- So there's a lot of advice about Pinterest
and Pinterest SEO on the internet and on YouTube,
but it tends to be pretty surface level, like
"put your keywords in your titles and pin descriptions",
which will only get you so far.
If you really want to get results on Pinterest,
you need to understand how the algorithm actually works,
so that you can go a little deeper with your strategy,
get better results,
and so that when the platform changes,
which it always does,
you actually understand what's changing
and you know how to adjust your strategy accordingly.
Now we have a course inside Tizzit HQ
that goes into much more detail
of each aspect of using Pinterest as a handmade seller
to get sales of your products.
And that explains to you step-by-step
how to optimise Pinterest SEO
for your products and your pins,
and I'll link to this course down below
if you'd like to learn more.
Before today's video, we are going to take
a deep dive into the Pinterest algorithm
so that you can actually understand
all the components that factor into it,
why they matter and what this means
for your SEO on Pinterest.
Understanding how this algorithm works is your first step
to getting great results with Pinterest.
So buckle up, this is going to be good.
Ready?
Let's dive in.
(hand drum beating)
Bon jour, my name is Deb
and I'm the founder of Tizzit.co,
a membership community for makers and handmade shop owners,
just like your very fabulous self.
(chuckles)
You can learn more about our community, Tizzit HQ,
via the link below this video,
but for now, let's jump straight into today's conversation,
"Understanding the Pinterest Algorithm".
What exactly is an algorithm?
Let's start by clarifying that,
and also what it isn't.
So, basically an algorithm is a set of rules
that Pinterest uses to decide which pins to show
to which Pinterest users.
It's like one big math formula they use
to determine what to show in search results
and in different parts of the Pinterest website.
Now, a common misconception
is that there is just this one algorithm
that controls everything users see on Pinterest,
but that's not true.
When we say "the algorithm",
we actually refer to a group of different algorithms
that each have a specific goal on the platform.
So for example, you have one algorithm
that's going to determine
which products and pins show up on the home feed
and a different one that's going to determine
which pins show under a product pin
as related product pins,
and yet another one that determines
which products and pins show up in search results,
and so on and so forth.
You obviously don't need to understand how each piece works
(whistles and chuckles)
but it's more about how they work together,
and that's exactly what we're going to cover next.
So, how does Pinterest search work?
Let's talk about that.
There are two main steps
that go into the Pinterest algorithm:
keyword extraction and interest mapping,
and query matching and ranking.
So let's talk about step one first.
There are a few things that Pinterest looks at
to understand what your pin is about.
Imagine you upload a pin to Pinterest.
Initially, Pinterest doesn't really know
what that pin is about but they need to figure it out
so they can classify it in their system.
Keyword extraction and interest mapping
are what help Pinterest to do just that.
They essentially look for keywords in a variety of places
to decide what a particular pin or product is about
and save that information in their system.
So, understanding where Pinterest looks for keywords
helps you understand where you can use keywords
to signal to Pinterest what your pins are about,
so you can rank higher in search results,
which is pretty much how SEO works.
So, let's look at each factor individually.
Pinterest extracts keywords from your pins
in a number of different ways.
Let's first talk about
the two places you hear about all the time,
pin title and pin description,
which you can see in this picture.
Pinterest is going to look for keywords
in both your pin title and your pin description.
That's why making sure that you craft them
with keywords in mind is very important.
Next is your board titles and your board descriptions
as Pinterest will also look for information about your pin
in these two areas.
Pinterest also looks at information on your linked URL.
As you may know, each pin on Pinterest
has a URL that is linked to that pin
so that if people want to learn more
about what that pin is about, or the product,
that they can see on that pin,
they can click on it and go to that URL.
Well, Pinterest is actually going to look at
a few things on that URL.
They will look at the page title of that URL,
the page description, and the text on that page,
so the actual content on the page,
as well as the images they see on that page.
They are going to gather information
and extract information and keywords from all this info.
Next up is image recognition.
Pinterest will look at the pin image,
sometimes called pin graphic or pin design,
so the image that you upload as a pin on Pinterest,
and they can essentially see it for what it is.
So for example, Pinterest looks at this image,
they will know that this is a necklace.
If they look at this image,
they will see that hey, this is a doll.
And, if they look at this image,
they will see that, hey, this is a puppy
and plus see the information visually
and they extract keyword
from what they see on those images.
Next, Pinterest uses optical character recognition, or OCR.
This is a fancy word that basically means
that Pinterest can read the text on your images.
So here, for example, they'll be able to read
all these different pieces of information
or keywords from the text on the graphic.
Another thing Pinterest uses is called lexical expansion.
They will change words like workout to exercises
or outfits to clothes, and if someone taps bracelet,
they'll expand to that to include the plural, bracelets.
So you can see that they will expand a bit
on what your pin is about
using synonyms and similar phrases.
Next, we've got Google taxonomy.
Now, this is only for product pins,
but product pins are going to be
the vast majority of your pins as a product seller.
Attached in the backend of each product pin,
so it's not necessarily something that you can see
or that people that are using Pinterest can see,
is a category that comes from the Google taxonomy.
A lot of different platforms, so, for example Shopify,
use this taxonomy to categorise products
under different categories and subcategories.
So, for example, in this picture you can see
that animals and pet supplies is the main category.
Then we've got the subcategory of pet supplies,
and under that we have the sub-subcategory of pet bowl mats.
And so, when you connect your store to Pinterest
using a Pinterest catalogue,
Pinterest will grab the information
from your Pinterest product catalogue
and use it to better understand
what each product pin is about.
Pinterest also uses the search queries
that someone has entered in the search bar
and the resulting clicks
as a way of understanding what pins are about what.
Here I have an example where someone typed in
"gold boho necklace" on Pinterest.
Now, if you look at the pin I have circled in pink,
you will see that it is not a gold necklace at all.
If I click on this pin, you see
that there is no mention of gold
in the pin description either.
It is a necklace made of beads and wood
with a cotton tassel.
The only commonality with a search is the word "boho".
So why is Pinterest showing it in the search results?
Well, if someone typed in "gold boho necklace"
and clicked on that product,
Pinterest remembers that.
and when it happens more and more,
Pinterest looks at that click history
and says "People who type in 'gold boho necklace'
love this product."
So it starts showing for the keyword
"gold boho necklace" in the search results.
They don't care that it isn't a gold boho necklace
because they know that it's something
that someone who searches "gold boho necklace"
will be interested in and probably will click on.
Interconnection with other pins, boards, and users.
So, when you upload a pin to Pinterest,
you add it to a board.
That's kind of how Pinterest works, right?
And we mentioned previously
that the title of the board
that the pin is added to is important,
because Pinterest is going to look at
the keywords in that board title.
Well, this extends to all the other places
that your pin is going to end up being saved to.
So when someone saves your pin to one of their boards,
and that board is called "Cool wedding ideas", for example,
Pinterest is going to take notice
and learn more about your pin this way.
It now knows, it has confirmation,
that this pin is about "wedding ideas".
Pinterest will also look at the other pins
that have been pinned to that "Cool wedding ideas" board
and the keywords attached to those pins.
Okay, those are the most important places
Pinterest will look for
when it comes to attributing keywords to your pins
and understanding what your pins are about
to show them in search results.
As you can see, it goes a bit deeper
than just your pin title and pin description,
but that's not all.
If you remember, I mentioned
they also do something called interest mapping.
So, what is that and how does it work?
Pinterest has its own taxonomy
to categorise pins by interest category.
After all, it's called "Pinterest".
People's interests are what the platform was built around,
and if the word taxonomy is giving you a bit of a headache,
just think of it as
Pinterest's internal classification system.
This is how they categorise the different topics and themes
that the users might be interested in.
And here's an example of how it's structured.
The top level taxonomies, such as travel and sports,
capture the general interest
associated with pins across Pinterest.
For each of those broad categories,
Pinterest has then children categories,
up to 11 levels, that capture more granular topics.
So you can see that in this example
where the travel category is broken down further
into travel tips and travel destination,
and sports will get broken down further
into soccer, cricket, et cetera.
Based on everything they know about each pin,
Pinterest will then assign interests from the taxonomy
that they think best represent that pin.
So, in this example, Pinterest will add and rank
the interest it applies to.
Home decor is a top one,
gardening and garden design next
and so on and so forth,
all the way down to level four
with interests like backyard and courtyard house.
But that's not all the interest taxonomy is used for.
Pinterest also classifies and attributes "interests"
to users and to search queries.
So if I keep pinning, for example,
pins that are about vegan recipes and vegan cakes,
they'll probably start attributing the interest
"vegan dessert" and maybe even "vegan baking" to my profile.
They know these are topics I'm interested in.
Similarly, they attribute interest to search queries.
For example, if someone types into search
the phrase "raw cheesecake"
and clicks on pins of vegan cheesecake recipes,
they will start mapping the search query "raw cheesecake"
to the interests "vegan baking"
and "vegan cheesecake" in their taxonomy.
So, you can see that interests
are crucial part of the Pinterest search engine
and they're used for more than just pins.
Interests are also attributed to users and to queries.
So you can see that interests are a very big part
of Pinterest's algorithm.
So, at this point, Pinterest knows what your pin is about
based on all the things we've just talked about in step one,
and they've also matched your pins
to their interest taxonomy.
Now, step two is about answering
what happens when someone actually types in a query,
which again is just a fancy word for a keyword or a phrase,
into the search bar.
How does Pinterest decide what to show in the search result,
and most importantly, what order to show them in?
Well, first, they need to go and find
all the possible pins they could show someone
based on what they just typed into the search bar.
This step is called query matching
because they'll match that search phrase
to the keywords they have extracted
for each pin on the platform
and to their interest taxonomy.
So if someone types "wedding ring ideas" into the search bar
they are going to be looking for anything related to it
inside the database.
They've extracted keywords and assigned categories
from their taxonomy to each pin
as we've explained previously,
so they know what each pin is about.
The problem is that there are going to be
hundreds of thousands of pins
that are related to "wedding ring ideas"
and they can't fit them all in the search results.
They need to decide which pins are going to show first,
otherwise known as "ranking".
So let's talk about how ranking works now.
The most important thing to understand here
is that ranking is highly personalised.
Everyone gets different results
because Pinterest want to show each user
results that are likely to be
the most relevant and engaging
and that's different for everybody.
So your pin might show really high
in someone's search results
and much lower on the page for someone else.
In its simplest form,
ranking the pins mostly on pin engagement and popularity.
When pins are clicked on, saved on,
and engaged with more for the same queries,
Pinterest will know that they are a good pin
to show for that search term or that interest
and will start ranking it higher and higher
in the search results overall.
The interests they've matched to your profile.
If you search for "living room ideas", for example,
and they've already attributed
"farmhouse decor" as interest on your profile
based on previous searches that you've made,
you'll see pins of farmhouse living room ideas
instead of some modern or minimalist ones,
even though you didn't even specify "farmhouse"
in your search query.
What others people who have similar interests to you
have engaged with.
Pinterest is constantly creating connections
between pins, boards, and users,
and the more a person pins,
the more connections can be created.
So Pinterest is going to look
at people who search similar terms as you,
or have similar interests,
and the pins that they've clicked on
or saved to their boards,
and put that information together to decide
what would be best to show you
for your search results.
Real time activity.
Each Pinterest user will get results
that are adapted to the activity in real time.
So each pin that they interact with
will give Pinterest more information to use
to decide what to show them next.
That's why it's so easy
to spend a lot of time on Pinterest
because each action you take on the platform
helps Pinterest show you pins
that are more and more and more relevant
so that you can find products and buy ideas faster.
And this, my friends, is the summary
of how things work with the Pinterest algorithm.
Now, I made this video based on your feedback.
You all asked me for a video
explaining how the algorithm on Pinterest works.
So if you'd like me to do a video
that explains how to take this information
and turn it into an actionable strategy
to actually do your Pinterest SEO practically,
please let me know in the comments below
and subscribe to my channel.
I'll make sure to get that done for you.
I also dive into much more detail on the,
you know, how and the why of Pinterest SEO
in the Tizzit HQ Pinterest course I mentioned.
So if you want to up your Pinterest game
and you would appreciate step-by-step instruction,
examples, as well as tips and tricks
to kind of maximise your Pinterest SEO,
you'll want to check out the course
at the link that I put just below this video.
Thanks for watching.
Make sure to check out the link below.
And until next time, au revoir!
Next is your board title...
Non!
(burbles)
Okay!
(burbles)