Episode 567: Pin your way to online traffic success! How Pinterest can transform your business with Shaunda Necole

EBT567 – Shaunda Necole

Intro 00:00

Food bloggers. Hi, how are you today? Thank you so much for tuning in to the Eat Blog Talk podcast. This is the place for food bloggers to get information and inspiration to accelerate your blog’s growth, and ultimately help you to achieve your freedom. Whether that’s financial, personal, or professional. I’m Megan Porta. I have been a food blogger for 13 years, so I understand how isolating food blogging can be. I’m on a mission to motivate, inspire, and most importantly, let each and every food blogger, including you, know that you are heard and supported.

Megan Porta  00:37

This is one of my favorite topics to talk about. It has been for my entire blogging journey. It still is a favorite topic and a favorite platform and that is Pinterest. I know not everybody agrees with me on that. But that’s okay. Pinterest is a free platform where we can put our content or visual mouthwatering photos that leads directly to our websites and traffic and sometimes product sales, and even email subscribers. I don’t think any of us should discount Pinterest ever. It is one of the if not the most important platform for food bloggers to be a part of, in my opinion. And thankfully, my guests in this interview Shaunda Necole from The Soul Food Pot agrees with me, and she brings her perspective to the table. She talks about why food bloggers should be using Pinterest. Why users use Pinterest and having their perspective when we create content for Pinterest. She talks a lot about Pinterest keywords and how to best think through that strategy. To gain the most traction for your pins. Shaunda also talks through all of the things that she thinks makes a good pin on Pinterest elements to pay attention to things to maybe not pay as much attention to. There are so many little gems in this episode that are going to inspire you. I was so inspired after talking to her I’m ready to go dig into my Pinterest account. She also has a Pinterest pyramid strategy that she shares with us that I think will be really helpful for some of you. Okay, enjoy this episode. Let me know how much you love it. I hope you do. It is episode number 567. Sponsored by RankIQ. 

Sponsor  02:23

Food bloggers, have you experienced traffic loss after the recent Google updates. Are you feeling confused about how to move forward? I get it. I have been a food blogger for nearly 14 years. And I’ve been through the wringer with industry changes and business changes. You name it, I have been there. When I look back over my tough times. The thing that pulled me out of slumps and traffic loss and disappointment was always people. We need each other right now more than ever. You are in this food blogging game for the long haul I know you are. And that means you need to find people to collaborate with to connect with and to learn from. Eat Blog Talk has two great options for you coming up. The 2025 Eat Blog Talk mastermind groups and in person retreats. We are now taking applications for the 2025 mastermind groups. This year we’re splitting the group’s in two. It’ll be intermediate and advanced and beginner. We also lower the price to accommodate traffic and revenue dips a lot of us are experiencing apply now as the first four people let into the group will receive 20% off the whole year. Go to eatblogtalk.com/mastermind to apply today. And there are still a few spots remaining for the 2020 for Fall Retreat, which is also discounted this year due to revenue loss for so many. Join us in October in Minnesota. It is my favorite time of year here in Minnesota for three incredible days filled with laughter, great food, tons of learning and connecting and honestly, they’re just so much fun. You will not regret attending this retreat, head over to eatblogtalk.com/retreat to apply for that today. I hope to see you in one or both of those spots. I can’t wait for the next 12 months and to see all of your businesses explode. And trust me having those people in your corner is going to help. 

Megan Porta  04:25

Shaunda Necole is the go-to recipe creator for modern soul food cuisine. She’s the founder of The Soul Food Pot, the #1 Southern soul food site on Google, the author of seven culinary guides, and the host of The Soul Food Pod, Apple’s first show dedicated to the history and culture around iconic African American dishes. She believes in making life easier and more soulful, one recipe at a time!

Megan Porta  04:50

Hello Shaunda, how are you today? Thanks for joining us on the podcast.

Shaunda Necole  04:54

Ah, thanks for having me. I’m so excited to be here to talk to you Megan. 

Megan Porta  04:58

Yes, Pinterest is a hot that topic for us food bloggers, so I’m always eager to get new perspectives on that. But before we get into it, do you have a fun fact to share with us? 

Shaunda Necole  05:09

Yes, actually, not many people may know. But I live on two almost two coasts. I’m close to California. But I live in Las Vegas. And I also live in coastal Virginia Beach. So I kind of hopped back and forth between the two. And last night, I just came in on a flight from Virginia, back to Nevada. So I’m back in Las Vegas today with you.

Megan Porta  05:32

Awesome, how often do you go back and forth.

Shaunda Necole 05:34

No set timeframe, I’m actually writing a book about things to do in Las Vegas, and it’s publishing next year with 3D Press. So I’ll be here probably for four to five months this time, but it’s just kind of if something’s happening, I go back to Virginia there. And then otherwise, I’m here. So once I’ve finished my book, my manuscript is due in September, then I’ll probably return to Virginia just to catch up with family and friends. 

Megan Porta  05:58

Oh, awesome. It sounds like you have a lot of different interests. And yeah, books and blog and Pinterest. is so great to be well rounded like that, right? 

Shaunda Necole  06:08

Yes. Yes. All fun to talk about diversifying. And how we can use Pinterest for all of the things is really a fun conversation. And really a blogger is best kept secret.

Megan Porta  06:18

So agree with that. So start by telling us a little bit about your blog, which is called AuthenticSsouthern Food. It’s the Soul Food Pot, correct? 

Shaunda Necole  06:28

Yes, yes. Okay. So the soul food pod is a started just out of a love for cooking, Southern soul food. I’m from Virginia. And so guess, so lots of southern derivatives from Virginia itself. And so it’s just the food that I grew up on from my grandma, my great grandma, who was an esteemed caterer, to my grandma, and my mom who are amazing home cooks. And so what I started to do, probably pandemic a little bit post pandemic time, I began cooking a lot with the Instant Pot, which is my favorite cooking appliance. Yeah, and the Air Force, the air fryer. And we have, you know, almost every home cook nowadays has like a Kitchenaid in their home. So we have these fancy gadgets that just make our lives. They’re fancy, but easy and efficient to use. So that’s why I began to make recipes. So traditional Southern soul food classic recipes, but using the Instant Pot mostly or the airfryer, or you know, KitchenAid mixer, just to make them more efficient for home cooks, because we’re all so busy, you know, nowadays, so I love it when you can just drop a recipe in the pot, walk away, you know, finish doing what you’re doing at home and come back and it tastes just like grandma made it. Yeah. So that’s how I got started.

Megan Porta  07:45

Oh my gosh, the Instant Pot is magic. There’s something in there. I always say like, there’s some element of magic just hiding in there that just delivers this dose of magic. I don’t know what it is. But once you start using it, you, you learn it really quickly, right?

Shaunda Necole  08:02

I call it magical meals in minutes. So when we say the same thing about it, it’s magical.

Megan Porta  08:07

It’s so true. Okay, so you’ve been running your blog since then. And then when did you get interested in Pinterest? 

Shaunda Necole  08:15

So Pinterest, probably around 2020, the pandemic timeframe, I started really dabbling in Pinterest. Somehow I can’t remember exactly how I got into Pinterest. But I remember it was about that time frame. And I started sharing a lot of pins, pins were fun to create. So I started creating a lot of pins and sharing them there. And I realized how easy it was to get traffic, you know, to your site just using Pinterest. And Pinterest was my first entry into SEO, which is something I now teach and do consulting on. But Pinterest made it really easy to under for me to understand SEO, just because it’s a visual platform. Most of the users up there are women, I think just because we’re usually visual humans ourselves. So it’s a visual platform. And then the key words are they’re just hiding in plain sight and colorful bubbles. So it was easy for me to kind of learn Pinterest, come up with a strategy for Pinterest. And then I just took off from there and began teaching Pinterest and then went on into SEO and Google and now we’re into Google and helpful content updates and just kind of kept going from there. 

Megan Porta  09:22

It’s a constant evolution right constant journey here in the blogging world. Oh my gosh, yeah. Yeah. Even just from a few years ago, I feel like Pinterest is different. So has your strategy evolved since you first started getting into it during the pandemic?

Shaunda Necole  09:37

It’s really been quite the same. To be honest, I’ve never really taken to Pinterest is I guess, new trendy things because at the core Pinterest is a search engine. And I almost like I laugh and say like, you know, their search engine often having an identity crisis where they want to have stories like Instagram or you know, with the idea of yarns and you know, they want to do things like that. that their route, they are a search engine. And so that’s exactly how I treat it, and how I’ve always treated it and how I’ve, you know, maintained a strategy. And so like my signature site, which is just my name, Shonda nicole.com. And I always tease that that’s the site where I like threw spaghetti at the wall and like, Did did all the things wrong, like most of us didn’t, we started out blogging. And so for me, that was about almost 10 years ago. And that site is where I get like 20 to 30,000 page views a month, and it’s mostly from Pinterest. So Pinterest is just simply amazing. Like that site wouldn’t even live if it weren’t for Pinterest, whereas the other two sites I have are definitely Google traffic sites. And they definitely do get traffic from Pinterest, especially for food during those during the holidays. But my signature site just thrives off of Pinterest. So it is you know, it’s just really a big necessity for my business. That’s

Megan Porta  10:51

great. That is I mean, those numbers are very impressive. So clearly, you’re doing something right over there. Yeah, so can you answer the question, just kind of, generally speaking, why people use Pinterest? I know you said it’s like a search engine. Right?

Shaunda Necole  11:08

Right. So I use Pinterest for years as a consumer before ever understanding or knowing anything about, you know, search engine optimization, or SEO. So our users, the people that we’re trying to target for traffic, of course, they’re going to Pinterest to search for something. And that could be anything from you know what to cook tonight to what vacation to take, or, you know, women’s health content, you know, how should I navigate my hysterectomy treatment, there are just a ton of things that people go to Pinterest to find what outfit to wear today, or what outfit to wear when I go on a cruise. So as content creators, we want to consider understand that that our traffic, or our users or our readers will come from Pinterest. And they’re going to they’re just search for a specific thing. And so our job is to create a visual pin, as Pinterest calls it, but like a visual graphic or component to convey the message that we have exactly what it is that they’re searching for. So if someone’s searching for what to wear on a cruise in June, you know, and if we’re that travel blogger who writes about cruises and has that specific information about you know, the best outfit to kind of wear functionally or you know, or stylishly for cruise in June, we want to make a pen that shows you know, that beautiful lifestyle graphic that someone could look at and see themselves, you know, in that pen, either doing that thing wearing that thing that they can see themselves in that lifestyle photo, and then add text to it to, you know, really 100% convey the message that you know, 100 you know, five outfits you need for your cruise in June. And then of course, we link it to our article and get people to come there. Now of course, there’s that SEO component that’s in there. And I don’t want to go too far, if we’re not there yet. But there’s the SEO component, which is basically for Pinterest, the keywords that are going to help people find that pin so that it’s not lost in a sea of you know, 1000 other pins about cruises.

Megan Porta  13:01

I like how you put that. So it’s more than just a search engine. It’s a search engine that delivers visuals.

Shaunda Necole 13:08

Right. So important. Like I said, Pinterest, I think like more than 75% of its users are women. And again, we are really visual people. So we are really catering to that. So some of the best images that do well on Pinterest are lifestyle photos. So where it’s like you know someone on a cruise or you know the cruise ship, but you can see someone on it or you know things where the user can see them insert themselves into it. If it were a recipe maybe you know, shot of the kitchen, you know with the recipe or a nice tablecloth or rotten that tablecloth but dish cloth or you know, a pretty spoon, just something where the user, it’s inviting and they can see you know themselves in the mix. And that really draws people to click on the pin and want to do the thing or find out more about it. 

Megan Porta  13:55

That is a great way to look at it when you’re creating your Pinterest pins. Just thinking about that, like how can people see themselves eating my dish or being in my food scene or whatever? Yeah, yeah, that’s really good perspective. So I have felt really strongly over the years that there is not a food blogger on this earth who shouldn’t be on Pinterest because exactly what you’re saying Shaunda food is so visual. It’s so mouthwatering, it’s so appealing, and photo format. We need it to be on there. And I hear so many food bloggers say I hate Pinterest. Oh no. Like, yeah, and I’m like, exactly. I’m like, no, no, no, you can’t. You can’t. It’s the perfect platform for us. I think. Do you agree with that? 

Shaunda Necole  14:39

I 100% agree 100% more I agree with you. You’re leaving money on the table. If you’re not using it, I feel like you can’t afford to not use it. It’s free traffic. And so just by creating these visuals and even if you have you know, when I started I was creating all my pins myself, of course and I used to find it fun. I can’t say that it can get a little challenging just because can’t Well, first Canva makes it very easy. So there are probably all kinds of different tools that you can use, I personally use Canva. And that is very easy for me because the its usually a drag and drop, and you can even just change, you know, font colors, and it just makes it very easy. And then as I graduated, then I went on to having someone on my team that’s dedicated to Pinterest and pens for Pinterest. And because it just got a little daunting for me, whereas I could spend so much time like in the weeds of Canva, having fun and not really getting work done. Yeah, changing colors and inserting different pictures and resizing them. So I gave that to someone who has a better zone of genius, a graphic designer who’s you know, in and out very quickly, but their work is just amazing. So we I have someone on my team that specifically does that. But when I started, you know, all my core pins, I probably you know, that are still out there circulating. I started with those from the beginning. And like most bloggers, we’re creating evergreen traffic recipes, especially food bloggers, like we were just mentioning that should absolutely be on Pinterest, we’re creating evergreen recipes, you know, not a lot changes as far as the cooking method, or you know how it’s done. So it’s just really important that we are on Pinterest to put it’s almost like you’re stealing from your readers, your audience if you’re not sharing content there, because you’re not giving them the chance to find the wonderful creation that you have.

Megan Porta  16:23

Oh, wow, that was very, very well said and much more eloquent than what I said. Yeah, no, that’s so true. And just to keep in mind that it is a search engine, I think sometimes we forget that because it started out much differently. It was like a, I don’t even know what you would call it back in the really early days, it was more like a just a visual feed of, you know, like a scroll somewhere to go scroll and not necessarily search for a specific recipe. So I think some of us forget that people will use it as a search tool to find visual things that are going that they’re going to be able to relate to.

Shaunda Necole 17:01

Yeah, I think that’s the hang up is that most of us know Pinterest as a user of Pinterest, or you know, a consumer. And we don’t I mean, I would always teach people like what in the world is Pinterest do. You know, when I say to someone, like I get, you know, millions of views on Pinterest every month, like what what are they view and people don’t get like, what is this? How does this work for a business. So I can really understand that we’ve kind of lost in the consumer aspect of it and don’t realize that it is a search engine. And actually one of the world’s largest search engines, it would be I combined Google and YouTube, Google, of course, being number one, and then YouTube a search engine, but Google owns that. So it’s like number two, you can kind of put them together. So number two would be Pinterest. And it’s just really fun, because it’s a visual search engine, which is kind of a game changer. So people who search on Google, it’s similar, but it’s actually not the same as people who search on Pinterest, because Pinterest does have that huge visual component, everything you search comes with an image and a picture. And then of course, additional keywords at the top that you can, you know, niche down your search as a user even further. And, again, those keywords at the top are really what we’re honing into as bloggers to understand how to title our pins, you know, and how to get them out there so that they’re towards the top where people will quickly click on those and you get more traffic. 

Megan Porta  18:22

So do you believe that if you really like fine tune a keyword strategy that you can get your pins to the top without waiting, like three years for them? Yeah, yeah,

Shaunda Necole 18:32

I would make a game of it for myself, like, I’d have, you know, like, how soon can I get this to the top.

Megan Porta  18:39

Yeah, I so how do you do that? What are some of your main points?

Shaunda Necole  18:42

I always tell everyone that they really need to own their their keyword space. So for me for like, Southern soul food, you know, I know what keywords I’m using there. And even on my signature site, I’ll use that one because it gets so much Pinterest traffic. One of the things that really, and this is super niche, one of the things that I really get a lot of traffic on is my story when I had my hysterectomy. And so again, knowing that many women come to Pinterest, it is the ideal place to share stories like that. Women want to know like, how do I recover after you know, what do I need to wear after you know, they’re just so easy? What can I eat after? I mean, there’s just so many nuanced questions that are very good questions that women want to know about that particular type of procedure. And so Pinterest, they seem to go there more than even Google just to get those questions answered. And so around that space, I know all the key words like you know, all the key words I should be using, I’ll make it a point to own that space. And so whenever we’re creating pens for that, you know, we’re using those same keywords, you know, really honing in targeting them, because that’s how women come to Pinterest and search for that. We’ve even created products around that specific niche. And then another Best Kept Secret there is Pinterest partners with Shopify, and you may see some people on Pinterest who are what they merchants verified where they have the blue check there. And it’s because that integration between Pinterest and Shopify that if your Shopify store meets the standards of Shopify and Pinterest together, then they will verify you and they will actually Pinterest will create pins for you, with your with your products in your Shopify store, and it tries to push them up towards the top of the feed. So we’d also not only do we get the traffic to the articles, but we also have products that are on Pinterest that people actually click from Pinterest to buy because of the Shopify integration. So Pinterest is like there’s so many things, I can tell you that it’s so amazing. But to answer the question, yeah, you just want to own your space in whatever your niches and the easiest way to do that is to actually search for what it is that you do. And take a look at those keywords, those colorful keyword bubbles that show up at the top. And you’re gonna just dig you know, kind of keep going as far as you can until there are no more keyword bubbles. And those are the key words that you should be using when you’re creating pens for your specific niche and your content.

Sponsor  21:07

Food bloggers, let’s take a quick break to chat about RankIQ. RankIQ is a powerful keyword research tool made just for you for bloggers, you’ve heard me talk about this keyword research tool so much before and I am going to keep talking about it. Because it works. Yes, it still works. The March edition of the HCU definitely had an impact on my organic traffic for my food blog. But it wasn’t devastating and things are starting to climb back up. I so strongly believe that all of the high quality niche centric content I’ve spent the last three years publishing so much of it from keywords that I found in RankIQ is the reason I’m still afloat. Here is why RankIQ has helped. I’ve only ever searched for and written about keywords that are 100% relevant to my niche and brand. All of the keywords and RankIQ are low competition and High search volume, helping my content to head right to the top of searches. Yes, still. The RankIQ optimizer is the best and creates the most well rounded posts, check it out for yourself by going to rankiq.com. Now back to the episode. 

Megan Porta  22:19

I know like some food topics are so broad, like if I just typed in chili, I feel like that could go on forever and ever. But you recommend just keep going until until it kind of runs out?

Shaunda Necole  22:30

Because Pinterest users do get pretty specific. So there may be and I’m making this up without doing any keyword research. But it could be like old fashioned chili that may be very applicable to your recipe or Mama’s chili recipe are. So there’s something that’s going to be very unique. And for Pinterest, the neat thing about it is it doesn’t have to be titled the exact same way as your blog post. So let’s say you had a blog article that was you know, slow cooker chili, but maybe it is your mom’s recipe. And although that’s not the title, and you share that in the article, and if you find on Pinterest that there’s a lot of, you know, traffic or a lot of interests, I should say about Mama’s you know, home homemade chili recipe, that’s where you want to target. And that’s where you create those pins to, you know, to say that there. And then of course, you’d have some wonderful lifestyle photo of your chili, you know, maybe in a bowl or the crock pot, you know, in the background there. And you know, a pretty dish towel or spoon. And that’s your pin, you know, with those key words that you’re going to use in your title and in your description for that set content. So it’s just gonna, you know, take some really searching like a Pinterest user, and just going you know, as far as you can down that specific topic, the line there and finding what keywords are going to be best. And then you’re going to repin them. I think that’s something that most folks don’t realize also, is that it’s not just a one and done with Pinterest where we pin it once and that’s it. There definitely has to be a repin strategy. I use Tailwind specifically for that where I use their smart loop to Evergreen pins for me or even specific pens just for seasonal pens, like maybe we’re doing Easter. So it pins for me automatically between like January and you know, May or something like that. So we’re always repeating those same pins because remember, the goal for Pinterest is evergreen content, which recipes typically are even if you slightly adjust the recipe, the pin has no reflection, you know, the pin still is the Evergreen pin about the recipe. And so that’s kind of where you’re going with the strategy and then using those keywords for the pin, the description, the title and for your board. 

Shaunda Necole  24:37

Absolutely. And the goal would not be to like, you don’t necessarily need to publish them all that day. That’s not necessary, you can use a scheduler like, again, I’m a fan of tailwind, I’ve used them for a number of years now. But it just makes it easy for me where we pin them. And then we put them into the schedule. After we pin them, we set them to go into their scheduler, which is called Smart loop, I believe it’s still called that. And from their smart loop, we’ve told it, like, we want these pins for chili to go out all year long, because that articles all or that recipe is always relevant. Or we may go heavier in the wintertime, you know, because that’s when more people are cooking chili. So maybe we have set the loop to increase the number of pens, and the winter time, you know, during the cold months for chili recipes, or again, if it’s a seasonal recipe, if it’s like, let’s say Christmas cookies, we’re telling it to pin, you know, between November and January, just so we’re saturating that area, you know, when people are going to be searching for that. So yeah, you definitely want to make multiple pins per URL, and then get them into some type of scheduler where they’re automatically continually pinning for you.

Megan Porta  24:37

Do you recommend creating different pins per URL like if you let’s say I create a new post on chilli for my blog to my go and create like five to 10 unique pins to publish? 

Shaunda Necole  25:14

and then do go reevaluate. So do go back to see which ones perform better and then create pins more based on whatever elements you have on that. The ones that work well. 

Shaunda Necole  26:13

so Pinterest definitely has a pretty robust, I guess, analytics side to it. So does Tailwind. Actually, Tailwind one has a really good one where you can go in and see like what exactly exactly what pins are performing the best for you. So that’s a good feature to use. Nowadays, I honestly just use my Google Analytics. And so where I can see what traffic specifically is coming from Pinterest to what URL, and then I’m just we’re repinning based on like, what articles are doing the best for us. But if you want it to even know like, specific down to what actual pin is performing the best. I know tailwind tells that story really easily. And so does Pinterest. I just found tailwind a little easier. Because they have so many very specific reports that it makes it easy to just go and view your top pins right away and see exactly how they’re doing and what kind of traffic they’re bringing in for you. Okay,

Megan Porta  27:05

and then for the pins themselves for foods specifically, are there certain pieces of a pin that seemed to work really well? Yeah.

Shaunda Necole  27:14

So for food, again, those kind of lifestyle kitchen shots are always good. So whatever the most appetite is probably your cover your feature photo that it’s on your blog, honestly. So whatever that most appetizing picture that’s representative of your food, you want to make sure that you’re putting that are representative of the recipe, you want to make sure that you’re putting that into a pin, and then having a great text. That’s bold text that’s sharing exactly what this recipe is because we want to first draw the readers kind of like where you eat with your eyes. So that’s what we’re trying to get them to do first is eat with their eyes with the with the picture that we have that great feature image, and then the text is going to tell the rest of the story for so if they were like 75% in because the picture is already making them hungry and wanting to make this recipe. Yeah, then the other 25% is the text that we’re going to use. So just some you know some basic probably graphic design rules tearing clear of cursive, because it’s hard to read. So at a glance when you’re on your you know, your tiny smartphone, and you’re saying you know you’re scrolling through hundreds of pins, cursive is going to probably get lost in there. So we want a nice bold text that’s easy to read, and tells us exactly what it is. And the thing to remember with keywords is that keywords are exactly how your users search. So it’s not what you say. And it’s one of my key SEO rules. It’s not what you say it’s what they say. So when we’re using key words, even in your text that you’re putting on the pin, because that’s exactly how users search like Pinterest doesn’t make up just using the example again, let’s making I’m making this up. 

Shaunda Necole  28:46

Pinterest doesn’t do that. If we were to go down like the chili line, you know, chili keyword line or bubbles on Pinterest, and we saw like old fashioned chili recipes or Mama’s chili recipes or Instant Pot chili recipes. Those are actual phrases that people use to search. That’s not something that Pinterest has just decided to categorize these things in Pinterest categorizes them, by how people search for them. And so those categories are actually created by the key the keywords, meaning the terms, or the phrases that people come and put into the search or Pinterest or the search engine. So those are the words that we want to use. Because if that’s how your user says it when they see that then they’re that’s like oh spot on, that’s exactly what I’m looking for. And so we want to make sure that we’re doing that on the pin, the graphic itself, the picture, or the graphic itself. And we also want to make sure that we’re saying that in the title and the description, you know, that we’re that we have a board maybe title, you know, something related to that. So if you’re Chili’s a crock pot recipe, you should have a crock pot recipe board, you know where we’re putting those recipes like that. So that’s all going to be really important because that’s, I call it Google’s love language when I’m teaching traditional, you know Search Engine Optimization In a traditional Google search engine, but it’s really the same for Pinterest, you want to speak Pinterest’s love language and make sure that the the board is relevant. And that we’re not pinning Chili Chili recipes to, you know, a board that’s called Instagram ideas that’s not relevant. That doesn’t make sense. So we want to make sure that we’re speaking very clearly to the search engine, what this pin is about, so that it can show it to the right people that are looking for it.

Megan Porta  30:26

So for the text that goes on the pins themselves, do you recommend sticking with those keywords or creating other things like, I know food bloggers experiment a lot with, you know, creating intrigue or curiosity like something to get them to click over.

Shaunda Necole  30:42

I personally am not a kind of a click bait or click over kind of person, I stick to keywords. That’s probably just the SEO geek in me. And I because I know they work. So yeah, that’s what I would recommend. I can’t tell you that catchphrases don’t work on Pinterest. But I can explain to you why use keywords. For example, catchphrases don’t work on Google, Google is specific to SEO, because there is no visual component there people are searching, and they may see a picture that comes up in search, because of the alt text, or the title, you know that below that the article goes with, that still has to do with keywords, you know, drawing, guess that has to do with key words in the search result if you even see a picture. So the same really applies to Pinterest. So you’d have to lead them with keywords first, because that’s the only way they’re going to find it. And then if you have some sort of like catchy intro, once the keywords have done their job, then that could help your pin get clicked on. But if your title and your description, and your board are not speaking Pinterest’s love language as to what keyword this should be associated with. It won’t be found to begin with, if that makes sense.

Megan Porta  31:49

Yeah, that makes sense. And then are there any other elements of pins that you want to point out that we should be focused on? 

Shaunda Necole  31:56

Yeah, so I am old school with Pinterest because like I said, I don’t typically get caught up in what I jokingly call their identity crisis of doing idea pins and story pins and that sort of thing. How However, now that their idea pins, or I’m not sure if they’re even calling them idea pins or story pins right now. But yeah, whichever you guys get the drift, what we’re talking about, whichever they’re calling them, I believe you can put a link in them now. So if that’s the case, then they you know, could be helpful for you. My thing is always that Pinterest where there’s the vanity metric, like for me, it’ll say like, I have 2 million Pinterest views a month. Well, that’s wonderful and great. But the real number that you’re looking for is not that vanity metric of how many like, you know, impressions are being made, and which is really your views, the 2 million views like they would say that I have, you’re looking for the number of click throughs that’s what matters. So the click throughs. That’s everything, because that’s who’s actually going to your, your site on Pinterest. And so if you have if your click through views are irrelevant course, if you have 2 million, you know, impressions or views, but you only have this would not be the case. But let’s say 20, click throughs for the month. And we know there’s a problem. We want to reevaluate things. But if you have you know, 1000s of click throughs and you know, and a high number of impressions, then you’re on the right track to in the same thing. And I kind of forgot your initial question. I just want to make sure that I did answer that. And what I just said,

Megan Porta  33:22

That was great. No, I was just saying like, just for the pins themselves. Is there anything else that you’ve seen that’s worked, or that does really well for food? Anything along those lines?

Shaunda Necole  33:32

Gotcha. Thank you. Thank you for refreshing me on that. So yeah, you could try story. So for example, those Idea pin idea pins or stories are, if you find that you get a lot of views on that. And that would be your impressions. If you have a lot of impressions on that totally experiment with it. And see, you know, as you add that link in there, do a lot of people click Oh, or I say focus most of your time on traditional pins, because that’s what brings in the most traffic. But if you have the time to commit to, you know, the idea pins kind of thing, then you can try that, like I have video pins, they don’t bring me most of the traffic even though they have a link in there. And that’s because Pinterest users aren’t really trained to click through on videos. It’s kind of like that’s kind of a social media thing. And on social media, like if you go to Instagram, you can’t click through on a video. And so users kind of see it the same way on Pinterest and they don’t really know that you can click through. So Pinterest users are already in the mindset of a traditional pin. That’s what I clicked through. And so that’s what you want to make sure that you’re giving the most of to them.

Megan Porta  34:40

That is great information. Is there anything else you would like to say about keywords?

Shaunda Necole  34:47

Yeah, keywords are the secret sauce. So it just it’s very important. So when making boards I know us as creators, and I am totally guilty of doing this when I first started with Pinterest, but we may create like whimsical boards. And it could be like we have a board that’s called Blue or board that’s called red things are things like you know, and we’re putting chili in there because it’s red. And we’re also putting balloons in there that we liked for a party because they were red or hearts. And we don’t want to do that we don’t want to be whimsical. Or you know, in our artistry, mind, when creating boards on Pinterest, we want to consider keywords again. So you know, if you’re a recipe creator, and you specialize in crock pot recipes or Instant Pot recipes, you absolutely want to make sure that you have boards for that, that you have crock pot boards and, you know, Instagram boards. And you can make them very niche for yourself. It could be like, five minute Instant Pot recipes, or just broadly Instant Pot recipes or, you know, all day slow cooker recipes. They can be as nuanced and as niche as they need to be for the type of food content that you create. But they should definitely be keyword focused. And not just like I think I had one time, I think every woman has a wedding board. And my board was called Vow, which makes no sense to the, you know, to the to the search engine, it doesn’t know what that mean. So we don’t want to do things like that, that I like I used to do when I first started with Pinterest. And then with our titles, I would hope that everyone is using an SEO optimized title on their blog posts. But if you’re not sure that you are doing that already, then just make sure that the titles of your pins are very keyword focused also. And that the boards that you’re pinning them to are also relevant to that because again, this is like the breadcrumbs you know, that are the story that you’re telling Pinterest that this is a you know, a chili recipe for instant pot because the title says that, and the more it’s going to be pinned to a Instant Pot board so that it’s still painting a very clear picture to Pinterest of what this content is about. So it knows who to show it to. And then that’s the same when we get to the description that we want to make sure that they’re you know, whatever keywords we’re trying to be found for that their use in the description. So if that’s about Instant Pot chili, once again, we want to make sure that that is also said in the description so that again, it’s a very clear picture to Pinterest that Oh, I see, she’s pin this to her Instant Pot board. Because it’s an instant pot chili recipe. That’s what the title says. And the description reiterates that it’s an instant pot chili recipe, you know that you know, and whatever other details you have in there to intrigue the reader. Because mostly your title and your description, you’re really just speaking to Pinterest and your board. Some users follow boards, but it’s often that they follow your pin itself or I say follow let me rephrase that for Pinterest. So most users do, too. And you actually can’t follow a board. But they don’t do that as regularly as they would just pin and save your pin your pin that they saw. So when you’re writing your title and description and creating your board titles, you’re really speaking to Pinterest with those keywords. So that you know you’re talking to them trying to speak their love language and paint that picture of what this content is about. So they know exactly what users to put it at the top of the feed for. So that’s really important when you’re thinking about keywords and you’re creating your Pinterest pins.

Megan Porta  38:14

That is so good. This is inspiring. I feel like we’re going to all just want to dive into Pinterest now after this. This is great. Okay, I know you have this strategy that you use called the Pinterest pyramid strategy. Is that right?

Shaunda Necole  38:29

That’s right. And it’s pretty simple, exactly what I just explained to you. So at the base of the pyramid is your board. And we just talked about that making the board keyword optimized. Then the next thing is your title in the pyramid is your title. And same thing making sure that we’re kind of that we’re not kind of but that we are making that keyword optimized for Pinterest also, then the next block in the pyramid would be the description. And we’re doing the same thing that we just talked about with the board and the title that is optimized for Pinterest. And then at the pinnacle of the pyramid is the pin itself, that you’re going to create that beautiful lifestyle pin that also has a graphic that’s keyword optimized, because that’s how users say things. It’s not a guess a keyword. It’s actually what users are saying and what they’re typing into search. And if all those things kind of match and coincide that is your full pyramid strategy.

Megan Porta  39:20

Wow, this is amazing. How much time do you spend on Pinterest every week just out of curiosity?

Shaunda Necole  39:26

Ah, I have a Pinterest because Pinterest is so important to my business because it brings in so much traffic and like most bloggers traffic on my site means ad ads that you know, display ads. And so that’s how the site makes a majority of its money. In addition to that we have products so also some pins mean that they actually buy a product or they come to our site and learn about the product and buy the product. So my Pinterest team member gosh, if I had to guess maybe she’s spending about eight to 10 hours a week on Pinterest, maybe in slow times about four hours a week on Pinterest. And then I actually commit to Tailwind at the end of the month because I just have a really easy strategy with that, that after we’ve pinned like all month long, I go back in at the end of the month. And I will take all those pins and then send them into tailwind smart loop so that they become pins on evergreen repeat because again, that’s a big part of our strategy, and should be a big part of everyone’s strategy that those pins are repinned over and over again. And then one last little tip with Pinterest is also you can get your users to do the work for you. So if you have specially articles that you have a lot of traffic that’s coming to them, I would say like you how you just said every blogger should be on Pinterest. I also think that every article that you write should have a pin in the article that users can click quickly just you know, pin it and save it to read later because they really love the content. And if there are those articles that you have a lot of traffic coming to users will actually do the work for you. And they will save that pin. And there you go with like your pin circulating all over Pinterest and more people finding it and seeing it and pinning it. So just make it easy for your readers. Make it easy for yourself and include a pin in every article and let them do the work of repinning it for you also, organically. 

Megan Porta  41:15

This has all been so inspiring. Thank you. I was just browsing through Pinterest, my analytics. I haven’t looked in here for a while. So thank you for the re-inspiration Shaunda.

Shaunda Necole  41:24

Oh, awesome. That makes my heart sing so good.

Megan Porta  41:28

Is there anything that we forgot that you want to touch on before we start saying goodbye? Oh, no, I

Shaunda Necole  41:33

think that was it. I wanted to make sure that we included like some bonus pro tips. I think we got those those in also, though, yeah, I do hope that everyone on this listening is just as inspired as you are Megan to continue to pin.

Megan Porta  41:45

Me too, me too. It really is worth it. I know. It’s frustrating at times, just like any platform, right? But in the long run, it is so worthwhile to dig into Pinterest. I don’t think that is ever going to change. 

Shaunda Necole  41:57

I don’t either. And just like search engine, or the Google search, and I say to folks that I’m even teaching that you bloggers when I say you as bloggers and content creators, you are the internet. It’s the same for Pinterest, you are Pinterest. We are what make up all the things that people come to Pinterest to find. So don’t ever forget how important you are contributing content to this platform. Yeah.

Megan Porta  42:21

Oh, gosh. So well said. Thank you so much for being here. We really appreciate you and all of your Pinterest value. It’s been a pleasure to talk to you today. Do you have either a favorite quote or words of inspiration to leave us with today?

Shaunda Necole  42:35

one of my favorite quotes right now is there’s no substitute for involvement. And so it just kind of that thing of like, you just gotta be like Nike says just do it. Like, there is no other you know, way to get the reap the rewards or to do you know, to find success, except to get out there and get involved and be doing the thing that you’re interested in. So just get out there. In this case, just pin just get out there and pin.

Megan Porta  43:01

Yes, great way to end, we will put a show notes page together for you, Shaunda. So if you want to go look at those head to eatblogtalk.com/thesoulfoodpot. So tell everyone where they can find you, Shaunda. 

Shaunda Necole  43:17

Absolutely. So yeah, my website is thesoulfoodpot.com. And I’m on Instagram. It’s just my name, which is Shaunda Necole. It’s S H A U N D A, N E C O L E. And actually, we also have soulfoodpot on Instagram, also. And then, for any type of Pinterest teaching, I mostly just teach SEO now, which is definitely relatable to Pinterest. So if anyone were interested in that, that’s on my signature site site, and it’s just shaundanecole.com/consulting. 

Megan Porta  43:47

Okay, everyone, go check it out. I hope you get lots of traction from the episode and just thank you again for being here. I’m so grateful for you. And thank you for listening food bloggers. I will see you next time. 

Outro  44:01

Thank you so much for listening to this episode of Eat Blog Talk. If you enjoyed this episode, I’d be so grateful if you posted it to your social media feed and stories. I will see you next time.