With 250 million monthly Pinterest users, Pinterest marketing can be a significant traffic source for website owners.
And it also happens to be quality traffic since the latest statistics from Pew Research show that high-income and educated US households are twice as likely to use Pinterest as low-income and less educated US households.
This is why using Pinterest for business and leveraging the power of Pinterest marketing for traffic can play a major role for your marketing efforts.
Although, Pinterest marketing all starts by creating an attention-grabbing pin, and the visuals you choose to publish on Pinterest are the most important aspects of Pinterest marketing, writing quality Pinterest captions are the second most important element.
A Pinterest description is simply the text you write to describe each pin you publish and can’t exceed 500 characters.
If you’d like to take your Pinterest marketing to the next level, and increase the results you’re getting from your current Pinterest marketing efforts considerably, click here to download my special FREE Pinterest report. Simply enter your name and email and I’ll instantly send it to you.
A pin description is what people see after they’ve clicked on a pin that has piqued their interest, and appears on the right hand side of the pin. If the Pinterest description is long, people can click on “more” in order to read the whole description.
Writing quality pin descriptions when using Pinterest for business is important for a few reasons.
First, because based on the keywords you include in your Pinterest captions, Pinterest can rank your pin higher in Pinterest search results.
For example, if your pin is about “low carb snacks” and that’s the keyword phrase you want your pin to rank for in the Pinterest search results, then adding the keyword phrase “low carb snacks” in your Pinterest description will help you achieve the goal of raking in the Pinterest search results.
The second reason why pin descriptions are important when using Pinterest for business is because they are an opportunity to entice people to click on your link and therefore benefit from free traffic from Pinterest.
The more interesting your pin description is, the more likely people will want to click on the link you’re promoting to find out more information.
Plus, good Pinterest captions increase the chances of your pin to be saved by other Pinterest users because your pin description is an opportunity to invite people to save your pin to their own Pinterest boards and when they do, you can benefit from more organic reach and therefore more free traffic.
To write a pin description, first upload your pin by clicking on the plus sign on the top right hand side and then write your description where it says “say more about this pin”.
If you have already published Pinterest pics and would like to add a pin description or edit the existing one, simply hover on the pin, and click on the edit tab. This will redirect you to the pin description.
The first important element of a good pin description for Pinterest pics is Pinterest keywords. Make sure your pin descriptions include the keyword or keywords you want to rank for.
The more specific your Pinterest keywords are for your Pinterest pics, the more likely your pin will rank.
For example, if your pin is a vegan recipe, trying to rank for the keyword “vegan recipe” might be trickier than trying to rank for more descriptive Pinterest keywords such as “easy vegan recipe” or “vegan recipe snacks”.
So before writing your pin description make sure you know which keywords you want to rank for.
If you’d like to take your Pinterest marketing to the next level, and increase the results you’re getting from your current Pinterest marketing efforts considerably, click here to download my special FREE Pinterest report. Simply enter your name and email and I’ll instantly send it to you.
A good habit to adopt before writing your pin description, is performing a search in the Pinterest search bar for a keyword relevant to your pin, and looking at all the relevant and more specific keywords suggested by Pinterest.
This will give you ideas about what keywords people are looking for on Pinterest.
For example, if your pin is about a fitness workout, type in “workout” in the Pinterest search bar. When you do, you’ll notice that Pinterest suggests other keywords to include, such as “workout to lose weight”, “workout plan”, “workout stomach” etc…
So pick one or two keywords that appear below the Pinterest search bar that are the most relevant to your pin and make sure you add them to your description.
The second step, when writing Pinterest captions, is making sure that the first line of your description includes your Pinterest keywords. People are more likely to read a description if they feel that’s exactly what they were looking for.
If their search term on Pinterest was “workout to lose weight” and the first sentence of your pin description doesn’t include the keyword phrase “workout to lose weight” then, they might not think your pin is relevant to them and therefore might not engage with your pin.
Since only the first few lines of Pinterest captions are visible when people click on a pin, and the rest is masked by the word “more” and people will only click on the “more” tab if you’ve piqued their interest so far, the third step is to make sure the first sentence is attention grabbing.
The more attention grabbing your first sentence is, the more likely they’ll keep on wanting to read your whole pin description.
For example, if your keyword is “workout to lose weight” the first sentence of your pin description could be “discover this proven workout to lose weight that doesn’t require any gym equipment”.
The fourth step is to ensure that you include Pinterest hashtags in your pin description. When you do, it will help your pin get discovered since Pinterest users tend to look for Pinterest photos around certain hashtags.
Make sure you don’t include too many hashtags though, 2 or 3 are enough. And make sure they aren’t too generic either.
For example, avoid generic keywords such as “#workout” or “#fitness” because it will be harder to stand out from all the Pinterest photos with these generic Pinterest hashtags. Instead, use more specific Pinterest hashtags such as “fatburningworkout”.
The fifth step when using Pinterest for business is to ensure you add a call-to-action. Never assume that people will save your pin, or comment on your pin or click on your link.
So whatever action you want them to take, make sure you clearly state it in your pin description and add how they will benefit from engaging further with your pin.
For example, if you want them to click on your link, then, make sure you clearly state “click on the link above” and state why they should.
For example, write “click on the link above to discover other 10-minute fat burning workouts that don’t require any gym equipment”.
When writing Pinterest captions, a good habit to have is checking other similar Pinterest photos that are popular on Pinterest and reading their descriptions. Modelling their description can be handy especially when you’re unsure about what to write.
If you’d like to take your Pinterest marketing to the next level, and increase the results you’re getting from your current Pinterest marketing efforts considerably, click here to download my special FREE Pinterest report. Simply enter your name and email and I’ll instantly send it to you.
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About the Author
Corinna Essa is known internationally as the go-to person when it comes to social media marketing.
Corinna owns a social media marketing company helping businesses around the world leverage the power of social media without doing any of the legwork. Her company has been featured in many media outlets including Sky Business news, Working Women magazine, Ymagazine, Tasmanian Times, Channel 7 and 101fm.
Corinna is also the author of 2 bestselling books “Money On Demand – The 16 Fastest Ways to Becoming a Millionaire Online” and “Reach: The SECRETS to converting your social media audience into your network marketing downline fast”
I liked this article alot, there are alot of blogs out there telling you how to post but not what to write and the importance of captions. Thanks for sharing our tips.
Thank you Vicky!
Great tips for writing good Pinterest captions!