Pinterest has officially gone from a site where people pin recipes to a top platform for social media marketing. It has over 200 million users who are sharing content, finding ideas and more. The benefits this has for businesses is great if used properly. It can help boost traffic to your website as well as help customers plan their purchases better.

Below are ten tips for optimizing your business Pinterest account:

1. Ensure you have a Business account

This one is pretty straight forward, if you have a business then you should have a business account with Pinterest. It is easy to set up and if you have a personal account, you can convert it to a business one. Some of the benefits you will see include:

Your company name will be displayed giving you a more professional look
Access to marketing content that you can use to build up your account and push sales
Verification of your account which will give you a check mark next to your name to show you are a real and legitimate account.
Analytics that are run on your boards and pins. This is useful since you can use this data to evaluate your current strategy and see what needs adjusting.

2. Fill in all your business details on your profile

Make sure you completely fill out your business profile. So many businesses make the mistake of leaving out key information in this section. You want people who come to your profile to get a clear picture of what your business is about and how they can get in touch with you. Be sure to spend some time perfecting your bio which gives a background on who you are what you do. This section is capped off at 160 characters so you really need to make the most of your words.

3. Link back to your website when uploading a pin

When you are posting images to your account, make certain that they are linking back to the correct page on your site. May sound simple but once again, many businesses forget to do this step.

4. Run contests

Contests are a great way to boost engagement as they lead to referrals and interactions around your brand. You will want to check out the Pinterest business guidelines before getting started but here are some general tips to get you going:

Allow only one entry.
Have a landing page on your website for your contest that way when people click on your image, it will take them directly to your site. This will help boost traffic.
Be clear about the guidelines of the contest.
Get creative with the entries and prizes. Offer something exciting.

5. Play around with your boards and cover images

When it comes to the placement of your boards, make sure the ones that are at the top of your profile fits there. For example, if you have a great board with Thanksgiving ideas, you would want to have that front and center during the month of November. After that passes, you can move your board to the bottom and place a Christmas board at the top. By doing this, people that come to your profile will see relevant content first. This is a step you will constantly have to be on top of but one that will help you in the long run.

In addition, since your cover image is automatically chosen for you, do some research and find one that helps your board stand out the best.

6. Run ads on Pinterest

Running ads on Pinterest lets you promote your brand to people that are already searching for what you are selling. You have the ability to target your ads and the analytics will help you get an idea of where traffic is coming from and where they are going to on your site.

7. Try out rich pins

Rich Pins can really help your pins stand out. It is basically HTML text that allows you to add helpful information to your pins like product information, pricing and stock information. This is great because potential customers are more likely to visit your website and make a purchase since they have these details about your products.

8. Optimize your pins for SEO

Optimizing your pins for SEO like you do your website will be very helpful. Here are three pieces of SEO to have when you are creating your pins.

Keywords in your title
Keywords in your description
Link every pin to your website

Incorporating these things into each one of your pins will help you boost your presence throughout the platform.

9. Review your pin images

For each of your pins, try and pick something eye-catching when it comes to the image. Before they look at the description, users are viewing the image and reading the text. Also take the time to look at the size and shape of your pins. Typically, horizontal images work best. Pinterest recommends a minimum width of 600 pixels and an aspect ratio of 2:3. Canva has a template for Pinterest pins which has become popular to use.

10. Follow the Pinterest blog

Social media platforms are always updating and bringing on new features. For this reason, you want to be in the know by following the Pinterest blog. It is the go to resource for all the latest news and updates. They also give you a lot of inspiration through tips and ideas.

10 Ways to Optimize Your Business Pinterest Account