← Simple Pin Podcast: Simple ways to boost your business using Pinterest
Simple Pin Podcast: Simple ways to boost your business using Pinterest
How Pinterest & Google SEO are different
00:22:45
Loading summary
Transcript1 lines
- [00:00]
Kate All
Hey there and welcome back to another episode of the Simple Pin Podcast. I am your host, Kate All. If this is the first time you've ever listened to the Simple Pin Podcast, welcome. I'm so delighted to have you. What we cover on this podcast are Pinterest tips, Pinterest updates, and ways that you can leverage Pinterest for your marketing. I try to cover things that are current or maybe questions that we're getting from our community all the time. There's a certain series of questions that we get over and over and over again, and after almost 450 episodes, you'll probably notice that we have a big backlog of those topics covered. I highly recommend that you just started this one and work your way backwards. What you might see is our summer story series. We pause every summer and kind of just do light hearted stories. But before that, you'll see me cover things like how to tag your Pinterest pins or what are Pinterest collages and then any of the latest updates. So make sure you're subscribed so that you can get the latest one. We put out one every single Wednesday, but if you're subscribed you'll get that one plus any extra bonus ones we throw in there from time to time. If you're a longtime listener, then, well, number one, thank you for listening this long. But number two, you've probably heard me talk about Pinterest SEO and Google SEO, or maybe just use the term SEO, which is search engine optimization. And you've often wondered, is Pinterest SEO the same as Google SEO? So that's what I want to cover in this episode. I want to explore why user intent shapes everything from content creation to keyword strategy. And then we're going to walk through how you can discover Pinterest users in exploration and content planning mode, how you can get in front of them, how you can have your ideas saved for future inspiration, and really the main differences between the two. I'm going to walk you through specific strategies. I'm going to reveal how they prioritize content in their algorithms. Obviously I don't know everything because they don't release it to everybody and sometimes they don't even know how their algorithms work. But we're going to give you at least a really good overview. Whether you are a blogger, a business owner, or a content creator, understanding these differences can dramatically improve your performance, your visibility, and your engagement across those platforms. I want to say this too. I am not a Google SEO expert. I have for sure done it in My business, Google SEO has been perfect priority number one from day one. But I have just picked up pieces and parts along the way and I'm going to pull those in based on my own learning. But two different articles that I'm going to mention in this episode. One is an Adobe article talking about Pinterest as a search engine, and the other is a tailwind article kind of addressing the same topic as well. Pinterest SEO vs Google SEO. Theirs was specifically for merchants, so we're kind of, kind of break it down and bring it together for both merchants and content creators. Before we dive in though, I want to let you know that Q4 is the magic season on Pinterest searches skyrocket for products, decor, travel, recipes, you name it. It's when everybody comes back from the summer to Pinterest and they just get their searches on they're planning on during this really busy time. So it is prime time to get in front of new customers, new readers, new people all around. But I don't want you to wait until October. That's what a lot of people do. We are recording this in August. We are getting ready for Q4 to start. So if you need Pinterest marketing support, book a call with our team@simplepinmedia.com services or you can scroll down below in the description and we're going to point you in the right direction. Okay, with that, we're going to dive in. Pinterest SEO versus Google SEO. So what if I told you that 36% of consumers are starting their searches on Pinterest instead of Google? And here's the kicker. Gen Z is the leading number in that at three. 39% + 80% of businesses say Pinterest outpour outperforms all other search platforms for engagement. Now a note about that. I have seen lots of different accounts over the years and this has really changed over the years. But I want to say that when we look at people's analytics, Google, Pinterest, they're number one and number two and they go back and forth every once in a while. Now this is not for everybody. Sometimes you can have somebody that's really high on Google and kind of high on Pinterest, or somebody that's very high in Pinterest searches and very low in Google searches. It just depends on where you have prioritized your time. And those who have prioritized both tend to be pretty even and they can go back and forth vying for the number one search platform for this particular business. There are two articles that I want to mention like I said just a minute ago, one was done by Adobe and another done by Tailwind. Those will both be linked down below in the description. I often say that people confuse Pinterest with social media and overlay their understanding of Instagram to come up with a marketing plan. But I also think people do the same with their understanding of Google and how SEO SEO is done on Google and overlay that onto Pinterest. So we're going to break this into a few parts. Number one, the mindset difference. It all comes down to why people are searching on the platform and user intent. So here's how to see the two platforms Pinterest Pinterest users are dreamers and planners. They are in exploration mode. They're saving ideas and products for future use. Think oh this is pre or I'll save it for later. Generally what we find is that they plan about 45 days to 6 months in advance for what they are thinking of doing. Planning, building, buying, thinking about a person planning a trip. It's gathering information, locations, where to eat, what to do, itineraries. People who are looking at remodels or redecorating. They're finding products, designs, layouts. And those who are cooking for an event are gathering appetizers, recipes, drinks, tablescape, decor. That is why I talk about Q4 getting ahead of the searches. Because sometimes in even July people are thinking about Christmas or even in September people are thinking about Thanksgiving or their travel plans. They are the planners of this world. Google users. They want more specific and transactional searches ready to take action immediately. Think I need this information right now. In fact, when I was writing this episode, I thought, well, this is what my husband and I do. We often Google to prove someone wrong. In the moment at least, I do. Well, he does too. My husband and I start to argue over a point and I immediately Google he uses ChatGPT to prove the other person wrong. I want my answer right now. And I don't want to read something really long. I want instant answers. So Pinterest they are the planners. They are thinking of the future. Google users are thinking of the now. So that's your mindset as you approach your SEO. Number two how do we optimize for this now that we know their mindset? Some of my favorites when it comes to Pinterest optimization are Number one, the images. Images are the billboard advertising of Pinterest. People in Pinterest don't read. They're simply looking at that image on their screen and framing up right away. Is this going to match what I'm searching for in my plans. So vertical images always work best. 1000 by 1500 is generally a good way to go with the size of your image. Or 2 to 3 very clean minimal design with clear visuals, clear words words emphasis on clear. You want to avoid cluttered or complex images that somebody has to well put on their readers to look at or they don't really understand what they're looking at. If someone is in the planner sage, they're asking themselves is the product recipe tip or tool going to work for them? I would argue this is part of the extreme pushback against AI images. They don't want something fake. They they want to know if they can buy, achieve or accomplish what is in the image. If it's a hairstyle, they don't want something that ChatGPT came up with. They want to know that an actual hairstylist created that style or that cut. If the user has trouble reading or engaging or picturing themselves or their lives in the image, they will simply scroll by. So the number one optimization tip is your images. Number two is going to be your text. You want to leverage not only the text on the image, but anywhere that you can put text. We often talk about keywords, so keyword rich titles descriptions, board names. You want to keep your pin titles pretty short. In fact, here was a stat that came from one of those articles. 60% of viral pins have 25 characters or less in their pin titles and you will see that if you're new to Pinterest. When you go to upload an image, there's a pin title and a pin description. When it comes to your text overlay on your image, keep that minimal. Again, a very buzzy, poppy statement. Not long and involved. A lot of people who have done infographics over the years will ask me, Kate, why don't people click on these images? And I often tell them, well you gave them all the information, they don't need to click. So keep it minimal. Here are some Google Optimization favorites that people have used over the years and currently Content Depth so while I said that people want answers now on Google, they are fact finders. They want really good comprehension. They want a well structured written post or written content. Google wants keyword rich titles, headers and meta tags. Picture me trying to prove my husband wrong. I would like something that gives me a clear answer but it's really well written. Or picture me looking for the great the best sunscreen that is in the United States for ladies in their 40s and their 50s picture yourself. Put yourself in those shoes of like, how do I approach Google? And then what do I want on the other side? We want information that helps us solve the problem, make it readable. Don't overthink it. I've often heard that phrase reader friendly is Google friendly. There you go. Some technical pieces for optimization. And I will say these are also important to Pinterest as well. Your site speed has to be fast. It has to load fast. If it is not loading fast, both Google and Pinterest will ding you for that mobile optimization, which I'm pretty sure we've all have tackled this. But that is also really important for Pinterest. I find it funny when I land on a website that is not mobile friendly and I am like pinching the screen to get it bigger and bigger and bigger. And I'm thinking, why is this not optimized for mobile? But I really want the information, so I kind of will dig a little bit further. So when it comes to optimization, notice how Pinterest is visual first and Google is content first. Okay, so let's talk about number three, which are some keyword research approaches. These are different too. So Pinterest keyword research. Here are a few places you can go. There's the Pinterest guided search feature. This is simply on Pinterest. You can find it in your mobile app, you can find it on desktop. When you search a particular word, you will see the bubbles pop up at the top in different colors that show secondary content silos, if you will. And you can use some of those to target more. More like to target deeply. I'm forgetting the word in this moment, but you get it. Instead of broad, you want narrow. There we go. You can also check out the trends tool. Trends Pinterest. Com. This is really helpful. Pinterest predicts is another one. This is something that comes out every single year. It has a list of things that are not yet trending, but Pinterest thinks they will trend over the year. They will gather data from the previous year and give you information about how they think it's going to perform. Looking for trends there and creating content around that key, it's kind of magic. You can also try the Tailwind keyword finder tool. That's another thing that we've tested out before too as well. You can play around with it. We'll leave a link in the show notes. So for Google keyword research, there are a lot of options. I would argue there are way more than Pinterest. But when you're doing keyword research for Google, you're focusing more on search volume data. You want to target long tail keyword phrases and you really want to understand user intent categories. Think Information Informational versus Transactional We've talked about Rank IQ in our email newsletter as an option, but there's also Semrush Ahrefs or Key Search. We do like KeySearch for the low cost and in no way are they sponsoring this episode episode. It's just a tool that we've used. Here's a tip for you. Pinterest data often shows what's trending before it hits Google. So that Pinterest predicts is really really important. I'll put a link below so you can review it. Here are some algorithm differences now algorithms are always going to be a mystery. Nobody's ever going to know. And sometimes these platforms they release updates to the algorithm and the machine takes it and does lots of different things the that maybe even the main company doesn't suspect that they will do. But nonetheless we have some broad markers that usually work. Pinterest algorithm prioritizes engagement, saves clicks, comments that determines value and first interactions are critical for long term performance. If a pin doesn't get engagement it will eventually be deprioritized. This means that you might have a lot of pins on your account that are old and they really aren't doing anything for you or have little engagement because they were deprioritized because they didn't get engagement right away. An old theory out there is about deleting pins. Don't delete pins. It's just it's not a big deal. Just leave them. They're not going to hurt you. Other key factors in the Pinterest algorithm are topic relevance in search cues, what are people actually searching and when. That is why we go back to Pinterest predicts content freshness gets a boost how new is your content? How new is this idea and does it bonus if it works with a trend and users past interactions always influence future content shown. Which simply means that if someone has engaged with some of your pins, they might also be shown more more of your pins because they've shown interest before. Pinterest wants the users to be delighted and surprised when they find new content. So what about Google algorithm priorities? Authority building through maybe backlinks, quality and quantity of external sites linking to you experience signals, time spent on page session duration and bounce rate. I'm sure there's a of lot lot more that those who are Google SEO experts are probably saying. But what about this, but what about this? Remember, I'm not a Google SEO expert. These are just things that I am looking for. One of the things I want to take away from this algorithm discussion is Pinterest rewards quick engagement. Google Rewards sustained authority. Okay, last one. And this is all about strategy. How to have a really smart cross platform strategy. Here's a game changer, and this is really what I do. You don't treat these platforms as separate. You treat them as a compliment, like they are friends, right? So here at Simplepen, we leverage all platforms that rely on search. So think Pinterest, Google, YouTube. I create the podcast here that gets converted into a blog post. It also gets converted into a video on YouTube. It is optimized for Google and then it also is optimized for Pinterest with a really great Pinterest image. And then optimization on the keyword side. I've taken one piece of content and I've optimized for all three because all three of those are pointing straight to my website and they're being optimized for searching. They're bringing new people into my ecosystem all the time. It's why I have a hard time wrapping my brain around Instagram and wanting to lean into marketing over there. For some people, they love it, it drives a lot of traffic for them, but it is just not a traffic driver for us. So we have relied solely on these three. So here's a simple strategy you can follow. Create multiple Pinterest images for each blog post. Now, don't go crazy here. In fact, we had somebody ask recently if they should just create a hundred new images for older blog posts. That's a little bit extreme. We don't want to do that. So you want to have a little bit of different designs, but not too different because Pinterest values pin relevancy. And what that means is that when somebody clicks on a pin and they go to your website, they have to match imagery. Like if you use a piggy bank and then over here use a dollar bill, somebody's going to go, am I in the right place? And I know we're talking about money, but am I in the right location? So create similar designs. I would recommend two to three images for each blog post. Use platforms that feed each other. Like Pinterest drives traffic to your SEO optimized blog post as well as Google. So you're kind of leveraging all of them. Like I gave you the example in the beginning, right? Leverage Pinterest for trend research. If you don't know what to create and you're wondering what Pinterest users like. Maybe you have Google already dialed it and you're like, I don't know what the Pinterest user likes. Go to Pinterest Trends, see what might be really great on Pinterest right now. Because like I said earlier, what's great on Pinterest right now might be trending on Google tomorrow. So taking the optimization and not necessarily creating two separate A Google post, a Pinterest post, which I'm going to kind of address this in the future, but I think there might be a place in a space for that, especially for those who are optimized for Google. I've had a lot of questions recently for people from people who just do not want to create more Google friendly content because they feel like they've maxed out. So I don't know how to create content for Pinterest. I'm going to kind of address that. That's a high, more technical, more advanced topic. So those of you who are new, just strike from the record what I just said and don't worry about that yet. Just create content. Right? So let's bring it all together, the big picture. Pinterest wants to build early awareness and inspiration. They want to capture people early, think early, early way out ahead of the game. Google captures mid to late stage decision making. So think in the moment. I'm ready to go all of that. Both are crucial, but they serve different parts of the buyer journey. Keep that in mind. Here's some next steps for you. Audit your current content on both platforms. Are you creating with this user intent in mind? Are you? Number two, create specific platform optimization strategies. Meaning I'm optimizing for Google here, I'm optimizing for Pinterest here and then create a cross platform content calendar. Or you can create what we like to call is our pillar content calendar. So we take our pillar content, which is here, this podcast, then the blog post and we create it all throughout the year and then optimize for each one to make sure we are getting ahead when it comes to Pinterest. But we're getting answers now when it comes to Google and then track the performance. You are going to learn so much through data like it is going to rock your world. What you learn from your Google user and your Pinterest user. Google and Pinterest are not competitors in your strategy. They are teammates. They're working different positions. Master both and you'll build a traffic funnel that captures users every stage of their journey. Thank you so much for listening to the Simple Pin podcast. If this episode helped clarify Pinterest versus Google SEO for you, make sure you subscribe and share it with a fellow content creator who needs to hear this. Alrighty. Thanks so much for listening.