Most people know what Pinterest is. It’s a semi-social media platform that is used by people to collect images from around the web into boards centered around topics ranging from outdoor projects to inspirational images. What you may never have thought about is how Pinterest could be useful for SEO. Many people (myself included) even use Pinterest as a search engine in itself, particularly because Google, oddly enough, usually fails to provide the most up-to-date images for trendy topics like fashion or aesthetic styles. With the exception of user-uploaded images, nearly every image on Pinterest is actually a link elsewhere.
According to Ventura Web Design, “Pinterest does have an effect on Google rankings, but not in the way you might think. While pins themselves do not count as follow links, they can still be beneficial for SEO purposes.” The more images on your site that get pinned to Pinterest, the more likely they are to be re-pinned, with the number of links back to your site increasing. This interaction will generally boost your visibility on SERPs in addition to increase the odds of driving traffic to your site.
It is my personal belief (feel free to disagree) that for image/aesthetic-heavy sites like graphic design, interior design, or photography, optimizing for image index sites like Pinterest may be as important–if not more–than optimizing for traditional search engines, given the high search volumes of images that occur on the platform.
3 Responses
I did not know this! But it is helpful as you plan your SEO and marketing tactics.
I have definitely used Pinterest as a search engine. Sometimes it is easier and more effective to view images as opposed to read through content to find the answer I need.
I personally love image heavy sites, reading is not my strong suit.