them in the description section. Just try to avoid “stuffing” key words, in other words, don’t pile on key words just for their own sake. Same thing with hashtags; most pins do not need 20 hashtags. Use common sense and write unique descriptions for each pin within reason, and Pinterest will recognize you as a high quality content provider which should rank you higher in their algorithm computations.

You are Not Following Many Pinners

Do not expect others to follow you if you are not much of a follower. You do not have to follow everyone one-to-one, but you should follow at least 50% of other pinners back. You might be surprised; Pinterest users do pay attention to these things.

You are Not Contributing to Group Pin Boards

There are tons of group pin boards on Pinterest covering a wide range of content. Being a collaborator on a group board means you get to circulate your pins in front of others in the same niche — or even pinners of different interests if it’s an “all-niche” type of board. Why limit your pin exposure to your own home page? There is no cost to joining multiple group boards, so get going. You can even start up your own group pin board and invite others to join in.

Take the Long View

I am a travel blogger and recently Pinterest became my #1 source of referral traffic according to Google Analytics. It can become a significant part of your content marketing strategy, too. But with Pinterest you have to be patient and wait. You simply will not see results overnight. Just continue to post attractive pins linked to useful high-quality content for your target audience, and they will find you on this platform. Just be consistent. Also remember — pins on Pinterest do not disappear so they can be discovered long after your initial upload.

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