How to optimize your Squarespace website for Pinterest
Pinterest marketing can blow up your blog posts and products, and bring your Squarespace website tons of new traffic each month. But it’s more than simply signing up for a Pinterest account. Did you know that Pinterest is a search engine? This means we need to use SEO (Search Engine Optimization) with Pinterest to really make the most out of it.
We’re going to show you some easy ways to optimize your Squarespace website for Pinterest to boost your performance on the platform.
Pinterest is awesome for small business owners, bloggers, and pretty much anyone with a website. You can use it to Pin and promote images from around your website (eg blog post graphics, product images, specific pages etc), then if a Pinterest user clicks on your image, it will take them directly back to that specific page, post or product.
It’s an awesome way to bring new people to your website and into your audience.
Side note, In 2019, Pinterest grew by 26% and it now has over 442 million users worldwide! That means there’s a huge audience out there for every niche, just waiting to click on your Pins!
The ultimate goal for any business owner or blogger is to make money through their website, and Pinterest can be a huge moneymaker because it does such a great job of exposing your brand to new audiences, without you needing to put in the hours! As long as you’ve set up your Squarespace site with the following optimization tips, and your graphics are Pinterest-ready, your website visitors and followers can end up doing most of the work for you!
Squarespace has brilliant integration features for Pinterest, making it really easy to optimize.
It’s really hard to get this wrong, so let’s get started with the Squarespace optimization for Pinterest tips and tricks!
Optimizing Squarespace for Rich Pins
What on earth is a rich pin?!
I hear you, these are pretty similar to any normal pin, but Pinterest automatically pulls a bunch of extra data from your site. It’s essentially a fancier version of your images. But it’s not just there to look pretty; rich pins are much more useful than regular pins for your audience. They can give us information on:
Updated product pricing
Direct links
Your Pinterest-verified website
However, the major reason that you should convert your site into automatic rich pinning; is because Pinterest promotes and prioritizes rich pins in the feed. It’s worth optimizing!
How to create rich pins in Squarespace:
Log into your Squarespace website editor
Head to Settings in the Sidebar
Click Connected Accounts
Then click to connect your Pinterest account and follow the automatic prompts to log in
Note: A panel should pop-up asking you whether to push blog posts automatically. I personally like to leave this manual instead of automatic as it allows more control over the images and editing the description before my posts are published on Pinterest. But, we will be talking about how to optimize both images and descriptions below; so choosing automatic may save you time.
Finally, click Save
To double-check that Pinterest is properly connected to your Squarespace website;
Go to your profile on Pinterest.com
Check your bio for a verified icon and your URL
Give Pinterest up to 24-hours to do this before re-trying if it is missing. If it’s still going wrong after that, the wonderful support team at Squarespace are sure to be helpful.
Outcome: as soon as these settings are saved, all of the new pins you will create from products, blog posts and pages will be automatically sent to Pinterest with this extra information.
Add Social Links to Squarespace
Wouldn’t it be easy to show website visitors each of your social media links in one go?
The thing is, I’m not the type of person who scrolls Pinterest for hours- instead, I end up getting stuck in an Instagram rabbit hole. But, some people will spend time on Facebook, others on Tiktok. The point is: if you’re able to show off each of your social links in one place, it gives your audience the chance to find you on their preferential platform. This tip isn’t about going viral or gaining tons of followers. But, you’ll be attracting the people who love Pinterest anyway and giving them a direct link to check out your products.
How to add social links to Squarespace:
Log into your Squarespace website editor
Head to Settings in the Sidebar
Scroll to Social Links (this should display all of the social media links you’ve added to the site, sometimes they’ll show up in the header or wherever else you’ve added them)
Check your Pinterest icon to add it to the site
Depending on your template, you may need to turn on Social Links to get them in your header area. You can also add them anywhere around your site using a Social Links block! Find out more about where Social Links display here.
Note: this doesn’t allow website visitors to pin your stuff directly to their Pinterest. Scroll down to learn more about that!
Adding Pinterest Save Buttons to Squarespace
Would you really turn down free marketing?
The Pinterest save button adds a little Pinterest icon to any image when you hover over it, which makes it really easy and encourages your website visitors to save content from your Squarespace website into Pinterest. Once on the search engine, your blogs, products, and pages are then eligible for viewing by absolutely anyone. You don’t even have to do the heavy-lifting, just allow your customers to access the Pinterest save button.
Hover over the blog post graphic below to see the little Pinterest icon working in real-time (feel free to Pin the image to Pinterest, while you’re at it!)
How to add the Pinterest Save button to Squarespace:
Log into your Squarespace website editor
From the main menu, click Marketing
Scroll down to Pinterest Save Button
Either enable it for blogs, or for blogs, pages, and products
If you are solely pushing blog posts out to Pinterest, the former option is best-suited. However, if you have an e-commerce site or you want to promote another page or product, the latter would be a better option!
Editing the Pinterest Save button design:
Squarespace enables you to change the size and shape of the button, which will affect how it looks on your images. Click the Size drop-down menu to change the icon from small to large. Click the Shape drop-down menu to change the icon from rectangular to circular.
You can change the size and the shape of the button on your image (design aspect)
Hover over any image on the site to see the pin button
Adding the Pinterest Share Icon
Squarespace version 7.0 offers a native feature to increase your content’s shareability to Pinterest. Simply add the icon to the bottom of your blog posts or shop items. Not only will this make it easier for your readers; but it will increase the chance of your content going viral across the web.
Note: This is only possible on Blogs and E-commerce shops, not regular pages.
How to add the Pinterest Share icon (Version 7.0)
In the main menu, click Pages > Blog
Click on one of your posts to open it up
Check to see if there are any share links at the bottom of the blog post
To adjust which social icons show up (or if there are currently no social icons showing):
From the main menu click Marketing > Share Buttons
Click the checkbox of whichever social icons you would like to show
Change the design by going back into one of your blog posts and clicking Design > Site Styles and scrolling until you reach Share buttons. This will enable you to change the size, outline, colors and a whole host of other features.
How to add the Pinterest Share icon (Version 7.1)
As mentioned, this feature is only native to Squarespace 7.0, but I have no doubt that version 7.1 will be working on something very similar. In the time being, I recommend using https://www.addthis.com. It’s a free software that enables you to add and change the design of basic blocks with complete instructions. The cool thing about using addthis is that you can actually choose any page to have the share icons, rather than just blog posts or product pages.
Optimize Your Squarespace Images for Pinterest
We use our own rules for designing kick-ass Pinterest graphics and have seen an increase in traffic since implementing this system.
But what exactly are Pinterest-friendly images?
Simply put, the more variety of pin designs you publish per piece of content, the better. Not only do several options allow your readers to pin the designs they prefer; but your content is less repetitive and can create brand recognition as users notice and click on your posts.
Images optimized for Pinterest include:
Your Brand name
Your Website name
The clear title of the post
Design aside, you’ll want to also make sure to
Have an SEO description on the post, product or page that the pin is on (you can do this under page, post and product settings panels)
Copy your SEO description for the blog post into the file name of pin image and use it for the title.
Pinterest is likely to pull your SEO description or the file name along with the image itself, so this description will be used on Pinterest when people pin your image. Make sure to include lots of keywords and make it really clear what the Pin is about.
Now, when site visitors go to pin your content, the description will be pre-written based on your SEO description. Check this is working by pinning from your site to a private board. Look for:
Your SEO description
A link to your website (which is linked to your Pinterest profile)
A rich pin with the verified logo
That’s all for optimizing your Squarespace Website for Pinterest! Remember that Pinterest can be so beneficial to your business and the more effort you put in optimizing everything at the beginning the easier it becomes in the long run, and the faster you’ll see results!
Make sure you check out our blog and the posts below for tons of Pinterest and Squarespace tips!
How to create an organic Pinterest marketing strategy for your business
How to design kick-ass Pinterest graphics that are optimized to get clicks
How to use Pinterest for your business in 2022: Profile set up and optimization
How to add Pinterest board covers to brand your Pinterest account
If you liked this post, Pin it to Pinterest! 👇🏻
