3 Instant Ways to Make Your Content Pinnable

Pinnable content doesn't have to be hard to achieve. Here are three quick tips you can implement right now to increase your pin-ability.

Pinterest remains one of the biggest sources of referral traffic for many bloggers and websites. Getting your content pinned is an easy way to gain followers and increase traffic to your site. Simply having a "pin it" button on your blog & closing each post with a  Pinterest-specific call to action isn't necessarily enough to encourage your readers to pin your content. You need to ensure that your content is pinnable. Dozens of elements go into creating pinworthy content, but in this tutorial, I want to share three quick instant ways to make your content pinnable.

Three Instant Ways to Make Your Content Pinnable

Written by: Anyonita Green on August 21, 2014

Ensure that your photos are pinnable.
Having a pinnable photo is of utmost importance because Pinterest is a visual platform that is photo heavy. One thing to remember about Pinterest is that, on the whole, it is meant to be an inspiring place where people collect ideas of projects they want to do, trips they want to take and food they want to eat. Your photos need to play into that as much as possible.

Even the most beautiful photo can fall flat with pinners if it doesn't have the earmarks of classic pinnable content. Here are a few things I've noticed over the last year or so about photos that perform well on Pinterest:

• 80% of my most re-pinned & pinned photos are bright & engaging
• photos that show the ideal situation perform better(ie: finished product vs. behind-the-scenes)*
• portrait photos perform much better than landscape photos**

* Of course, there will always be exceptions. When the behind-the-scenes photos have been staged artistically, they can perform just as well as the finished products photos, especially when incorporated into a tutorial or instructional post. Here's a general rule of thumb: a photo of a steaming plate of spaghetti with mouthwatering bolognese sauce is going to be more pinworthy than the ingredients used to make the spaghetti arranged uncooked in their boxes.

**Portrait photos work better because Pinterest is designed in such a way to favor them. Think about the natural columns you'll see in your Pinterest feed: they're thin and long and photos that slot into these columns are more appealing than boxy square photos.

Take a look at these two photos:

Both are equally strong and would be considered to be good photographs. Here's what happens when they appear in a Pinterest stream:

Click the photo to see a larger version.

You barely notice the landscape photo because it is so much smaller and less enticing than all the other portrait photos around it.

Click the photo to see a larger version.

With the portrait photo, you eye is drawn to it quickly and it is more engaging because you can clearly see the photo and what's in it.

Be sure to use alt tags.
I must have written six tutorials on the importance of using alt tags over the last few months! I can't stress it enough, guys; alt tags are the secret weapon for pinnable content. I'm not going to rehash everything I've previously said about them; I'll just recap two key points:

• Use alt tags to auto-fill your Pinterest pin descriptions & influence what pin descriptions say when pinned organically from your site
• Alt tags are beneficial for SEO

Clicking those links will take you to two tutorials written by me about the importance of alt tags on Pinterest.

Be certain to leave succinct descriptions.
Even if your photo is stunningly beautiful and is a portrait shot and is bright and engaging, if it's not clear what your photo is meant to convey, your content will fall short. 

The description on a pin is your place to tell a brief, relevant story about the pin: use it wisely! Convey any information that's pertinent and intriguing and that wasn't conveyed in the image itself. (Is it clear from the photo that you used coconut flour in those brownies? No? Say it in the description!)

Another way to be sure your description is hitting all the right notes and is working for your benefit is to use hashtags. Don't, I repeat, do not go over the top with the hastags. Hashtags should be used sparingly and within reason and to help to corral interested pinners and make them aware of your content. Let's say, I was pinning my portrait photo and wanted to use what I know about the importance of alt text to set my pin description.

Here are two examples of common pin descriptions:
#Pan-roasted #potatoes covered in #Mediterranean #salt with #rosemary #herbs in a #skillet on a #linen with #hearts that are #red and #pink. #yum #greatdinneridea #easymeals

Pan roasted #potatoes seasoned with Mediterranean salt and #rosemary. #glutenfree #vegetarian and #vegan #recipe

Which do you think is more important for the pin? Which do you think most closely relates to searches people are likely doing on Pinterest at the moment? I'm not sure how many people would be searching for "#linen with #hearts" but you can be certain that thousands are searching for "#glutenfree", "#vegetarian" and "#vegan".

While there's nothing wrong with the #greatdinneridea and #easymeals tags, that's the type of information that you could convey by pinning this photo to a board entitled Dinner Ideas or Easy Meals.  When you use hashtags, especially on Pinterest, treat them like keywords: use ones that you have a chance of benefiting from. Every food blogger who shares dinners on Pinterest would claim that their recipe was a #greatdinneridea. The competition to gain traffic from that overly used hashtag would be fierce. So, instead, I opt for more niche, yet still relevant hashtags.

Here's the key to keeping a level head with Pinterest hashtags: use them to tell valuable, relevant information the viewer might have missed otherwise.

What tips do you have for pinnable content?