12 Reasons Your Pinterest Page Sucks – and How to Fix It

Pinterest was the fastest growing social media site in 2013, according to a recent study. It also generates more sales than Facebook and Twitter. Many big brands have taken advantage of Pinterest, and now have a huge following.

So, why are your pinterest marketing efforts getting you nowhere? Check out the many ways your pinterest page may suck – and what you can do about it. 

1. Using Your Personal Profile.

Convert to a Business Account now! But why? There are a number of great reasons why converting to a business account is necessary. It enables you to brand your business more effectively, resulting in more traffic. But also, you can then take advantage of the Pinterest analytics features, which will give you information on how well, or not! your pins and boards are doing in terms of virality, re-pins etc.,

2.  Not Verifying Your Website

if you verify your website, the full URL will show in the page description. It also makes it easier for people to click through to your website, resulting in more traffic. There is a comprehensive article about how to verify your website here.

3.  Vague Profile

You have up to 160 characters in the page description, which is more than adequate to include a brief summary of your business and how you can help your clients. Many people are still not taking advantage of this, which is seriously affecting whether they are appearing in searches.

I had a brief look at some page descriptions, and it didn’t take me long to find some absolutely appalling ones!  Here are a few examples: “CRS, GRI, ABR, e-PRO, Ecobroker”   “The Best Choice, The Best Price” “Wear your passion”, or worse still, nothing at all!

Here are a few more that I found, which will give you some idea as to what you should be including:

“News and information on Atlanta new homes, builders, developers and others in the industry. Find out about industry trends, deals on homes and more.”

“Fine jewelry store for men, women, children with earrings, rings, bracelets, necklaces, pendants. We are here to help you choose the perfect jewelry for you!”

This is your opportunity to really tell people what your Business is about, and how you can help them. Don’t forget to add keywords, which will help you to get found in searches.

4. No Pin It Button

Get a Pin It Button on your website! Then with just one click, people can pin directly from your website to their pinterest page. This further increases your reach, and traffic, without you having to do any more work. A win win situation I think! You can find out more about it here 

5. Not setup Google Analytics

How effective is your pinterest account in driving traffic? Which pins are getting the most traction? To really get serious about pinterest as a traffic source for your business, you need detailed analytics. That is where google comes in!

Furthermore, Pinterest now have the facility for you to install UTM tracking codes on your pins. It enables you to track individual pins, enabling you to delve deeper in terms of what campaigns are working for you. Read all about it in this informative article from Vincent Ng.

6. No links to your Website.

You are on Pinterest to entice people back to your website, and to increase sales. If you are not including links back to your website, then what is the point? There are three main methods to include your website address:

1. When you are uploading a pin, below the pin description is the Source, add your website address there.

2. You can include your website address within the pin description, with a call to action, such as “For more information..”  or “click here for more details..” Do not include shortened links, as these will appear as spam.

3. Add your website address to your images before uploading them. There are a lot of free tools out there to help you with this, picmarkr is a great one. Then, when your pins get re-pinned, your website address goes with them. It also helps prevent people stealing your images.

7. Pin Bingeing

Are you one of these people that goes on Pinterest, has a pinning frenzy for an hour or two, and then doesn’t go near it for a week? This is a bad idea!!! It could also be potentially very annoying for people following you, to have their newsfeed suddenly clogged up with 100 pictures of cats, or handcrafted jewelry, and if they get really annoyed, they could un-follow you! To avoid this happening, why not schedule your pins?

It is a far more effective way to spend your pinning time, you can schedule pins for optimum times, when there are more people on pinterest, so more people are likely to see your content, and it will result in more re-pins and follows. There are some great scheduling tools out there, Viraltag being one of them.

8. Not Pinning Relevant Content

You need to be pinning content relevant to your Business, to highlight your brand, and get followers who would be interested in your products or services. For example, if your business is real estate, as well as highlighting your properties, you could include boards dedicated to home decor, interior design.

9. Pinning ‘Willy Nilly’

There is nothing more irritating than going to a board about social Media, for example, and finding pins about fashion! This is an extreme example, but you could potentially lose followers if you don’t keep your boards relevant, and on topic. You can start cleaning up your pinterest account by following the steps in this post.

10. Only Pinning Your Content

Don’t be selfish! We all know that the most popular people are the ones that share and listen to others. Why not do that on pinterest as well? There are many ways that you can use pinterest to interact with potential clients, get more visibility, and engagement.

1. Thank people who have pinned your content. Go to their pin, and post a comment.

2. Do a search for your niche, then like, comment, and re-pin popular, relevant, pins.

3. Find influencers in your niche, then go and re-pin their pins.

4. Comment on influencers pins.

These are all brilliant methods to increase your visibility and improve your reputation on pinterest.

11. Not running Contests

Pinterest contests are a proven way of getting a lot of re-pins, and traffic to your site. But be careful! Pinterest recently changed the terms of their contests, and your account could get shut down if you don’t abide by them. A great article by Anna Bennett explains clearly what you can and can’t do.

12. No Pinterest ‘Follow’ Button

A very effective way of getting more followers on Pinterest, is to incorporate a pinterest button on your website, which takes the person clicking it straight through to your pinterest page. There are a lot of different plugins for wordpress, from simple buttons, to snapshots of your profile, with your most recent pins. Find the one that suits you, and add to your website.

Now that you are aware of the major errors that you shouldn’t be making on your pInterest business page, you can go ahead and rectify them! See your engagement and followers increase, and Happy Pinning!