<http://schema.org/articleBody>
"\r\n\r\nWhile its popularity has evened out over the last few months, Pinterest is still carrying a lot of the momentum it gathered at the beginning of the year. Considering that it drives more referral traffic than Google+, LinkedIn and YouTube combined and had 23 million unique visitors to the site in August, its ability to direct more traffic to your site has rightly gotten businesses and brands interested in the service. On top of that, the introduction of business pages makes it obvious that Pinterest wants them to get involved.\r\n\r\nThere\u2019s a process to everything though and like all things, you will have to put the time and effort into it before you start seeing results. Here we will focus on the ways you can improve the content you\u2019re posting, how you can use Pinterest to direct traffic to your site and ways you can optimise it for SEO purposes.\r\n\r\nImproving your content\r\nBe original\r\n\r\nRepinning is a great way of building up new followers, but to be truly influential, you need to pin your own content regularly and before everyone else. In your communities, keep an eye out for content that has already been posted to see what people like and look for content that haven\u2019t been pinned yet. If you become a source for original content, you will have a greater chance of getting repinned and obtaining new followers.\r\n\r\nPin videos\r\n\r\nPinterest is a very visual site, but there\u2019s nothing to say that you can\u2019t pin videos on your boards. It\u2019s good to mix up your content a little and provide these links, just to see how exactly your followers react to it. You can only pin videos from YouTube and Vimeo, but considering the former has 72 hours of new video uploaded every minute, this won\u2019t be limiting.\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\nSpread out your pinning across all boards\r\n\r\nIt\u2019s never a good idea to focus all of your attention on the one board. For one, it\u2019s will overwhelm those following your board and it will neglect those following your other boards. Even if it\u2019s a board that you can\u2019t find much content for, it\u2019s better to update it every so often than to leave it dormant so take the time to update your boards at least once a week so to keep things fresh. If finding content becomes difficult, change the title to something more general so it becomes easier to find content to pin.\r\n\r\nUse secret boards\r\n\r\nIf you\u2019re preparing a new board and would much prefer to populate it first before revealing it, Pinterest\u2019s new secret boards is what you\u2019re looking for. You don\u2019t ever have to publish these boards so you can use it for other purposes such as bookmarking links and if your account is used by more than one person, you can use it to share links and ideas among yourselves.\r\n\r\nAlso, if you were running a competition on the site, you can arrange boards first before revealing them and prepare boards in advance if the competition requires more than one. Think outside the box and you will find a number of uses for them.\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\nDownload a browser plugin\r\n\r\nThe Web is vast and the chances of you coming across content that you want to pin is quite high. As you\u2019re not going to be on Pinterest 24/7, browser plugins are a handy way of pinning content without having to access your account. If you\u2019re a Chrome user, Pin It and Pin Search are handy plugins and if you\u2019re a Firefox uer, Pinterest Right Click is all you need. Alternatively, you can settle for Pinterest\u2019s own \u2018Pin It\u2018 button, which can be downloaded directly from the site.\r\n\r\nKeep your descriptions short and sweet\r\n\r\nWhile your descriptions can go up to 500 characters, the chances of people reading the entire description (unless it\u2019s a competition) is slim. This is especially true when you consider that only a small portion of that description will be visible when you\u2019re browsing boards. It\u2019s best to keep descriptions short and sweet so that both the image and text is easily visible. The description should be used for placing keywords that will help users find your content.\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\nDriving traffic to your site\r\n Add Pin It buttons to your site\r\n\r\nThe easiest way to get any site content shared is to install a widget on your site. Don\u2019t underestimate the power a Pin-it button has in getting your content out there, but before you rush off and add one, you need to determine whether adding such a button is beneficial for you. If your site has a number of different widgets, it might be better to remove one first and replace it with the \u201CPin It\u201D button so you don\u2019t clog up your site.\r\n\r\nPin up blog posts\r\n\r\nLike any social media site, you shouldn\u2019t go overboard when posting your own content. The focus should always be on providing good content for your users that they can share with their followers and friends. However, that doesn\u2019t mean that you can\u2019t slip in one or two of your posts every now and again. Make sure the topic of your blog post matches the board you\u2019re pinning it up to and don\u2019t overdo it, people don\u2019t mind such content appearing so long as it doesn\u2019t dominate their feeds. Ensure that the image you\u2019re using is of high quality as it is the first thing users will see.\r\n\r\nVerify your website\r\n\r\nIf your page is popular with users, it\u2019s a good idea to verify your website so that people can find your site through your Pinterest page. Currently, your website is hidden away as a globe icon, which not many people would realise is a URL button. Getting your site verified can help boost your site visibility and improve your SEO efforts. The process can be a little daunting for those who aren\u2019t tech savvy, so if you\u2019re not feeling confident, you should ask someone with basic HTML skills or your web designer to do it for you.\r\n\r\nFor those undaunted, start by going into settings, and scroll down to the section which allows you to enter in your website. Here you will see an option to verify your website. Click this and download the HTML verification file, making a note of the code at the end of the file. You will then need to upload the file onto your web server at the root folder as http://www.yourwebsite.com/pinterest-xxxxx.html. When that is done, return to the verify page and press the \u201CClick here\u201D link to verify your website.\r\n\r\nAlternatively, you can add a meta tag which you can add to the head of your index.html file. Once that is done, return to the \u2018Verify Website\u2019 page and click on step two to complete the process. This feature is only available for top-domain addresses (home page addresses) like www.simplyzesty.com. Addresses like www.simplyzesty.com/facebook won\u2019t work as it\u2019s a subfolder.\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\nMonitor your analytics\r\n\r\nIf you use a service like Google Analytics, then you should definitely monitor how much traffic it generates for your site. You should have a good idea of what content works, but don\u2019t expect traffic to jump up immediately when you\u2019re starting off. Experiment with the type of content you\u2019re posting and monitor the results through repins, comments, and the amount of traffic redirected to your site.\r\n\r\nSEO optimization\r\nWrite your own descriptions\r\n\r\nMost images that you pin will provide you with a brief description of the page. While this is fine, sometimes it doesn\u2019t quite explain what it is you\u2019re pinning. You\u2019re better off removing the text provided and providing your own summary. Pinterest give you 500 characters to work with so unless you\u2019re running a competition, you shouldn\u2019t really need more than 350 characters for a pin.\r\n\r\nUse hashtags\r\n\r\nJust like Twitter, hashtags are a handy way of categorising your content, but much like the microblogging site, it\u2019s better to only use one or two hashtags to describe your content. You should use general terms when creating your hashtags so that it\u2019s easier for people to find your content when they\u2019re using the search bar.\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\nBuild up links\r\n\r\nSearch engines rate your site based on the number of backlinks you have built up. When you\u2019re implementing your SEO strategy, include links to your site in some of the description. What happens is that when these pins are shared, it creates a back link which bumps up your SEO ranking. Over time, you could see your site\u2019s SEO ranking rise because of this.\r\n\r\nJust in case, you should check to see if \u2018Search Privacy\u2019 is switched on as this could be preventing your profile from appearing on search engines. Turning it on means that your profile won\u2019t be found if someone tries searching for it on Google or Bing.\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\nArticles &amp;amp;amp; guides\r\nA number of other articles and guides that will help you out with your Pinterest marketing:\r\n\r\n\tEconsultancy uses Sony as a case study and shows how it used Pinterest to drive traffic.\r\n\tPR Daily offers seven proven ways to create viral Pinterest posts.\r\n\tSocial Media Examiner shows you how you can use Pinterest to generate more traffic to your blog.\r\n\tPaper.il offer 13 tips that will direct more traffic from Pinterest to your site.\r\n\tUnskinny Boppy offers a comprehensive post on how to use the platform to go viral as well as other helpful tips.\r\n\tAdviceMedia offer a brief list on how to make your website go viral on Pinterest.\r\n\r\n\r\nThis article is published in association with SimplyZesty, a digital marketing agency.\r\n"^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://thenextweb.com/socialmedia/2012/12/29/how-to-increase-pinterest-traffic-direct-it-to-your-site/6/>