Knowing how and where to use the right Pinterest keywords can have a dramatic impact on your profile’s performance and is a vital part of any Pinterest SEO Strategy.
Did you know that you can implement keywords on Pinterest in eight different locations? You’ll learn exactly what they are right here.
This guide covers:
- where to find great keywords for Pinterest
- how to use keywords on Pinterest
- eight places you need to add keywords on Pinterest
- how to research Pinterest specific keywords
- how to determine which keywords and related queries will best fit your Pinterest profile’s needs
Ready to grow your profile and reach hundreds of thousands of viewers each month?
Keep reading to see how it’s done!
Disclosure: This page contains affiliate links and I may earn a commission if you use them. This comes at no additional cost to you and all recommendations are based on my experience. As an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases.
Pinterest SEO Strategy: How to Use Keywords on Pinterest
It’s actually very simple to get started in using this incredibly powerful tactic to grow your profile and pin impressions.
Want to know the most powerful Pinterest keywords tool?
It’s actually Pinterest itself!
For example, let’s say that you run a baking blog.
The first thing we’ll need to do is learn how to use the Pinterest search bar for keywords. We’ll start by typing in the word baking.
You’ll see that baking as well as four additional suggested terms appear in the tab below:
- Baking
- Baking Recipes
- Baking Videos
- Baking With Kids
- Baking Desserts
The keywords above are the ones I like to use in naming what I call major items: essentially, anything with a title.
We can screenshot these terms or write them down in a notepad for future reference.
And now that we’ve saved the above, let’s hit enter to actually run a search for baking.
Plenty of beautiful images and pastries, right?
See those multi-coloured squares at the top of your screen just below the search tab? Say hello to your keywords!
Here alone, we can see the first 21 baking related keywords, far more than enough to start explaining each minor item: I use this term to refer to anything with a description.
Starting with just ten keywords is enough to get going but I like to take note of as many as are shown in the first visible section of the search results – this is a great thing to have for future reference as chances are, many of your boards are related.
Since we’ll be using these terms to describe things, its nice to have a large word bank to choose from. It keeps things sounding natural and assures that all of your descriptions don’t read too similarly!
Consider mixing up your keyword order as well – just because these terms are displayed left to right as they are doesn’t mean that they will have anymore of an impact if you write them the same way.
We’ll talk about where initial characters count next when we dive into those eight essential keyword locations.
But before we do, here’s a quick recap of the terms I used in this section:
- Major Items: Titles
- Minor Items: Descriptives
You can, of course, feel free to use suggested queries and related terms anyway you’d like as my suggestions are meant as a guideline.
Where to Use Keywords on Pinterest
You can literally use keywords on Pinterest anywhere you see fit on your Pinterest profile and on your blog.
The following is a list of locations where you can use keywords in the Pinterest platform itself. However, note that there are two tricks here that must be applied prior to pinning and promoting your newest blog post.
1. Display Name
Users can fit up to 65 characters in their Pinterest Business Account Display Names and taking advantage of as many as possible is an excellent strategy for Pinterest SEO.
However, consider the fact that on mobile devices, only the first 30 characters of your display name will appear in other Business Account users’ Followers and Following lists.
So, for example, my Display Name, Nikki | Make Money with Your Blog & Social Media | Work At Home appears as written above on desktop and on mobile, it shows as:
Nikki | Make Money with Your…
Looks enticing, right?
Have a look at other popular Pinterest Accounts and notice what many of them have in common. This formula that I also use and often comes across is:
First Name | What I Do | Further Break Down + Additional Keywords
Optimizing your Pinterest Profile is a must do when it comes to making keywords work for you!
So, in summary:
- Research keywords in your niche
- Choose the most intriguing ones
- Make those first 30 characters count to display an optimal username according to how it will appear in list results
2. About Your Profile
There is a 160 character limit for this section of your Pinterest Business Account Profile.
Ideally, use any keywords that you have not yet used in your display name here; tell users how you can help them here.
3. Board Names
Your Board Names have a 100 character limit but it is best not to use them all here.
In my experience, Board Names directly named after popular and related queries fair best – users who brand their boards with Unique Board Covers also have a competitive edge over other Pinterest users.
Name your boards according to what users are searching for and what they will find in this board.
Save the extensive description for Board Descriptions.
4. Board Descriptions
Pinterest Users can enter up to 500 characters for Board Descriptions and its an excellent idea to utilize as many as you’d like to here for an optimum Pinterest SEO strategy.
Remember how we researched keywords?
Consider naming your board after your initial search term (or related queries) and then try using the first ten related keywords displayed below the search tab in your description.
Be sure to make it sound natural and remember that you don’t have to use terms in the exact order they appear in to SEO Pinterest boards. Choose the ones that are most relevant and those that are easiest for you to work with.
Any order will give you an impact!
5. Image File Name
There is no official character limit here but keeping it under 100 is a good prractice.
I try and name my files according to where and how I use them, for example:
nikki-blogs-pinterest…
I like using the following formula for SEO in addition to keeping my files organized:
which blog or social media profile the image appears on-category-post-relevant keywords
Be sure to use dashes in your file names NOT underscores!
Google does not read underscores as word separators and instead:
nikki_blogs_pinterest…
is read as:
nikkiblogsbloggingpinterest…
Since the hot mess above is not a word, you also won’t rank for any keywords using it.
Updating your image file names might seem like a huge workload but I can assure you, its worth doing!
I have thousands of images on my desktop and it took me about a day to update all of them. Not my ideal work day, but getting the smallest details right can have a mega positive impact on your business.
6. Pin Title
You have up to 100 characters in your Pin Titles.
I like to name my pins according to the text I’ve used in the actual pin itself. But I do also use the remaining characters I’m allotted to add keywords and my blog name.
When searching for an item that I’ve pinned (or came across during a search), I usually remember what the pin looked like and possibly some of the text the creator included. Very rarely, if at all, do I remember what the author named the pin.
Make it easy for users to find your pins again by making the written title the same as the one you used on the actual pin itself.
The formula I use is:
Visual Pin Title : Relevant Keywords | My Blog Name
When you include your blog name in the pin’s title, those searching for your blog will also be able to find you again when they search your pins.
7. Pin Description
Just like your Board Descriptions, Pin Descriptions also have a character limit of 500.
Use any keywords related to your Pin Title here.
Remember how we used 10 related terms in board descriptions? Shoot for the same number of keywords in your Pin Descriptions in order to write a convincing description for your latest visual.
8. Destination Link
This is one of those bonuses most bloggers wish they would have done from the start (guilty)!
Keeping your path under five terms is an ideal practice and gives you ample opportunity to be descriptive.
And while it won’t necessarily help you rank on Pinterest, it can have an impact on your Google Ranking as well as that specific page’s memorability.
For example, I’m going to name this using the words Pinterest and Keywords.
So, my destination link will read:
nikkiblogs.com/pinterest-keywords
which is a bit easier on the eyes and to remember than:
nikkiblogs.com/how-to-use-keywords-on-pinterest
The strategy you use to name and organize your posts is completely up to you.
For example, consider the following three formats:
- yourblog.com/the-exact-title-of-your-post
- yourblog.com/keywords-only
- yourblog.com/category/subcategory/keyword(s)
In the last example, the category could be blog and the subcategory, in the case of this post, could be pinterest.
And so, my link would instead read as:
nikkiblogs.com/blog/pinterest/keywords
Decide how or if you’d like your blog to be organized this way and make any adjustments from there.
Personally, I like to keep things simple and opt for keywords only in my destination links – this has had an added bonus of improving my ranking scores dramatically on Google too!
SEO for Google
In my experience, Google traffic is both more valuable and easier to acquire than Pinterest traffic!
While Pinterest users tend to browse, organic searches usually display specific intent – meaning they’re more likely to make a purchase.
And if you can get your website ranking within results for that intent, you can make more money with your blog!
You just need a great SEO plugin like Squirrly to get started – here’s what my results looked like after just 4 months of using this plugin to get my blog ranking on Google.
That means my blog ranked for nearly 10,000 different keyword variations within just 4 months of using Squirrly SEO PRO.
You can get your first month of Squirrly SEO PRO for $20.99 using my link.
Related Google SEO ideas:
How will you use keywords on Pinterest? What method do you use to organize your image files and name destination links? I’d love to hear about your Pinterest SEO strategy in the comments below!
I loved your content!
Nikki, your post is gold! I particularly loved point 5, 6 and 8. I’ve always been wondering if, not renaming my image files accordingly might get me in “Pinterest jail”. Because I use Canva and when I download my pin designs they are all called “Fresh pins”. Which would then be the image file name when I upload that pin to Pinterest. In the past, I used to be very meticulous about details as such and would name each image correctly. You’ve definitely made me aware to go back to doing that. About your point 6. I think it’s such a smart move to add your blog name into the title. I saw you doing that on some pins, but not all of them, even though there was space left. Is there a reason why you sometimes do it and other times you don’t? About point 8, I recently started learning about SEO and have adapted my slug and post URL. I agree that it’s so much easier to remember if you only use the keywords, rather than the whole sentence. I will definitely apply those tips Thanks so much for sharing, Kris