Many of us have heard about how amazing Pinterest can be for business, but have felt overwhelmed or unsure how to leverage this platform to gain clients and increase website traffic.

Pinterest is a wonderful platform from a Search Engine Optimization (SEO) standpoint. It ‘plays nice’ with Google, which is incredibly important for your website. Personally, Oregon Lane Studios doesn’t have a ton of followers, but we did just reach one million monthly viewers! It’s great to take the pressure off of growing followers, and instead just focus on really great content that is keyword rich. I’m seen by the audience that needs my services most with just a couple of hours of time invested per month.

Here are my top tips for how to create a Pinterest strategy to gain clients:

Clean up your Pinterest account

If you’re using your Pinterest account for both business and life, make boards private if they are more personal and less business related. Even if you’re using Pinterest strictly for business, approach your page as an extension to your overall brand image. The content you share should align with your brand values and product/service.

Make your board titles consistent and ensure they include keywords that are relevant. Also be sure to include a board description. The description area is great for “fluffing” out the title and including extra keyword content.

For the “pretty factor” make your board covers aesthetically pleasing and consistent. This will help with brand recognition as well.

Create a Tailwind account and create Smart Loops

I hear a lot of people object to diving into Pinterest because it feels like a very manual, time consuming task. With the help of Tailwind, a Pinterest scheduler, you can make quick work of your Pinning. You can batch your content and drip it out over the course of the month. Tailwind can make suggestions for pinning frequency and will send the content out at the optimum time.

It’s the ultimate “set it and forget it” tool! Speaking of, they have a function called SmartLoops that I love!

SmartLoops will continue to pin some of your top pinned pins after you get it all set up. That way your Pinterest account is always pinning and staying active.

Join Tailwind Communities (formerly called Tribes)

Although pinning your own content should always be your top priority, a little help from your community can’t hurt! Join similar business interest groups where they will share your pins and you will share theirs. I have several pins still working for me from years ago since I pinned them to my tribes. This really helps with reach and impressions, which makes your content favorable according to the algorithm.

Create several different designs for the same pin.

If you heard that you needed to pin 5 times a day, would you panic? Believe it or not, one piece of content can be used a ton of ways!

For example, if it’s a blog post, create 10 different “pin” designs. You can even slightly change the headlines to catch different readers’ interest. Whenever I finish up branding or website projects, I create multiple images and mockups for the project, it’s just a part of my off-boarding checklist.

As you add descriptions and titles to each of the images, switch up the keywords and phrases you use.

Pin the same pin to several different boards.

As I mentioned above, one pin can be easily multiplied. You never know how someone will find your pin or what exactly they’re looking for, so pinning to several different Pinterest boards will help you determine what people are most interested in.

For example, I pin a website design to 3 of my boards – Oregon Lane Studio Work, Showit Website and Resources, and Website Design.

If you have 10 designs pinning to 3 boards, that’s 30 pins for one design! That could be several weeks of content that you’re able to put together in under an hour.

Pinterest can work for a product based business or a service based business. It’s all about leading your customer through the funnel you want them to follow. If you’re a product based business, it may be “easier” but please don’t be discouraged as a service based business! With the right opt-in, your service based business can see explosive e-mail list growth and overall traffic, which is a great thing for building and expanding your business. Plus, a well designed website will make people want to purchase (hint hint) and you’ll see that you’re able to convert them to customers faster.

A quick reminder: All new strategies can take time, so be patient! As I mentioned, some of my best performing pins are a couple of years old. Look at Pinterest as a planting seed strategy. Over time, they’ll grow and get bigger year after year. With consistent watering and fertilization, it will be fruitful.