How to Get Free Traffic From Pinterest Search. Today, I want to talk about how Pinterest search works and how you can use it to drive traffic to your site — even if you aren’t in the lifestyle or fitness industry! Type in a query into the search bar at the top of the page, and the site will return a variety of results. I start my search by searching Pinterest for “knife storage.” Like Google, Pinterest uses an auto complete function, which offers additional ideas based on my query: The suggestions include adding “DIY,” “ideas,” and searching specific boards. Pinterest search observation #3: Pinterest makes it easy to modify your search results without returning to the original search page. How to increase your Pinterest traffic Step 1: If you haven’t already, you need to create and optimize your business profile. Since I don’t have a board about writing, I am going to create one: Then click “View My Pin” and “Edit My Pin.” Add the description of the Pin, making sure to include key terms you want to target. It is how you create boards users find useful, and it is how you get noticed by other Pinners. You can find Group Boards by searching on PinGroupie or the site itself. Now that you’ve created an account and optimized your Pins, let’s look at some of the tools Pinterest offers.
I am going to come out and say it: Pinterest is the most underrated search engine out there.
Yep, Pinterest is a search engine, not just a social media site.
Pinterest is highly relevant to a variety of industries, including ecommerce and, yes, even digital marketing.
Today, I want to talk about how Pinterest search works and how you can use it to drive traffic to your site — even if you aren’t in the lifestyle or fitness industry!
Don’t think it’s possible?
Take a look at these success stories:
Brian Lang, of Small Business Ideas, used Pinterest to drive nearly 2 million pin views to his e-commerce account.
I use it to drive 10,000 visitors a month to my website.
About.com leveraged Rich Pins and saw a 40% increase in Pinterest traffic in just the first week.
These examples show the results aren’t small increases — they are massive.
If you think Pinterest is nothing more mid-thirties women pinning diet tips and parenting hacks, you are missing out on a huge traffic driver.
Pinterest can help you create an incredible surge in traffic for free.
If you are willing to put in a bit of work, of course.
So, how did the hybrid social media/search engine site start?
Ben Silbermann, Evan Sharp, and Paul Sciarra co-founded Pinterest in March 2010.
The site offers a way for users to save or ‘pin’ sites they love and organize them virtual cork boards, like the ones below.
Just six years later in September 2016, the site boasted 150 million active users each month.
In April 2017, that number grew to 175 million monthly active users.
To put that number in perspective, it is nearly 25 times the population of the San Francisco Bay area.
While the majority of Pinterest users are female, male users now make up 40% of the site’s monthly active users.
Jon Kaplan, Head of Global Sales at Pinterest, had this to say about what sets Pinterest apart:
“People use this platform in a very different way than they use other platforms that are considered “social.” What Google did for information retrieval we’re trying to do for the discovery of new ideas.”
Brands simply don’t understand the power of Pinterest and—it is time to change that.
How Pinterest search works
Nearly 2 billion searches are performed on Pinterest each month.
Just like Google, Bing, and Yahoo, Pinterest uses an algorithm to determine what pins to show when a user types in a query.
Type in a query into the search bar at the top of the page, and the site will return a variety of results.
However, the way that algorithm works is very different from traditional search engines.
Ben Silbermann, Pinterest’s cofounder and CEO, had this to say about how the search engine functions:
“We often talk about Pinterest as like a human indexing machine. Google built these crawlers that would go out, and these amazing algorithms. We give people tools that let them organize in a way that makes sense to them, and in doing that they organize in a way that makes sense to other people.”
This tells us Pinterest uses a much different search algorithm than Google.
Stephanie Rogers, Software Engineer at Pinterest, confirmed that Pinterest does use machine learning to detect spam, provide recommendations, and predict the Pinnability of a pin.
Kevin Ma, Software Engineer on the Discovery Team at Pinterest recently shared how deep learning is used in Related Pins:
“Now, for the first time, we’re applying deep learning to make Related Pins even more relevant. Ultimately, we developed a scalable system that evolves with our product and people’s interests, so we can surface the most relevant recommendations through Related Pins.”
What does all this mean?
Just like with Google, we don’t know exactly what factors Pinterest uses to determine what Pins it shows to users.
However, we can make a pretty good estimated guess based on the information they do release.
Pinterest search uses a mix of machine learning, deep learning, and the user engagement to determine what Pins will rank well.
Which sounds completely useless, but it actually tells us a lot.
Create and organize your Pins in a way that makes it easy for people to find what they are looking for.
It isn’t complicated at all.
But, what does that really mean?
Don’t worry, I’ve got plenty of examples for you.
Say, for example, I am looking for a way to store my kitchen knives. I actually ran across this problem last week and turned to Pinterest to find a solution.
I wanted a neat way to store a variety of different sizes, so a butcher block type of knife block with pre-cut slots wasn’t going to work.
I’ve seen those magnet strips, but I am not sure if I love those from a sanitary perspective. I could be convinced otherwise.
I start my search by searching Pinterest for “knife storage.”
Like Google, Pinterest uses an auto complete function, which offers additional ideas based on my query:
The suggestions include adding “DIY,” “ideas,” and searching specific boards.
Alternatively, this is what Google autocomplete provides for the same search:
Pinterest search observation #1: Auto-complete skews towards DIY solutions and Pinterest boards. Makes sense.
I decide to stick with knife storage as my search query to see what my options are. Here are my results:
There are two things to note here – first, there are additional modifiers at the top of the search results.
Second, there is a promoted pin for Wayfair rugs in my feed – which is totally unrelated to my current search.
However, it is related to a search I made last week when I was looking for a new rug.
Pinterest search observation #2: Promoted Pins are based on search history as well as the current search.
Next, I click on “safe,” which is then added to my original search query.
Additional modifiers change to match my current query.
Pinterest search observation #3: Pinterest makes it easy to modify your search results without returning to the original search page.
Each time you type in a query Pinterest offers modifier that leads you down a path to your preferred results.
For my knife storage search,…
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