How Pinterest Search and Discovery Works (and How to Optimize Your Content for It)

We know keywords are important, but we aren’t adding a few to the pin description and hoping for the best, okay?

Pinterest scans each pin and considers four signals before deciding what the pin is about.

The Pin Image and Text Overlay

The image you use as your pin to represent your content is so critical.

That’s because Pinterest uses visual scanning to read:

→ What is in the actual image
→ The dominant colours found
→ The text overlay and what words are used

The image you use in your pin must match the keywords and content, so when Pinterest scans it, you’ll check the first optimization box.

I recommend using a straightforward text overlay that uses your keyword, a qualifier if needed, and focuses on the user.

Here are some examples of what not to do:

“My Best Time Management Tips”
“How I Like To Organize My Kitchen”
“My Strategy for Using Pinterest”

Those text overlays focus on “you” when Pinterest users are focused on learning something for themselves.

Let’s switch them around to focus on the user:

“Time Management Tips That Will Give You Back an Hour Per Day”
“Small Kitchen Organization Hacks You Can Do in an Afternoon”
“Pinterest Strategy for Service-Based Business Owners”

The focus is now on the user, and they’re more likely to click to see your tips or ideas.

The Pin Title

Using relevant keywords in your pin’s title that support the imagery is the next step in helping Pinterest understand your pin.

Use your primary target keyword and make sure it matches the content found on the other side of the pin (on your website).

The goal is to match how people search for information.

For example, for this post, I might use a pin title like:

“Pinterest SEO for Beginners,” or “The Ultimate Guide to Pinterest SEO,” or “Understanding Pinterest SEO and Search”.

In each of those examples, my target keyword is Pinterest SEO.

It is totally okay to mix up your pin titles; in fact, I encourage it, but make sure the focus remains on relevant keywords.

The Pin Description

Your pin descriptions should be human-sounding and not stuffed with keywords.

Remember, a real person might read it, and you don’t want to turn them off with a whole bunch of search-term mumble-jumble.

Here’s how to write your pin description so that it’s clear:

→ Write sentences like you’re talking to your ideal person
→ Use your primary keyword early in the description
→ Add in secondary keywords that you’d also like the content found for

Pin descriptions that sound natural and are written to be helpful perform the best by far.

Here’s an example using this post as the content:

“The ultimate guide to understanding and using Pinterest SEO and search. Find expert tips and ideas to help you rank your content in search. This guide is perfect for businesses, bloggers, and brands looking to incorporate Pinterest strategy into their overall marketing plan. Grow on Pinterest with this comprehensive guide showing you how to optimize your content for Pinterest search and discovery.”

In the description, I teach Pinterest what the content is about, the problem it solves, and who it’s for.

The Pinterest Board It’s Saved To

Pinterest boards are like library shelves that hold all the relevant pins for a content pillar, topic, or whatever you want to call it.

This is why you don’t want to have cute board names! Make sure to use keywords in your names and descriptions so when you add a pin, the algorithm knows what the board is about.

The board you first add a pin to needs to be the most relevant, aka the strongest match for that pin and content.

Let’s use this post as an example of where to add the pin first:

I have the following boards on my account – Pinterest Marketing, Pinterest Marketing Strategy, Pinterest Marketing Education, Pinterest Traffic, Pinterest Marketing for Beginners, and Pinterest SEO.

When I’m adding my pins, I will save the first copy to “Pinterest SEO” because it is the most relevant board from the list.

From there, I might add it to Pinterest Marketing, then Pinterest Marketing Strategy, and so on because the pin is also relevant to those topics – they’re just not the most relevant.

RELATED READ: How To Create The Best Boards for a Pinterest Strategy

The Content The Pin is Linked To

Yup, Pinterest crawls your content to ensure it’s relevant and matches the other factors it scans.

Pinterest wants to surface quality content, so make sure you build trust: 

→ Include target keywords throughout your text
→ Provide the answer to the original user search intent
→ Use images that match the content
→ Use structure in your posts, ie, subject titles to break up the post (look at what I did in this post for inspiration)

Your long-form content quality matters; Pinterest uses it to validate your expertise.

Use these signals, and you’ll help Pinterest circulate your content so that it can appear in home feeds, search results, related pins, and more!

To recap, we are teaching Pinterest what our content is about so that it will:

→ Show it to the right people
→ Keep it circulating because it stays relevant to the search
→ Builds trust for your account
→ Position you as the expert

The goal of optimizing your pins and content is simple: teach Pinterest what your content is about so you can build an evergreen content ecosystem that keeps working even if you aren’t (yes, this is why I love Pinterest so much!).

The first step is to understand how Pinterest search works, how it understands content and indexes it, and the optimization steps to use to ensure your content performs on the platform.

I love hearing from my readers, so if you have a question about Pinterest optimization, building trust, or search and discovery, comment below or email me!

Happy Pinning!