Have you noticed that Pinterest’s search feature is seriously lacking? I usually have a hard time finding what I’m looking for when I try to search Pinterest. Now to be fair, this isn’t all on Pinterest – it actually has much more to do with our habits (or lack thereof) as users. For example, have you noticed how many images are floating around on Pinterest with little to no description?
Since computers can’t “see” pictures, Pinterest’s search feature relies heavily on categories and the descriptions populated by users. With a description like the one on the left (two colons?), it’s quite unlikely that this pin would show up in a search result for chalk lettering inspiration.
So the first step to improving the Pinterest search function is to start at the source–
1. Add descriptive text to the images you pin and re-pin. For example, while it seems much more natural to include a commentary on a pinned quote, in the interest of helping other pinners find this quote, it’s more advantageous to include text of the quote itself and perhaps a few descriptive words.
Now, am I suggesting stuffing each pin with a million keywords just to show up in searches? No, absolutely not. Don’t be annoying. But adding a brief description can go a long way. I’d recommend sticking to 100 characters or less since that keeps your description to about 3 or 4 lines – the key is to keep in visual and avoid adding a ton of text.
2. Choose your words wisely. Right now, the Pinterest search algorithm is still very simple. It’s improved quite a bit since the beginning, but you still have to “dumb down” your searches a bit. From what I can tell, Pinterest searches rely primarily on the words populated in descriptions and categories. For this reason, if you search for “emerald green button up shirt”, you won’t find any results.
Does this mean there are no images pinned of emerald green button up shirts? Nope. There are, but the problem is, no one has labeled one of these photos with the phrase “emerald green button up shirt” So it’s up to you to do a little detective work and figure out how to broaden the search a bit. By searching “emerald green shirt” I found many images of emerald green button up shirts.
3. Search Categories. When doing a broad search, always be sure you’re searching everything and not just in a specific category. Or on the other hand, if the results seem too broad, you may want to narrow them down to a category. For example, if you’re searching for blue shirts, it would be helpful to search for the term “blue” and narrow your results to a fashion category.
4. Go Straight to the Source. If you’re looking for images from a specific site or source (or if you have your own site and want to see what images have been pinned) you can use this handy trick. Just type http://pinterest.com/source/yoursitename.com/ and it will bring up all the images that have been pinned from that specific site.
5. Use Boards. When searching, if you’re looking for pins on a specific topic, I’ve found it’s very helpful to look at other users’ boards. For example, searching for “Emerald Green” returned a bunch of pins, but many of them were popular images I’ve already seen floating around blogs quite a bit lately.
By switching my search to “Boards,” I’m able to find a ton of different boards that users have created with pins pertaining to the color emerald green. Many of the pins on these boards have no mention of “emerald green” in their descriptions, so I never would have found them in a pin search.
This is a great way to leverage the work that other pinners have already done, find some new inspiration, and maybe even discover a new pinner to follow!
Happy pinning!
These are great tips! I too have struggled with my searched on Pinterest. I will definitely try to be more diligent about my descriptions as well! Thanks :-)