Did you know that Pinterest is the now second largest social referrer for online publishers?

Yup, here are just a few eye-opening stats about how huge Pinterest is:

  • 12 % of U.S. Internet users have a Pinterest account. [tweet this]
  • 80% of Pinterest users are women! [tweet this]
  • Pinterest accounts for 20% of all social referrals. [tweet this]
  • Every day 5 million Webpages are shared on Pinterest. [tweet this]

Why your Website is the key to success on Pinterest

[source: John Haydon] One of the great things about Pinterest is that you don’t actually have to have an account to get more Website visitors. Yes, of course that helps, but what’s more important is how Pinnable your Website is.

Remember, Pinterest strategies are all about driving traffic back to your Website. But if your visual content stinks, or if your Website is broken, you won’t get any traffic from Pinterest.

Here are 12 tips for making your Website more pinnable:

  • Make sure your images are awesome: This one goes without saying, but make sure your content (particularly images and video) remarkable, emotional and interesting (here’s a pin about that).
  • Test your Website: Test how your most visited pages look on Pinterest by clicking More at the top of Pinterest and then Add Pins from Web in the drop-down window.In the pop-up window, enter your Webpage URLs (as shown below). Once you click next, you will see all the images Pinterest users can select from that Webpage.
  • Fix your Website: If you’re having problems getting Pinterest to pull in images, talk to your Web master. WordPress users can use the Open Graph Meta plugin to sniff out the problems.
  • Create “title” images: Make sure each page or post has an image that conveys the title or topic of the page. For example, check out the image below.

See how the picture strongly communicates the essence of the article?

  • Overlay text on images: For some images, like the one above, adding text helps convey the topic of the article being pinned. You can use PicMonkey to quickly add text to images.
  • Add videos to your Pages. If you have a YouTube channel, embed your top viewed videos into blog posts. If Pinterest users pin your videos, it creates a link to that YouTube video. This doesn’t drive traffic to your Website, but it does increase views for that video.
  • Use Infographs: Infographics take up much more vertical real estate on Pinterest than any other type of image, enabling your pin to stand apart from the crowd.
  • Check out Rich Pins: Check the various types of Rich Pins that Pinterest is developing, like article pins, product pins, and place pins. Here’s an awesome plugin to create rich pins for WordPress.
  • Get the Digg Digg plugin: The folks over at Buffer own this plugin, so you can bet that it’s very reliable. If you don’t use WordPress for your Website, check out the Buffer Button. There’s also this Pinterest plugin that puts a “Pin It” button on all your Website images.
  • Verify your Website: Help Pinterest users trust your Website by verifying it with Pinterest.
  • Use Google Analytics: With Google Analytics, you can see which articles are generating the most traffic from Pinterest (see below).

This information will tell you what kind of visual content Pinterest users like to share from your Website.

Add your Website to your Pinterest profile. Edit your Pinterest profile and add your Website (as shown below).