Why is Pinterest® so attractive to small business owners and retail giants alike? Hint: This growing social network attracts high-income women who are using the site as inspiration to shop! Nothing beats getting your product or website in front of an audience who is actively looking for what you’re offering and is ready to hit the “buy” button right now.
The secret to all social networks, of course, is to persuade your audience and fans to share your wonderful content with their audience and fans until you’re getting clicks, page views and new customers.
“Your ability to take or find beautiful images for your blog can make or break your site.” ~ Erica Mueller
Blogger Erica Mueller even noticed that she was getting more traffic from Pinterest than she was from Google®! When she realized this, the WordPress® savvy blogger knew she had to put a plan in place to capitalize on all this pinning action. That’s what she details in “How to Make Your WordPress Blog Pinterest-Friendly.”
Include a Pinterest-ready image in every post.
Think about how you browse Pinterest. (Or, if you haven’t had the pleasure yet, pop over and make a totally free Pinterest account.) People browse and re-pin, often revisiting their various pin boards later when they’re ready to make a purchase. What most Pinterest users don’t do is drill down to read a long description along with the image they pinned. So the Pinterest-ready image on your WordPress site should include text so even the most casual browser knows what she’s getting.
Use WordPress’s ‘featured image’ feature.
Say a reader loves your WordPress post and wants to pin it. Make this super easy for them by making your “Pinterest-ready image” your “featured image.” Pinterest will automatically choose that image whenever a user hits “pin” on your post. If you don’t do this, you risk your reader pinning the first image that Pinterest finds, which might not be quite so Pinterest-ready, leaving their Pinterest followers scratching their heads in confusion.
Spice it up with Image Alt text.
Whatever you do, include alt text with your image. In most cases, Pinterest will include the alt text from your image as the image description. If you don’t do this, Pinterest will decide something unwieldy — like the file name — is your image’s description. This leaves the burden on your fans to fill in their own description on their pin. Many fans won’t bother — leaving your pin dangling in the wind with an odd description.
As with most things WordPress, you as the website owner have a whole plethora of options when it comes to making your WordPress site make nice with Pinterest. Mueller details a few of these options in her full post. Check out her tips for optimizing the way your post’s pins look, allowing users to pin any image, and even embed your pins back on your blog.
For more great tips, peruse the GoDaddy Tool Kit on BlogHer.
