You might understand that there are best practices for using Pinterest on the platform itself, but did you know that you can optimize your website for Pinterest engagement as well?
The best form of engagement on Pinterest is someone else saving your Pin to their boards. This means you should encourage this behavior wherever possible. Other than directly on Pinterest, straight from your website is a great place to start!
We’re now in Part 5 of the Pinterest Marketing Mistakes series, which covers 7 different ways you can integrate Pinterest on your website to improve engagement. Even if you don’t have a website yet, it’s worth paying attention to what’s in this post so you’re aware of what’s possible when/if you get one (which I highly suggest you do eventually!).
Table of Contents
Essential Website Tips to Maximize Your Pinterest Marketing Success
As the main hub for all your content, you website is another place that should be top-of-mind while using Pinterest to promote it. This post will cover some things people may not think of when it comes to creating a Pinterest-friendly website.
- The importance of having your own website and substitutes if you aren’t quite ready to build one
- Pinterest features that integrate data from your website to improve brand visibility
- How adding Pinterest-friendly images on your website can boost engagement on Pinterest
- Essential website elements every Pinterest marketer needs to implement for increased traffic
- Ways to optimize your site performance even if you’re not great with technical stuff
The Pinterest Marketing Mistakes 6-Part Series
Hey, there! Welcome to the Pinterest Marketing Mistakes series here on Soft Digital Era!
I don’t know if you can tell, but I can be a bit of a yapper so I’m trying to do my best to keep this informative, but short and sweet. That said, I’ve still had to break this guide down into 6 parts to cover everything without being too overwhelming.
Check out the other posts when you’re ready!
- The 4 Biggest Reasons Why Pinterest Marketing Isn’t Working for You | Pinterest Marketing Mistakes Part 1
- 6 Pinterest Account Strategy Mistakes Killing Your Reach | Pinterest Marketing Mistakes Part 2
- 6 Reasons Why Your Pinterest Pin Designs Don’t Convert to Clicks | Pinterest Marketing Mistakes Part 3
- 7 Pinterest Content Creation Mistakes Ruining Your Views & Clicks | Pinterest Marketing Mistakes Part 4
- 7 Ways Your Website is Costing You Pinterest Engagement | Pinterest Marketing Mistakes Part 5
- 8 Pinterest Strategy Mistakes That Limit Reach & Cost Clicks | Pinterest Marketing Mistakes Part 6
7 Pinterest-Friendly Website Mistakes
Your website is a crucial component of your Pinterest marketing strategy. Getting people to go there, whether it’s a blog, a store, or a community hub, is your main objective. From SEO optimization to user experience, how you set up and maintain your site can impact your Pinterest success.
I do want to warn that not all of these steps will be possible with every website setup out there. I’ve made a note of which ones and why and any workarounds I know of, if available, but it may not be possible to check every box depending on where you host your links (such as a link-in-bio platform).
With that said, let’s explore the most common website mistakes that could be limiting your Pinterest engagement and how to fix them.
Not having a website
While not a complete deal breaker, it’s always best to have your own site to promote content or products. Without a website, you’ll be limited in the amount of links you can share on Pinterest, which may make it more difficult to grow.
The fix:
Even if you don’t plan to post regularly, setting up some kind of website or blog is definitely worth it for utilizing Pinterest. A website gives you a space to write reviews, share tutorials, or create visual experiences to inspire purchases.
The more links you have, the more Pins to can add to Pinterest without needing to come up with new headlines or completely new Pin designs. There are a lot of platforms that allow you to create a website along with your store or work well as a substitute for a full website.
Here are some options you may want to look into:
- Website Builders: WordPress, Wix, Webflow, Strikingly, Canva
- Link-in-bio platforms: Beacons.ai, Stan Store
- Store builders: Shopify, Payhip, Gumroad
- All-in-one platforms: Systeme.io, Kajabi
- Newsletter builders: Beehiiv, Substack
- Affiliate Lists & Collages: Benable, Zeen
Pro Tip:
If you’re serious about starting a blog or website, I personally suggest using self-hosted WordPress, Squarespace, or Wix or even a public newsletter platform like Beehiiv.
WordPress is the best choice because has a lot of user-friendly tools that integrate with Pinterest, but it does have bit of a learning curve when compared to Squarespace or Wix. However, in the years since I’ve started, Squarespace and Wix have become much more compatible with the features necessary to have the most competitive advantages on Pinterest.
Not claiming your site
Claiming your site verifies that content from your site belong to you, the owner of your Pinterest account. If you don’t claim it, you’ll miss out on opportunities for Pinterest to attribute any link saved from your site to your Pinterest profile. People will also get the option to follow your account.
Without a claimed website, you don’t have the ability to view all your Pinterest analytics data within the Analytics Dashboard. This shows analytics and insights for all Pins that link to your website, including those that you didn’t pin yourself.
The fix:
Follow Pinterest’s official instructions to claim your domain. You’ll either add a small snippet of code or upload an HTML file to your site. Some site builders, like Squarespace and Wix, have options within their settings to do this. On WordPress, this is often included along with SEO plugins.
You can also verify sites at the domain level, so if you’re using a link-in-bio service or some other type of website that doesn’t allow you to enter custom HTML, you can still claim it on Pinterest as long as you use a custom domain connected to the service.
Pro Tips: You can claim multiple domains under one Pinterest account! For example, if you have a website at websitename.com and then a separate shop under the URLs shop.websitename.com or websitenameshop.com, you can claim both of these with just one Pinterest account. This will give you all the analytics details in one place as well.
Domain Buying: Purchase your domain from a domain reseller like Cloudflare or Namecheap and you’ll be able to connect it to any service whenever you want. Some platforms allow you to purchase through them but charge you extra for the domain or charge you to transfer it elsewhere. (It’s $70 to transfer a domain from Beacons!)
Not having Rich Pins
Rich Pins are Pins that automatically pull extra information from your site’s metadata to display on Pinterest, such as article headlines or product details, making your Pins look more authoritative and “official” to users. Pinterest supports Article, Recipe, and Product metadata types. If you’re not using a site builder that supports one of these, you may be missing out.
It’s not the end of the world if you can’t set up Rich Pins, but again, this is one of the features you’ll be missing out on by not having your own customizable site.
The fix:
It used to be necessary to enable Rich Pins via your Pinterest Business account, but this is no longer the case! As long as the metadata is there, Pinterest will pick it up. Add meta tags to your site or use a plugin (if available) to enable this feature.
Note for recipe bloggers: It’s also possible to disable Rich Pins, but this is not recommended. In the past, some food bloggers have preferred this because since Pinterest pulls the recipe data onto the Pin, some saw lower traffic since people didn’t need to click through to get the details.
However, Pinterest is longer pulling the full recipe and only lists ingredients. If you’ve been seeing advice to stop using Rich Pins for this reason, this is no longer something to be concerned about.
Not including a pinnable image
If your site doesn’t have an appealing, Pinterest-friendly image, users might not think to save it to Pinterest. You’ll be missing out on a simple way to increase your organic reach with out much work on your part.
The fix:
Include at least one vertical image (ideally 2:3 ratio) on each page or blog post that you want people to Pin. You can include a variety of images, but “fresh Pin” rules don’t apply the same to other users as your own
If you’re blogging, add sections at the beginning, middle, or end of your content (or any mix of these!) asking people to save your post to their Pinterest account. This simple call-to-action will increase your engagement on Pinterest!
Pro Tip:
If you use WordPress, there are a variety of social sharing and SEO plugins that will help you optimize your Pinterest sharing. Some popular ones include Hubbub, Social Warfare, and Tasty Pins.
No share button for Pinterest
Getting shares from other users on Pinterest is the best way to boost your visibility. Saves from other users is the best engagement metric to target for the algorithm to push your content higher in searches and out to more users’ Home Feeds. Making it inconvenient for visitors to save your content to Pinterest means missed opportunities for organic growth.
The fix:
Install a social sharing plugin that includes a Pinterest “Save” buttons. Make sure the buttons are easy to find so users can save your content in just one click.
If you’re not using a website builder where you can set this up yourself, other platforms will often include it by default or have other settings to turn on to enable sharing buttons.
Focusing on traffic over lead generation
Many creators focus on driving traffic to their site or offers without a clear plan for converting visitors into leads or customers. While traffic is important, neglecting lead generation means missing out on opportunities to build your email list and build an engaged audience.
Even if your goal is to monetize through ads, having a list of people you can contact whenever you create new content means you’re not constantly trying to find new visitors to get impressions. You can get instant traffic just by informing the people who are already following you!
The fix:
Include strategic lead magnets (free or low-cost digital downloads in exchange for a visitor’s subscription to your email list) all throughout your site, not just on individual landing pages. You can create benefit-driven downloadable resources related to your content and use them to incentivize signing up for your email list. You’ll be able to advertise your free download in your Pins as well, making this an additional angle to use to attract visitors!
Some ideas for your lead magnet include:
- Checklists that complement your blog posts
- Free mini courses or workshops that dive deeper into topics
- Resource guides that help solve specific problems
Make sure your opt-in forms are prominently displayed and your lead magnets are highly relevant to the content visitors are reading to maximize conversions. Remember, Pinterest users are often looking for solutions and this is a great way to use their searches to turn them into members of your audience.
Having a site that loads slowly
A slow-loading website can frustrate visitors and make them leave before they even see your content. This impacts both your Pinterest engagement and overall traffic success.
A lot of people use WordPress for their blog, which is fine but when you don’t know what you’re doing it’s easy to bog down your site’s loading speeds or user experience by having too many plugins (even if inactive), unoptimized large images, or a hosting plan that doesn’t fit your site’s traffic.
The fix:
If you’re not running your own site or store, this isn’t something you’ll need to worry about as the platform will mostly take care of it for you. They want their site to run smoothly and do as much as possible to make sure user uploaded content is optimized to their specifications.
However, if you’re running your own site on platforms like WordPress or Shopify, you’ll need to do most of the work yourself (or pay someone to do it for you). You can use tools like Google PageSpeed Insights to check your site’s performance and get specific recommendations for improvements.
There are lots of tools and tutorials for DIY solutions to fix any issues that PageSpeed flags, but you may want to hire someone to handle the more advanced suggestions once you have an established brand that’s bringing in enough money to afford.
That said, here are some things you can easily do yourself to improve load times:
- Use an image optimizer to compress images without sacrificing quality. (I use Short Pixel for WordPress. Try Squoosh or TinyPNG if you’re using something else.)
- Use the correct image size (in pixels) for all images. Don’t use a 2000x2000px file for an image that will only be displayed at a max of 500x500px.
- Use a reliable web host if you’re using WordPress/self-hosting. (SiteGround is my pick. If you’re more tech-inclined, I use Cloudways for my sites.)
Take Your Pinterest Strategy to the Next Level
Now that you understand how these common website mistakes could be affecting your Pinterest engagement, you should do what you can to try to fix them. Here are some actionable next steps:
- Audit your website setup. Go through each point mentioned above and note where your site may need improvement. Remember, some of these will only apply if you have full control over your site.
- Implement any relevant fixes. Start with the easiest solutions first, like adding Pinterest save buttons or existing Pin images for your content.
- Track your progress every month. Once you’ve made these changes, monitor your Pinterest analytics to see the improvement in engagement and traffic. Regular reviews help optimize your performance. It takes a bit for Pins to take off, so focus on 15-30 day check-ins instead of daily activity.
- Review and update regularly. Keep track of your Pinterest and website analytics and adjust your strategy based on what’s working. Turn popular posts or content into lead generation engines by adding a downloadable check list or guide.
- Stay informed about platform changes. Follow Pinterest’s official blog and business resources to stay up-to-date with new features and best practices.
The Pinterest Marketing Mistakes 6-Part Series
Check out the rest of the posts in this series for my full mistake-fixing plan and turn your Pinterest account into a traffic driving machine!
- The 4 Biggest Reasons Why Pinterest Marketing Isn’t Working for You | Pinterest Marketing Mistakes Part 1
- 6 Pinterest Account Strategy Mistakes Killing Your Reach | Pinterest Marketing Mistakes Part 2
- 6 Reasons Why Your Pinterest Pin Designs Don’t Convert to Clicks | Pinterest Marketing Mistakes Part 3
- 7 Pinterest Content Creation Mistakes Ruining Your Views & Clicks | Pinterest Marketing Mistakes Part 4
- 7 Ways Your Website is Costing You Pinterest Engagement | Pinterest Marketing Mistakes Part 5
- 8 Pinterest Strategy Mistakes That Limit Reach & Cost Clicks | Pinterest Marketing Mistakes Part 6