Pin Your Goods Where Your Fans Are Looking

Have you checked out Pinterest yet? I’m sure you’ve probably heard all about it by now from either your wife, your sister, your best friend or your neighbor. If not, you’ve heard about it now. You’re welcome.

But seriously, you need to know about this great resource for small business owners and bloggers alike. What is it exactly? I’ll explain.

Pinterest is a virtual pinboard where users can tag and organize images found around the web into categorized groups. You can pin things all by yourself by adding the URL of the cool thing you’ve found or you can repin things that other users have already added. An image is then added to a virtual board of your choice for future reference. The result is a large pool of shared images, articles, resources, and even better — LINKS! That’s one thing I’ve yet to mention. Each image is tied to the link where it was found.

So to summarize, Pinterest is like an online version of the corkboard you used to have hanging above your bed in high school with every magazine photo you loved…except with links and the ability to snag pins from other people. Got it? Let’s move on.

As I said before, perhaps the greatest part of Pinterest for business proprietors and website owners is the whole link part of the deal. Do you own a small bakery in your home town? Maybe you just blogged about a recipe that you wanted to share for the upcoming holiday season. Pin it to Pinterest! Other pinners, such as myself, would fall over themselves to repin something like that. And then, my friends would see my pin and they may add it to their boards too. I, as well as my group of friends, would then visit your site to get the recipe when the holidays arrive, if we haven’t been there already.

It’s a win-win for everyone! We get an original recipe for our holiday celebration. You get traffic to your site and potential new customers…all for free. Isn’t that a wonderful price?

Now, the verdict is still out on the quality of Pinterest links for SEO purposes, but traffic to your site is always a good thing, right?

Yes. The answer is yes.