[00:00:00] Speaker A: Foreign.
[00:00:08] Speaker B: Hey, welcome back to the Interior Collective. I'm your host Anastasia Casey, and today we're picking back up where we left off in our SEO series with Julia Buccase, this time zeroing in on Pinterest, the visual search engine that's become a traffic and lead generation powerhouse for interior designers. Pinterest isn't just a mood board tool, it is a search engine where every pin and board can be optimized to rank, attract high clients, and drive valuable backlinks to your site. Julia is the founder of Julia Renee Consulting, where she helps creative businesses, many of them interior design studios, use SEO and Pinterest strategies to boost visibility and bookings. Her blog post Pinterest Marketing Strategy for Interior Designers has become required reading for designers ready to up their pin game. In this episode, Julia will walk us through everything from auditing your profile for SEO success and conducting Pinterest specific keyword research to crafting scroll stopping panes A B, testing formats, and even weaving in local keywords to capture your ideal market. Whether you are just getting started or looking to refine your Pinterest workflow, you are about to get a wealth of tactical actional advice to make Pinterest your most reliable marketing channel.
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[00:02:00] Speaker B: This episode is presented by Laloy, makers of handmade rugs, pillows and wall art available to the trade. Laloy was founded by Amir lalloy in Dallas, Texas 21 years ago. It's an incredible story of hustle and hard work that I learned all about in my recent podcast interview with Amir's son, Cyrus Aloy. Since then, Aloy has grown to over 650 employees with five warehouses, five showrooms and thousands of textile collections across all price points. Learn more about Aloy and start a trade account@aloy rugs.com that's L O L O I rugs.com hey Julia, welcome back to the show. I'm so excited for today's topic Because I am obsessed with Pinterest. I talk about it all the time. Nobody believes me that you should be spending a fraction of the time as on Pinterest as you do on Instagram, but reap, like, way better actual trackable results. So we're gonna dig into all of that. Thank you for coming back to share your incredible wisdom with us.
[00:02:57] Speaker A: Yeah, thanks for having me back.
[00:02:59] Speaker B: So as I mentioned, I'm a longtime believer in the power of Pinterest. It is low stakes, high return, and requires pretty minimal effort. Julia, why do you believe Pinterest is such an important marketing tool for interior designers? And how does it complement other channels like Instagram or Google?
[00:03:15] Speaker A: Yeah, so Pinterest is great for getting traffic back to your website. And your website is really where you're going to convert people, you know, get people as leads, get people to sign up for your email list. So the more traffic you're able to drive back to your website, the more you're able to reach more people who are interested in what you have to offer.
And then also a connection with Google, the more quality traffic you get to your site, the more it's going to help your rankings on Google. Because it kind of signals to Google that people are interested in your website. They're, you know, interested in your services. So Google's going to see that and it can start help, you know, increasing your rankings so it all kind of like connects together. And then also any blog content that you're putting on your website, you can use that for Pinterest. So you're kind of double dipping with like, you know, using blogs to rank well on Google. You know, just use it on Pinterest as well. And then I also love working with interior designers because you guys have so many amazing photos already.
And Pinterest is really about, you know, content and photos and videos and things like that. So you guys should already have a bit of a head start with how much content that you're able to put on Pinterest.
[00:04:17] Speaker B: So, Julia, I'm curious what, like, unique advantages you see Pinterest offering interior designers for showcasing their work, or more importantly, converting actual clients versus more traditional or I guess you could say, like expected visual platforms.
[00:04:36] Speaker A: Yeah. So I know Instagram is big with interior designers. With interior designers on Pinterest you might be having. You could have like 20,000 followers and none of them are ever going to hire you, unfortunately, just because, I mean, they might like, you know, the photos that you're putting up on Instagram or they might like who you are and they want to follow your journey, you know, things like that.
But they might not be in your local area. They might not have the budget that you, you know, they need for your.
So you might not actually be able to convert, you know, a lot of the followers that you have. So Instagram can sometimes be a bit of vanity metrics because it looks nice to have, you know, 20,000 followers, but they might not actually convert into clients. Whereas, like on Google and Pinterest, Pinterest is a search engine just like Google is. So people are going to search on Pinterest for, you know, they could be searching for the content that you have to offer, the types of designs that you're doing, ideas, inspirations, answers to questions. So if you have the content that people. People are searching for on Pinterest, you're much more likely to get them, you know, to check out your content and lead them over to your website where, again, you can convert them to clients, email subscribers, you know, product customers, whatever you have to offer.
[00:05:47] Speaker B: Okay, so let's talk about optimization, because that's definitely your specialty. And it's interesting that you describe Pinterest as a search engine, and I totally agree. I feel like it's way more of a search engine than it is a social media platform, even if that the category that it was initially put into.
So when you look at an interior designer's Pinterest profile for the first time, what are the, like, foundational elements you check to ensure it is set up for SEO success on Pinterest?
[00:06:18] Speaker A: Yeah, so the first thing I'm looking at is the boards. And I know a lot of interior designers will use boards to collaborate with their clients or, you know, pin, like, furniture and inspiration pictures for, you know, their client projects. I would recommend those being private or, you know, hidden. And then for, like, old projects you did five years ago, you can archive those. If you're not going to, you know, look at those or add to those boards again, but that way, everything on your Pinterest profile is just related to your specific design, your portfolio, photos, everything that you've done. And then the boards I recommend, you know, optimizing with keywords in the board title and in the board description. So don't just have a board that says kitchens, because that could mean so many different things.
That could be kitchen design, kitchen organization. You know, Pinterest could interpret that in so many different ways. So having very clear board titles like, you know, luxury Interior Designs for Kitchens, you know, something like that, that is way more specific, that gives, you know, Pinterest and people who are going to your profile a lot more detailed information about what they can find on that board specifically.
And then the board description you can fill out. I. You just have to write a sentence or two. It gives you like a huge space, but you don't have to fill it all out, but kind of giving some more details on like, you know that these are your designs that you've specifically done for your clients. You can also like add the location details if you know, you want to have information on the area that you're targeting or the area that you serve. But having your boards very clear, you know, very, very focused on different keywords is going to help, you know, kind of the foundational SEO part of Pinterest.
[00:08:01] Speaker B: Okay, so many follow up questions. Let me sit back and, and start with the first one. Okay, so you're saying hide our client boards, which makes sense to me because it's like, it's an active project, we're working on it, we're collaborating. Like it's, it's secret.
That makes sense. But talk to me about why after a project has gone live, why we couldn't make that board public. Because we wanted to show people our aesthetic and kind of our design vision, even if it's not showcasing our own portfolio images at that point. Is that a good idea, a bad idea? And if it's a bad idea idea, can you explain why?
[00:08:39] Speaker A: Yeah, so I think I could go either way. You definitely can make it public if it, yeah, aligns with, you know, the projects that you're doing and things like that. If you have a client who has just pinned, you know, 50 products from like Wayfair and Ikea that are like super cheap and that doesn't align with like the more luxury styles that you're, you know, designing for your clients. I would say that is when I would like keep it private or archive it. But if it is aligned with your designs and everything, then yeah, you can definitely make it public. You don't have to archive.
Just the more boards that you have, the more kind of like disorganized it can get. So if it is like an old project from five years ago that like you are not super proud of or, you know, maybe isn't aligned with what you're currently doing, that's when I would kind of make it archived.
[00:09:24] Speaker B: Okay, great. And then my next follow up question was in your boards you can add a description and you said they leave a good amount of room for you to add to it, but you really only need one or two Sentences. Can you walk us through, like, what those sentences should be? Be.
For example, let's say we're talking about. I'll use the most, like, basic example, like modern farmhouse kitchens is our board. What would be an example of like an appropriate description? Because it feels like the more description I give, the better it's going to be.
Tell us why that's not necessarily the case.
[00:09:58] Speaker A: I mean, you can add more description if you want to, but I would keep it kind of a bit more general because the pins are where you're going to get really specific. So like, you know, if it is modern farmhouse kitchen, you can say something like, you know, these are some of the kitchens I've designed for my clients in the modern farmhouse, you know, style, you know, focusing on things like having a farmhouse sink or, you know, you can talk about different colors, but if you're like, these are blue modern farmhouse kitchens with black accent, like, you know, getting super specific. But then you start pinning things that don't actually match that description because you only have maybe one project where you've done this exact, you know, style. That's where I would kind of like just have a bit more of a general description. And on the pins itself, where you're describing the actual, you know, pin image, that's where I get more specific with like the exact colors or fixtures and, you know, accents, things like that.
[00:10:50] Speaker B: Okay, perfect. So one of the many reasons why I love Pinterest is because, yes, you can have Pinterest followers, but followers really carry a lot less weight than they used to and carry a lot less weight than they did than they do on something like TikTok or on Instagram.
Because it is a search engine, the algorithm is working to put information and images in front of you that aren't necessarily from people you follow. So I'm curious how you recommend interior designers define and really focus in on their ideal Pinterest audience. For instance, high end clients versus DIYers, because that's definitely a big market of Pinterest.
And what signals on Pinterest help them validate that they're attracting the right people.
[00:11:39] Speaker A: Yeah, so this all comes back to the content that you're putting on Pinterest. So if you are writing blog posts like, you know, how to pick paint colors or you know, where to buy, you know, the best furniture you can buy from Ikea or, you know, something that's not really aligned with the types of work that you're going to be doing. So it all comes back to the content that you're putting on Pinterest. So think about the blog posts that you should be writing that are more for your ideal clients, so maybe answering some of the questions that they might have about working with an interior designer. You can also even like, write blog posts about five contractors in your area that you recommend, you know, hiring, because that means that people who are clicking on that blog post are already in the mindset of, you know, hiring for these services.
So, you know, kind of getting them in the door that way and then talking about your services as well. That can kind of help reach more people who are ready to purchase or, you know, ready to hire someone versus, like, you know, five paint colors to choose from.
[00:12:37] Speaker B: Yeah, okay, that's a really great example because just like from our own blog and doing blog posts for volunteers and clients, the paint color ones always seem to be like the most high traffic driving post. People love a paint color roundup. But the conversation I always have with our clients is, why are you telling someone how to do the job you want them to hire you for?
And so I'm curious from your expert opinion, kind of like, where's that fine line between content that converts and gets people to click through to your site and the value that that brings in, like SEO rankings on Google versus content that converts people to being actual paying booking clients? Like, where do you kind of put that weight?
[00:13:26] Speaker A: Yeah, so it, I will say it kind of depends on, you know, the types of clients that you're trying to reach. And this might take some testing. So if you write, you know, one blog post, maybe not about, you know, know, picking paint colors, but maybe something that's a little bit more detailed or like, you know, how I, as an interior designer would, you know, select paint colors for this room or something like that, and you're finding that you're getting lots of traffic. But then you. And I recommend having Google, Google Analytics set up for this. I always recommend having Google Analytics set up even if you're not using Pinterest. But if you're seeing in Google Analytics that you're getting a lot of traffic to this blog post from Pinterest, but it, you know, maybe people are staying on the page for like, you know, 30 seconds or the engagement time is low, or they're leaving that page quickly, they're not going to check out your services and things like that, that could be an indication that that type of content is maybe reaching more of those DIYers or, you know, people who are just interested in a quick answer and not like reading a detailed blog post. So it could probably take some testing, but I would check the data to kind of monitor how different types of, you know, content are performing. And then also if you are put like, you know, portfolio pages, also checking the analytics there too. Because a lot of times people might save, you know, pretty pictures that they find on Pinterest, but they don't actually click through to the website to actually learn about the project. They're just kind of like gathering inspiration. So you do want to make sure that the content that you're putting on Pinterest is, you know, compelling people to want to click over to your website to learn more, to get more details about, you know, who you are and your services, rather than just like, you know, maybe visiting your website for a few seconds or just saving the PIN and never actually, actually going to the website to learn more.
[00:15:07] Speaker B: Okay, great.
Sorry, Julia, I'm totally like, I have so many questions. I'm just like going, as you, as you're talking, I'm like jotting things down of like follow up questions. Can you give an example of a portfolio image that you are pinning, what would be a, a caption, a description of that PIN that could potentially invite someone back to the site for more information versus just this is an inspiration image and I don't click through it at all.
[00:15:39] Speaker A: Yeah, so first I always recommend if you are doing blog posts having some like blog post graphics or, sorry, PIN graphics that have like text on the picture. So that way people are seeing that and it's catching their attention. Rather than just doing only photos to your portfolio pages, you can also do graphics of like maybe a few different photos of that, you know, portfolio piece to, you know, get people to want to see more of the pictures of the project.
So for if you are just doing like a standalone picture that is leading to a portfolio page, you know, in the PIN title, I would have, you know, some sort of keyword, keyworded description with like, we'll just go with modern farmhouse kitchen. So I would say, you know, something indicate that it is a actual project. So like, you know, remodel of a kitchen in a modern farmhouse style, like kind of using those words to indicate that it's a remodel, it's a renovation, it's a new kitchen build, you know, something like that. And then in the description, you know, you can say something like, you know, we recently renovated this, you know, kitchen that was, I don't know, stuck in the 80s and we revived it in the modern farmhouse style with, you know, farmhouse kitchen sink and blue cabinets. You know, you can kind of go into details and then, you know, have some sort of call to action at the end. Like, you know, visit our website to see more of this, you know, kitchen transformation, to kind of like get people interested in seeing more or, you know, seeing what the kitchen was before it turned into this beautiful farmhouse kitchen. So kind of like using some compelling language and making sure it's very clear that this is an interior, interior design project.
Don't use words like DIY or like, learn how you can do this yourself.
Like, make sure it's clear that this was done by an expert interior designer.
[00:17:22] Speaker B: Okay, great. So you stress the importance of driving new client. I'm sorry, driving new links back to fresh content. You're talking about how you should be blogging and that's helping your SEO so much. How should a designer be planning their blog editorial calendar with a focus on Pinterest? What should they be planning to feature?
[00:17:43] Speaker A: Yeah, so the good thing with Pinterest is that it is evergreen. So the pins that you're putting on today, you're not going to start driving traffic to tomorrow. Like it's, you know, going to take a couple of months. It is kind of a long term strategy. So pin or Pinterest needs to start ranking your pins higher on the platform and showing it to more people's, you know, home feeds and things like that. And that's going to help drive the traffic and the saves. And then the more traffic and sa that a pin gets, you know, the more it's going to be continuously seen on Pinterest, the more it's going to, you know, kind of rank higher for different keywords.
So it will take a few months to start, you know, getting that traffic. So if you do have anything that is very seasonal or specific to holidays, you want to make sure you're putting those pins up on Pinterest at least like four to six months in advance. If it's Christmas content, it needs to be up there in like August both for Pinterest to start ranking it before for Christmas. But also people go to Pinterest to plan super far in advance for Christmas. They're, they are planning in August for, you know, Christmas shopping, Christmas decor. You know, if you write a blog post on like luxury ways to decorate your home for Christmas, you know, something like that, that needs to be up there far in advance. If you don't have any like seasonal content like that, you don't need to like necessarily plan out for the different seasons.
You just kind of need to be aware of that. It does Take some time for, you know, pins to gain traction on Pinterest. So if you have, you know, maybe a project you really want to, you know, have more traffic to, maybe you're like going to have a feature in a magazine in a few months. I was actually coordinating this with a client recently where she has a feature coming out in a magazine in October.
So we were coordinating on when to post those photos where it would start to kind of like gain traction and drive traffic back to that portfolio piece to kind of like align with her feature in this magazine.
So getting those photos up ahead of time, if that's something that you know, know is happening or you know, you're getting some other sort of feature, is to be aware of. But like, again, if it's just, you want to just kind of continuously drive traffic back to your website with your blog posts and portfolio pieces, you don't necessarily need to kind of like plan that far out or, you know, plan for different seasons. You can kind of just make sure you're continuously adding new content to Pinterest as you get it.
[00:19:57] Speaker B: That is such an interesting case study because I know those listening have often come up against like a press embargo where we're not allowed to share images until it actually goes live.
How do you talk to your clients about kind of like weighing that or essentially getting permission for it to start going up onto Pinterest but withholding it from, from like traditional social media channels? Because I would love to get like kind of things ramped up. So by the time the press features up, like, it already has some traction. But so often we're told you can't publish this anywhere even on your own portfolio yet. So how do you handle this?
[00:20:33] Speaker A: That, yeah, so for this particular client, she didn't have that to worry about. Thankfully. There was actually another client recently who did have like, she couldn't post the photo, she could post it on her website, but she couldn't post the photos like on social media. But she was allowed to show like some behind the scenes videos. So she was already putting those on Instagram of like, you know, the, the project in process, not totally complete.
So we were able to use those videos on Pinterest and link back to that specific portfolio page to kind of like start driving the traffic back there. And then like once the, you know, press feature goes live, then we can like ramp it up. But yeah, I do want to make sure you're not like breaking any rules or, you know, going back on any contracts that you've, you know, signed or anything like that. So if you aren't supposed to be putting pictures up on social media, I would, you know, hold back on posting the photos on Pinterest. But you can kind of like see if maybe you can do some behind the scenes videos or, you know, maybe like a talking head video or something like that where you're talking about the project but not necessarily posting, you know, the photos.
[00:21:35] Speaker B: Okay, great. That's fantastic.
The scenes videos are those things that you would be putting on Pinterest or are you thinking those things just go on like Instagram?
[00:21:43] Speaker A: So both. You can definitely use anything, any videos that you're putting on Instagram, any reels that you're creating on Instagram, you can repurpose them as video pins on Pinterest. So that way you're not having to do double the work.
[00:21:54] Speaker B: Amazing. Okay, so let's talk about keywords, because I think at least for me, this is where I kind of get a little freaked out and I'm like, I'm not gonna worry about it. I'm just gonna post the picture. Walk us through your keyword research process. Spec.
Talking about Pinterest, how does it differ though from Google keyword search and what tools can, can our listeners really lean on for this?
[00:22:19] Speaker A: Yeah, so I'll say if like doing keyword research does kind of like freak you out, at least just start with making sure you have very strong descriptions in, you know, the board, board titles, descriptions and then the pin titles and pin descriptions. So again, don't just have like kitchen as your, you know, keyword. Make sure you're, you are describing it with like the style or if it's high end luxury, things like that before with keyword research. So Pinterest does have a keyword research tool. It's called Pinterest Trends. So it's trends.pinterest.com I will say they don't have data for like every single keyword. So if you have ever done keyword research for SEO purposes, you can search anything. And I'll tell you like if anyone at all has ever searched it or if, you know, just 10 people have searched it, or if, you know, 50,000 people have, you know, searched this keyword, Pinterest Trends, it doesn't have all of the data for every keyword ever searched on Pinterest. So you might have to start with like kind of general keywords. So again, maybe just like kitchen design and kind of see like what else it suggests under that keyword and maybe expand it and see like farmhouse kitchen design or modern Kitchen design, they might not have specific keywords like, you know, blue kitchen cabinets for kitchen, like kitchen.
So just be aware. That doesn't mean no one has ever searched this on Pinterest and people aren't searching for it on Pinterest. It just means Pinterest isn't showing that data.
So that was a long caveat. But in Pinterest Trends, if you do search for like email, know luxury kitchen design, it'll show you like a graph with the seasonal trends over the year. So it'll show you like when most people have searched it, when the fewest people have searched it.
If you open Pinterest Trends, it's kind of hard to describe without like, you know, showing.
But if you open Pinterest Trends, you'll see like this line graph of kind of the when more searches are happening for this keyword. So if you do create like seasonal content like this, this is important to check to see when the most people are searching for these specific keywords. So way you can, you know, step back like three or four months, make sure it's that content is on Pinterest before most people are searching, you'll probably see like an increase in searches in like January when people are like really gung ho for the year and you know, really interested in like planning out projects. You may see, you know, it slows down usually in the summertime and then it'll slow down again around like Thanksgiving and Christmas just, just with how people are like, you know, really focused on summer vacation or you know, their kids are out for the summer so they're not like focusing on new projects. Right. And then Christmas and Thanksgiving, then you know, people are just typically focused on the holidays. So that's typically what you can kind of expect to see in Pinterest Trends. You can also compare the data if you want to do like luxury kitchen design versus modern kitchen design to see, you know, how many more people have searched either of those keywords. You can compare, I think up to four keywords at a time on Pinterest Trends. And then if you're, you're searching for things and you're just not seeing any of the data for those keywords in Pinterest Trends, you can just go to Pinterest itself. And then if you start typing something in the search bar, you'll see it's going to auto populate with suggested keywords that other people have searched before. So it's not going to show you like how many people have searched this, but it'll give you an idea of like the types of phrasing that people are using on Pinterest and, you know, suggested keywords that you can target.
If you want to get really nitty gritty, you can set up a Pinterest ad and then not run it. But that way you can, you can search more specifically specific keywords in Pinterest. Because with the ads you do need to be targeting keywords, so you can kind of get the keyword data there and then just not run the ad and not pay for it. So that, that one takes a few more steps. But if you're kind of just getting started, I would start with Pinterest Trends or just searching on Pinterest itself.
[00:26:03] Speaker B: Okay, great. And that was trends.pinterest.com perfect. Okay, so when we're talking about these keywords, something I come up against often is that, that there's a key word and those actual words are not words that I would associate with my brand. For instance, luxury interior design. I feel like a lot of luxury designers don't call themselves luxury. And it's like alluded to through other word choices. How do we navigate incorporating keywords while also having like the same editorial brand voice that we want to represent our company?
[00:26:44] Speaker A: Yeah, so with Pinterest keywords, I would say you might need to kind of like test out to see what types of keywords people are targeting or searching for and kind of make sure it's aligned with, you know, the types of keywords that you're targeting. If you get so specific that it's not an actual keyword that people know to search for, then you're not going to get as much traffic. So that is something, you know, you might need to find the balance between. So you could like test out high end interior design or, you know, test out some different types of words. But if you, yeah, if you get so specific that no one's actually searching for it, then it's not going to help you a lot.
So maybe if you don't want to like, you know, be using luxury in every single pin, maybe don't have it like on the PIN graphic or the PIN title, but maybe making sure you're using it somewhere in the PIN description. So it's not like, you know, in your face and the first thing that you see, but it is still indicating to Pinterest to rank you for luxury, you know, types of keywords, for example. So it is kind of a balance of finding keywords that, you know, people are searching for and, and finding ones that align with your business.
[00:27:46] Speaker B: Okay, perfect. Thank You. When it comes to PIN descriptions and titles, can you talk us through like the actual formatting and keyword placement tricks that make a big difference in ranking? Like, should it be, should the same word be in there four times? Should it always be the first word in the title? How should we be setting this up?
[00:28:06] Speaker A: Yeah, so I will say Pinterest is a little bit more flexible than like Google.
So like, you know, with SEO, you know, it's helpful to have the keyword like in the H1 heading towards the top of the page and like in the website copy a certain number of times in the title tags, everything like that. But Pinterest is a little bit more flexible so you don't need to like necessarily follow a formula every time. If you are using a PIN graphic, I would, you know, use the keyword somewhere within that graphic, like in the text on the picture. So I'll just keep going with modern farmhouse kitchen.
So you can definitely, you know, you don't have to like say modern farmhouse kitchen every single time. You can say like, you know, kitchen remodel in the modern farmhouse style or you know, a modern farmhouse styled kitchen. Like you can like alternate how you're phrasing things. You don't have to like use the same exact keyword, the same exact, you know, formatting every single time. So I would have it on the pin. Pin, you know, graphic. If you are using a graphic, using it in the PIN title and then somewhere in the description, it doesn't have to be the first thing in the description. Again you can, I would write the description like a human, not like a, you know, robot. Because people do use, see the descriptions and it can help compel them to click on the website. So you can, you know, start up with like, you know, I renovated this old fashioned kitchen in the modern farmhouse style and you know, blah, blah, blah, blah. So you don't have to like say modern farmhouse kitchen like right off the bat in the description. If it, if it doesn't make sense to.
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[00:30:32] Speaker B: I also think that having like a more complete description can help cultivate that more editorial feel without it feeling spammy. So it's not just like keyword, comma, keyword, comma, keyword.
Okay, so let's talk visual.
Because you recommend testing vertical and square pins.
What's your framework for setting up those A B tests? And like, how long should we be letting each run before we collect that data? Should it like, run for six months and then we look at it and also, why are we testing this? Like, why don't you just have an answer for whether it should be vertical or square?
[00:31:10] Speaker A: Yeah, so I will say most of the time, vertical pins are gonna perform the best. Just because the way that the Pinterest, you know, pins are laid out, vertical pins take up more space. Square pins, though, if you, I mean, if you have a photo of showcasing a whole kitchen and it's obviously not going to fit into the vertical format, that's where I would kind of like, you know, crop it to more of a square rather than, if you do like a landscape orientation photo, it's really not going to be shown. Like, you can't really see it on Pinterest because it's not going to take as much, you know, real estate as like a vertical pin would. So that's where you can test out square pins to see, see if, you know, showcasing more of the kitchen within the square pin rather than like a cropped version of this kitchen in the, you know, vertical pin performs better.
So I would pin them pretty close together. If you don't want to pin them like on the same day, maybe like, you know, two days or, you know, a week apart, just so you can kind of like have a very similar timeline to see how they perform.
If you are going to strictly a B test the images, I would have the same pin title and pin description, maybe varied it slightly. But if you are targeting two tones, totally different keywords in both of those pins, then you might have very different data, but it's based on the keyword, not necessarily the photos.
So I would have very similar pin titles and descriptions. And then I would, you know, kind of monitor it for like three months to kind of see how things perform. See, you can see pretty much right off the bat how many people are at Least seeing the pin, if not clicking on it. And that will grow over time. So I would give it a few months to kind of, like, see how, you know, each one performs and then kind of like, you know, choosing your. Your version going forward.
It might also change depending on the type of photo, too. So if you're just seeing that your vertical pins are performing really well, except for this one square photo that is, like, outperforming everything that could just be. People are really interested in that style more than, like, the format of the photo is what's performing the best.
So this is, like, the frustrating answer with Pinterest, where it depends. It totally depends on the content, on the content of the pictures, on, like, your audience and who you're trying to reach.
So if you don't want to, like, worry about a B testing, you don't want to have to keep up with this at all, I would, you know, just stick with vertical pins. And then maybe as the. It makes more sense for the picture to do more of a square image to kind of, like, showcase more of the room. That's when, you know, maybe I would focus on. On doing more of a square image just for that particular pin.
[00:33:44] Speaker B: So, talking about the graphics, let's talk through your experience when it comes to different types of imagery. For example, like, detail shot, close ups, full room, before and afters, mood board graphics. What have you seen? Tend to resonate most with potential clients on Pinterest.
[00:34:05] Speaker A: I will say the moodboard, they typically don't perform the best just because that can attract a lot of, like, DIYers who are maybe just inspired by, like, the colors and the, you know, furniture and things.
Everyone loves a good before and after, so those two do perform pretty well. You can do this in a few different ways. You can do, like, you know, a video pin showing the before and after. You could do like, a pin graphic with maybe like, the top half of the pin being the before and then the bottom half being the after. You could do a carousel pin showing, you know, know, like, I would probably start with the after in that case, just so people are seeing, like, the. The newly designed room. And then, you know, doing some photos of the before in the carousel. Again, just test out different things to see what performs best. Um, and also you can just do all of these. Like, if you. Because you do need to be actively pinning on Pinterest every day, you can use schedulers so you don't have to manually do it. But if you want to, you don't have a ton of content right away to be pinning. You can play around with, you know, doing different types of pins for the exact blog post, same exact portfolio, just so you can kind of like be active on Pinterest every day without having to like crank out, you know, 20 new blog posts tomorrow. So that way I have enough content to put on there. So before and afters. I also see some like pins with kind of like a, a gallery of images on one pin. So that way you're kind of like showcasing a few photos from one project and then, you know, adding some text on there, like, you know, kitchen redesign, you know, whatever it is. Those typically perform pretty well with one of my clients. One type of pin that perform well is it's a graphic with like one image from a project and then having like the, the title of, you know, whatever the project is with, you know, like kitchen remodel or whatever the style of the kitchen is in text on the graphic itself. So there are a few different, you know, types of pins that you can test out if you're using Canva. They have so many free templates that you can use, especially if you're on the pro plan. So you can kind of of just like search on, you know, Canva like for, you know, depending on whatever your brand is, but like professional interior design pin template or retro style pin template, you know, whatever the your brand design is, you should be able to find some pin templates on Pinterest that you can use and then, yeah, adding your brand fonts and colors and your logo and things like that.
[00:36:31] Speaker B: Awesome. For those of you who have looked through Canva, just know Idea Studio has amazing Pinterest templates that our graphic designers have created as well. If you feel like you get stuck or you just need something that feels cohesive across, you know, 40 plus designs, we have great bundles for you. I'd love to talk about the concept of rich pins as well. And is that like still a relevant thing on Pinterest and what does that do for SEO for interior designers?
[00:37:00] Speaker A: Yeah, so rich pins are still relevant. It's kind of like changed a little bit over the years, but basically it just like kind of involves like adding some code to your site or maybe adjusting the code to your site depending on like, you know, how your site is set up. But basically it's Pinterest is going to pull some additional information from so the blog post. So there are a few different types of rich pins. I believe it's article rich pins recipe rich pins, which isn't super relevant to interior designers and product rich Pins. So if you, you have like, you know, products that you're adding to Pinterest and maybe the, the price changes or something like that. If you're a verified merchant, Pinterest is automatically going to pull the price changing to that pin. So you don't have to like edit things or worry about the pin showing the wrong price or something like that. So those details with like, products or, you know, you might have seen if you're used Pinterest for recipes, it'll pull like all of the ingredients from a recipe onto the, you know, pin description. So you don't have to do it manually. So it's kind of like pulling the, this addition additional information. So for articles like blog posts, it might be pulling like the title of the blog post. So when someone is scrolling on like their home feed or they're searching for something, it's going to show maybe that blog post title. It might show like the author of the blog post and the meta description. Whereas, like, sometimes if you don't have the rich pins enabled, it's not going to pull that information. It's just going to show the pin image or the pin graphic without having like the title under underneath. So it's just kind of like giving Pinterest and, you know, viewers on Pinterest some additional information.
[00:38:31] Speaker B: Okay, let's talk about cadence and how often an interior designer should be pinning new content versus repinning existing content and how does that impact algorithm favorability?
[00:38:46] Speaker A: Yeah, so I would definitely focus on new content, but I know a lot of times you, you're, if you only do a couple of projects a year, you might not have like a ton of new content to put up every day. So I would do as much new content as you're able to. So even if it's just like one pin a day or one pin every other day, that's, you know, a new photo or new blog post or something like that. I would recommend focusing more on the new, you know, newer content. But definitely you can, you know, stay active on Pinterest by repinning some of your old content or even, even like creating new pin graphics for a blog post from two years ago that's, you know, obviously still relevant. So you can go back through and like create new graphics or add new videos or make new carousel pins or, you know, kind of like play around with different formats of, you know, ways that you can create pins to link back to a specific blog post or portfolio page that you may have already pinned to before. So I would recommend pinning. I usually Recommend at least 2 to 5 pins a day if you don't have a ton of content, if you're able to do more than that, that's great.
But I know if I tell you you have to pin like 30 times a day, that means no one is ever going to use Pinterest because that sounds like too much time.
So just start with like a few pins a day, even if it's just one pin a day, just to kind of get you started and then you can add more over time. There are Pinterest schedulers. Pinterest actually has a native scheduler that's fairly new. With the native scheduler you can pin, I think it's a month in advance, but there are a lot of other social media schedulers where you can pin like super far out in advance. So if you want to to just like spend a few hours, you know, one month, like creating a bunch of Pinterest content, schedule it out for the next two or three months. You can do that on, on schedulers like Tailwind, I think Planoly, you can schedule out a few months in advance so that way you don't have to manually be on Pinterest every single day.
[00:40:35] Speaker B: Okay. I have read over the last like two years or so that there can be like a maximum number of pins that Pinterest suggests you post per day. And I think I probably got this information from a scheduler like Tailwind maybe. Maybe. Have you come across that being something that does hinder someone's success on Pinterest because they're pinning too much.
[00:40:56] Speaker A: Yeah. So this was a change a few years ago where before it was like, really quantity over quality. And then Pinterest is really focusing more on the quality piece now. I probably wouldn't go over 50 pins a day. I actually did have someone reach out to me recently where they've been suspended from Pinterest twice and they haven't broken any rules or like, you know, pinned anything that way was like, I don't know, AI or scammy website or anything like that. But what I think happened is they were pinning so much back to back for like client boards. They were pinning over 50 pins, you know, at the time, but it was like, you know, they pinned 50 pins within like five to 10 minutes. So that's it kind of like triggered to Pinterest. That looks like it's a spammy account or looks like it's a bot account or something like that. So Pinterest has suspended them twice. So I would also caution against, against pinning a Bunch of stuff back to back. So if you are going to pin, you know, 50 pins in a day, I would space it out by doing, you know, one per, like, half hour or, you know, however many 50 into 24 or 12 hours, whatever it is. I can't do math. So that way you don't kind of like get caught in those, like spam filters and could potentially be suspended by Pinterest.
[00:42:09] Speaker B: Got it. Oh, that's scary when people are sourcing for a project because they probably are pinning a lot that it could happen. But I also feel like that blocking happens after someone's pinned, you know, 50 in 30 minutes consistently for many days in a row. And so it shouldn't, it shouldn't flag if you're sourcing for a project. But if you are pinning from the same site in particular, 50 pins back to back, that's usually where the flag could happen.
So, Julia, can you give us a little bit of a behind the scenes look at your team's difficulty workflow for sourcing designing scheduling pins for a designer client? Like, what does that look like on your end?
[00:42:50] Speaker A: Yeah, so it kind of varies depending on the designer and the type of content they have. A lot of times designers will send like a Dropbox or, you know, Google Drive of like their portfolio photos. A lot of times we are able to kind of like pull the photos from the back end of the website or, you know, from the blog post or something like that.
So then, you know, we'll take all the brand information to create graphics with like the brand colors and fonts and, you know, language and everything like that. So, you know, create several different types of templates with the branded information and then kind of plan out the strategy. We do depending on like how much blog post content versus how many portfolio pieces versus, like how many video pins or videos a designer has. We'll kind of like try to alternate between doing portfolio and blog post and video pins and things like that. So it's not just like one portfolio piece being showcased at a time. You are, you know, kind of doing a mix. So people are seeing lots of different things rather than the same same project over and over again.
So. And then we'll kind of like plan out the, you know, schedule with the client if they kind of have like a blog post or a content, some sort of content schedule that they're working with. So that way we kind of know what is coming up. So that way we can kind of plan for that and adjust our schedule accordingly.
[00:44:06] Speaker B: Got it. Okay. So if someone was going to be running like a big, I don't know, promotion. Let's say that a designer is getting ready to drop a virtual design service and they know that they want to launch that September 1st.
How far ahead should they start talking about it if it's not something that someone could click through and book a service today?
[00:44:28] Speaker A: So this is where I would set up a wait list on your website. So that way you do have a link that they can go to, and then they can sign up for the wait list to be notified and be the first people to know when you have, you know, this virtual service or whatever it is that you're promoting.
So that way they're not just like visiting your website and then they don't get anything or they have to. They visit your website, see the. The date that it's launching, and then have to remember to go back to your website on that date to, you know, get whatever it is. So I would set up a wait list on your website where they can like, sign up for, you know, specific. Not just like your general email list, but a specific email list where they will be notified when the service or product or whatever launches. So then I would again, kind of like, think if you're launching in September, I would go back to. I mean, we're already in July, but I would have started this maybe like in June or May, and it kind of like start posting some pins again. I would probably do a mix if you had like, some videos where you're talking about this service or like, showcasing, you know, maybe some ways that you are doing the service.
So I would do some video pins so people are able to see you and connect with you. And then that way they're. They have a more of a personal connection with you to get interested in wanting to work with you specifically. So. So I would do some video pins and then, yeah, some graphics with like, you know, a general. If you have like a title for the service or like, you know, virtual interior design service, I would probably steer away from saying things like launching or an exact date of when the service is coming out. Just because when you launch the service and those pins are still out there, you don't have to worry about, you know, having to like, change the date or update the pins or anything like that. That way, you know, anyone who clicks on that link after that date, they don't need to know any of the launch information. They can just go be directed straight to that page with all of the information.
So it's a bit. A little bit different than, like, if you're launching on like Instagram, like, you do want to be hyping up the launch and getting people excited, whereas on Pinterest kind of just understand that it is more evergreen content and that any pins that you put out there, they could still be driving traffic for like a year or two. So you don't want to have, have specific timelines and launch, you know, information then.
[00:46:40] Speaker B: Okay, so let's talk priorities. Like, what three metrics are you prioritizing to gauge whether a designer's strategy is working or not working?
[00:46:52] Speaker A: So the top three that I look at are impressions, saves, and outbound clicks. So impressions are just people who see your pins, whether it's in their home feed or something that they have searched for in their search feed.
So impressions just mean they have seen it, so they haven't taken action. So you don't want to solely rely on this number, but it is helpful to make sure that your pin, your pins are being seen by more people. They're starting to rank higher in Pinterest. And then saves and outbound clicks, this means that people have actually taken action on this particular your pins. So saves means that they have saved it to their own Pinterest account, to their own boards.
And this is helpful because, because it indicates to Pinterest that people are really, you know, interested in this particular pin and this topic. And that way your pin that they've saved to their profile will be seen by their audience as well. So oftentimes it'll be seen in their audience's home feeds. And then outbound clicks means that they have clicked from that pin over to your website. There is another metric called pin clicks that just means they've opened the pin. But outbound clicks means they've gone from Pinterest to your website. But so that is, that is the action you want people to take.
So you do want to make sure you're tracking that. And then Pinterest analytics, you can, you know, track this over time. They have, you know, again, a line graph where you can kind of see the impressions, saved and outbound clicks, how they've grown over time. And then if you scroll towards the bottom of the Pinterest analytics, you can also sort this data and see the information for each individual pin. So you can kind of see which pins are the top performing pins, which pins are getting more impressions versus more saves versus, versus more outbound clicks. You can get the click through rate percentage.
So that way you can kind of, if you are a B testing, that's where you're going to get that information. And then if you are just kind of like, in general, want to see what the most popular pins are, what are driving the most traffic, that's where you're going to get that information.
[00:48:43] Speaker B: Amazing. Okay, so I do want to talk about getting geographically specific, because while it's more and more common for designers to serve clients all around the country, definitely like their bread and butter is their local regional market. So what tactics can they take to weave geographic keywords into pins and boards without feeling super spammy?
[00:49:08] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah. So I would only put, like, geographic information on pins where it makes sense. So obviously, if it's for, you know, kitchen that you remodeled, you can definitely put, like, you know, this house is in Seattle or wherever it is. If it's a blog post on, like, you know, five different paint colors for your living room, that is not location specific. So I wouldn't put the location on there just because it doesn't really make sense. It doesn't really match.
So for specific projects, I would definitely add location information.
I wouldn't list out, like, you know, every single town near Seattle where this house could be, like. I would just say, like, Seattle or Seattle suburb, you know, something like that.
And then for your content, I would make sure that some of your content is geared towards your location specifically. So making sure that, like, if you're in Minnesota, you're not creating a lot of content about, like, coastal design or, you know, things like that that doesn't really match what your clients are actually searching for. So making sure that all of the content is at least somewhat related to your specific region and area. You can, you can also write, you know, blog posts like, you know, five contractors in Philadelphia for, you know, house construction or, like, five architects or, you know, you can kind of like, have these more very specific to your location blog posts that can kind of help reach people who are searching more, you know, geographically.
[00:50:34] Speaker B: Okay, great. And does this search, does the work that they're doing on Pinterest carry over over to their search engine optimization on Google? Aside from the fact that more traffic usually increases their rankings on Google, like, will Google pull any of this stuff from Pinterest as well?
[00:50:54] Speaker A: Google will not connect your Pinterest account like, with your website.
So individual pins and Pinterest boards could actually rank on Google, but it's not going to be, like, related to your website. So if you don't have your location anywhere on your website, but you do have it on your, you know, Pinterest pins, Google is not going to connect the dots there. So you do want to make sure that you have like all of your geographic specific information on your website. And again, if it's like location specific blog posts or portfolio pieces, that you do have that location on those pages and not just on the Pinterest pins.
[00:51:29] Speaker B: Okay, let's talk tools. What scheduling or automation platforms do you recommend? I know you said that Pinterest has released their own schedule.
What are some others that you have liked? Both from kind of an agency standpoint, what you do for your clients as well as what someone who's just pinning for themselves could use?
[00:51:48] Speaker A: Yeah, so the Pinterest scheduler, it's pretty easy to use if you're kind of just getting started and want something free.
My favorite one is Tailwind. Tailwind was originally created for Pinterest specifically. They've since added on like Instagram and then some like AI ghost writing components as well. But it was originally created just for Pinterest before any other scheduler had anything for Pinterest.
That one is really great because they will like automatically create schedules for you. So they do things like interval pinning. So if you have. I don't think I've mentioned this before, but like you can create one pin and then pin it to a couple different boards. But you want to make sure you're not pinning it like you know, the same pin three times in a row in one day. You do want to make sure you're spacing it out, both so you don't get caught up in spam filters, but the. And also so people don't go to your profile and just see like the same pin over and over again. So they have some like automations built in like interval pinning that will automatically space out that pin for you. So that way you don't have to like worry about manually doing it. So they have some like a lot of automations that are really helpful. I've used. I had a client who already was using later, so we just started using later or scheduling Pinterest on later for her and I do not like it.
It's very cumbersome. It's not super easy to use.
[00:53:06] Speaker B: I tried to use later and I'm like, why is this so hard to just see what it's going to look like?
[00:53:13] Speaker A: Yeah, so I don't love later for Pinterest specifically. Planoly is like pretty good for Pinterest. So if you're already on Planoly and don't want to have to use another scheduler, you can probably use Planoly. But yeah, Tailwind would be My favorite.
[00:53:27] Speaker B: Okay, great. Can you talk to us about how someone could work with you? Like are you, how do you typically charge for PIN interest services?
Is it like flat project fees? It's just retainers it per pin. And how should designers budget for ongoing optimization? Like what should someone realistically expect to spend if they want to outsource this?
[00:53:48] Speaker A: Yeah, so I have a couple different services. So I, you know, do offer things like training sessions if you kind of just want to like, you learn best over like video and just want some personalized advice for your, your Pinterest profile to know kind of like how to maintain it. I do. I offer this one Pinterest setup service where I go through and either, you know, set up or clean up the boards that you already have, get everything optimized, create pin templates for you with all of your branding, kind of like maintain your account for six weeks while I'm doing cleanup and pinning and then at the end of the six weeks pass everything over to you, pass over all the keywords, the Pinterest templates, and then do a 45 minute training to kind of go over how you can maintain it going forward. So for anyone who like wants to get started with Pinterest, but it just sounds super intimidating just to start, that's typically the service I recommend going with that one's a one time fee of fourteen hundred dollars at the time of the recording. And then if you never want to touch Pinterest ever, I do offer Pinterest management where I do all of the pin creation, all of the scheduling, keyword research, board creation, you know, board optimization, cleaning things up, stuff like that. So that one right now at the time of the recording starts at 700 per month and that one is a six month minimum service and then kind of monthly ongoing after that. But that way it gives you enough time to kind of see how Pinterest is working for your account to make sure you know things are progressing so you're not going to see the, the data you want to see on day two.
It does take time to see growth on Pinterest from there. So if you don't want to ever touch Pinterest, but you do want to make sure you are have a presence on there, you're getting, you know, good visibility and driving traffic back to your website from Pinterest, that's the service I typically recommend.
[00:55:29] Speaker B: Okay, great. That's super helpful and it definitely is totally in line with what I've heard from other providers. Like that price point is like a really good metric for People to just kind of expect to pay if they are looking to outsource that. But amazing that you have kind of three different points of entry. Someone could work with you.
So I'm curious, Julia, as we get ready to wrap up, as someone who's already helped dozens of design studios grow via Pinterest, what is one, like, surprise, surprising success story that you can share with us? Yeah, so one that is, I would.
[00:56:02] Speaker A: Say, kind of a bittersweet success story.
So I had a client who I was doing both SEO and Pinterest work for her, so I had her, like, access to her Google Analytics account and she actually moved to a different country and wasn't able to continue her business there. So she wasn't able to continue the Pinterest services. But I could see in Google Analytics, because I was still doing some SEO work with site that her Pinterest continued to grow even after she wasn't actively pinning on Pinterest every day.
So, I mean, this continued for like the next year. I could see that Pinterest was, if not growing, was at least remaining steady. So this just kind of speaks to the how great Pinterest is at driving that kind of like continuous evergreen traffic. Even if you aren't able to kind of like, you know, show up every single day, or even if you need to take a break from Pinterest, if you've already already put a lot of great content out there and been active and have everything optimized, it can continue to help your website and business grow over time.
[00:57:00] Speaker B: Okay, and finally, last question.
Just so that we're all comparing apples to apples when we're talking about creating a pin, that doesn't mean that you're just getting on Pinterest and repinning something that's on your homepage. We're talking about creating a pin from your own website, or technically another person's website, and creating a new pin, adding it to Pinterest, Correct?
[00:57:24] Speaker A: Yes.
[00:57:25] Speaker B: Okay, perfect. Julia, this was so informative. It was just as mind bending as your SEO episode with us. Thank you so much for coming back to talk us through everything. And if you are listening, please, please, please put some time into Pinterest. I promise you will be so pleased. I've shared this data in the past, but for years and years and years, over 90% of our website traffic came from Pinterest. And I just cannot stress that enough. In an industry that is so visually led, you guys are already like leaps and bounds ahead of so many other industries because you have such beautiful work to showcase. So Julia, thank you for being here and I hope that this was helpful for everyone listening.
[00:58:06] Speaker A: Yeah, thanks so much for having me again.
[00:58:08] Speaker B: Have a great vacation and we'll talk soon.
[00:58:10] Speaker C: Thanks for more in depth analysis of this interview, including exclusive downloads, examples and more. Don't forget to subscribe to the Interior Collective on Patreon. We are building an amazing private community of interior designers and industry experts open to candid conversations and answering questions. Join us on Patreon in the show notes
[email protected] the Interior Collective thank you so so much for tuning in to this episode. Producing this show has truly been the.
[00:58:39] Speaker B: Honor of my career and I I.
[00:58:40] Speaker C: Cannot believe I get to have these conversations. A big huge thank you to our production team at IDCO Studio and Quinn made. Your contribution literally makes this podcast feasible and the biggest thank you to you our listeners.
[00:58:55] Speaker B: Your sweet notes, DMs and reviews mean.
[00:58:58] Speaker C: So much to us as we work to keep our show free and always accessible.
Until next time, I'm Anastasia Casey and this is the Interior Collective, a podcast for the business of beautiful living.
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