Pinterest Guide for Beginners for Ecommerce Brands

Pinterest is the BEST channel for all subscription box and ecommerce businesses. No matter what product you sell, having a pinterest account and the right strategy will bring you huge ROI without spending a dime.

Today we're diving into how to set up the basics and backbone of your Pinterest account. Once your account is set up and optimized, then we will dive into strategy posts about how to drive traffic, how to create rich pins, apps to help grow engagement and traffic and more.

If you don't have a Pinterest account set up yet OR you have one but haven't gone past creating an account, or you have an account but have NO clue what to do, this post is for you. Once you have your account up and running, check out our 5 tips to attract your ideal customer on pinterest post.

Create Your Pinterest Account

Head over to https://www.pinterest.com/business/create/ and create a business account. The main benefit of having a business account is it gives you access to analytics and ads. As you add more boards and content to your account, you can track data — like which Pins get the most view or engagement — and create ads to get your Pins in front of more people.

To edit all the information below, simply click on the 3 dots on the far right side of your Pinterest home page, click edit settings and all the tabs within this are what you need.

Business Details

Add your business name, location, language and website. If you don't have a website just yet, leave it blank.

Claim Your Social Accounts + Website

Connect your instagram, etsy, youtube accounts and website next. Doing so ensures pins from these sites will be attributed to your business. Plus, you’ll also be able to track related analytics.

Perfecting Your Pinterest Profile

This is what my Pinterest account looks like.

Next up is creating your profile description page. You have to fill in questions that are very important for SEO, so here are a few suggestions.

Pinterest Profile Page

Profile Pic

I recommend using your logo. Keep your platforms consistent, so using a logo is always the best option. If you don't have a logo yet, use an image that would align with your brand/ be attractive to your ideal customer.

Display Name

Go to your home page, on the top right click the 3 dots, then go to edit settings. You will see the display name field. For this, add your business name. You have up to 30 characters for this, so keep it short and sweet.

Username

Sam tips as above, keep it the same as your business name. This is also what appears in your URL, so its best to keep everything consistent.

About Your Profile

Make this section count as you only have 160 characters. Give a high level overview of what your product is and how you are helping your customer/solving their pain points with your product and service.

Identify Your Audience

Freeform write about who your target audience might be to start to zero in on exactly who they are and what their dreams, hopes and fears might be so we can focus on serving them with our content. Who are they? Male/female? Age? Parent? Income level? What do they love, what are they drawn to, what inspires them? Where do they shop, what are their hobbies? What motivates them in life?

Next let’s take a minute to think of ideas of the types of pins this person might be interested in. What problems can we solve for them through our own content (or valuable content of others) that is in line with our products or services?

 

Start Creating Boards

CREATE BOARDS SPECIFICALLY FOR YOUR SERVICE/PRODUCT & BOARDS THAT WILL ATTRACT YOUR TARGET AUDIENCE TO YOUR PROFILE

When creating boards, think about your ideal client. Who are they? How can you help them? How can your boards provide information to serve them?

For a dog subscription box service this could be separate boards for dog breeds, popular pet bloggers, dog health care, puppies etc. For an SEO organization, this could be separate boards for each element, such as Link building Tips, SEO strategies, On Page SEO Tips, etc. 

Here is my layout of Pinterest boards for Marketing by Kerrie. To check out my Marketing By Kerrie pinterest page click here. I have boards that align with different areas of marketing, all types of sub categories that my ideal customer would want to know more about.

Here is an exercise you can do to help figure out what types of boards you should have. Write down the main niche of your business, then write down 3 problems your product solves for your customer, 3 key selling points about your product and 3 content catergories within your niche.

Here is an example of a hairstylist pinterest page that's done a great job of adding a variety of boards within the hair niche.

It includes an array of popular categories within the hair space, yet each one provides a very specific niche of information for her ideal customer would want, from blonde hair boards to trending hair braids down to hair care products.

Adding Board Descriptions

Think of Pinterest as a search engine, so when you're adding your board titles and descriptions, use keywords your customer would be searching for that describe the board clearly.

Here is an example of my Instagram Marketing board.

Adding Pins To Boards

Before you start creating your own pins, get started repinning other pins that are relevant to your boards. Head to the top of the Pinterest page and search for something that you want to start pinning.

For example, below I added the search word "branding" to the search bar. If you notice underneath a collection of related categories popped up. These are related search words to "branding" and a good indication of what other people are searching for. This can give you additional ideas of ideas to add to your boards.

Repin

To repin, simply hover over a pin then there is a dropdown where you can save the pin to one of your boards.

Choose the most relevant board to pin it too. Pin around 20 pins per day to start off with. Aways go back to you audience and what information they would find most valuable.

Create Pins

If you are just getting started with your business, I would skip this step until you have a blog, products or content to share. Once you do have content to share, let's get started creating pins. This can be scary for people but trust me, once you get into a rhythm it's so fun to create your own pins.

Brand Details

When youre creating pins, its important to get fonts, colors and images that align with your brand. If your brand is very feminine, then you most likely wouldnt want to use hard dark colors.

Design Pins

To create pins without a graphic design degree, I recommend using Canva. Canva is not only amazing for creating pins using their own templates but once you get familiarized with the platform you can use this to create graphics for instagram, email marketing and anything else you need.

There is a free version but for $12.95 per month the Canva pro plan is the way to go. With the pro plan you can add custom fonts, have a brand kit where you have easy access to your brand colors and fonts. You have access to more stock images as well.

As someone who used the free version with my first business for 3 years and since switching over to the paid version, I kick myself for not using it before. It is a HUGE time saver. Click here to access the Canva website and start creating pins in a minute.

Stock Images

To create pins you need images. Since Pinterest is a visual search engine, it's important you use images that 1. speak to your ideal customer and 2. Look good enough to make someone stop scrolling + click your pin or save your pin.

Here are websites and resources where I find stock images to use for Pinterest.

Canva Pro Plan: Includes really good stock images. For $12.95 per month not only do you get access to beautiful stock images but al their other amazing design capabilities, a brand kit + more.

Styled Stock Society: A stylish stock photo membership for women entrepreneurs. I am obsessed with this company. If your brand is feminine, this is the way to go. They even give you 20 free images wen you sig up for their email list. They memberships range but the cheapest basic option is $25 per month.

Unsplash: This is a free option if you need a specific type of image. I have used this website on occasion and they do have some great choices.

Description and Title

Once you design your pin, now it's time to add it to pinterest, specifically to one of your boards. You always want to include keywords in both your title and description of your pin.

Below is an example of one of my pins. You can see the title of the pin includes keywords I want to be searchable for - " How I created a subscription box business" and then also included my business name.

The description includes key descritive words about subscription box business, so if anyone searches for pins with those words, we would want to show up. I also include a link that goes to my website ( an opt in form) and a few words about my business and location in seattle.

Always keep in mind, pinterest is a search engine, so include keywords that you want to show up for in the feeds. Think of what your ideal customer would type in that search bar and use those words in your titles, descriptions and when you save your image.

The Anatomy of a Perfect Pin

Use large bold words + on brand colors and fonts

Images should be vertical

Resave your images with rich keywords and your business name.

Add Keywords to title and description

Add a Call to action to pins

Add your logo OR website name to pin

Analytics

Once you start pinning and repinning, use your analytics to tell you what's working with your audience. The analytics fearure is on the top left of your pinterest page.

It breaks down everything from impressions, link clicks, saves and so much more. When you see patterns of what people are saving or clicking that gives you so much valuable information and ideas for new content.

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Interested in using Pinterest for your business and want to DIY? Enroll in my online course called "Pinterest for Business 101."  This is an online course (that you can netflix and binge in one weekend) that will teach you how to use Pinterest for your business to make money, sell products and services, increase traffic and more.

For other free resources on Pinterest, I encourage you to check out my free guide on how to 5X your website traffic with Pinterest with Pinterest or Pinterest for beginners guide and Pinterest tips to attract your ideal customer.

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