3 Steps For Cleaning Up Your Pinterest Profile

Remember the days when Pinterest first began and we’d just spend hours upon hours scrolling and repinning? In my mind, those days are over and Pinterest has more of a purpose. We’re over the mindless scrolling and can now easily find exactly what we’re looking for within minutes. It is a powerful search engine.

But here’s the thing. Not all pins are created equal. Are you pinning relevant, up-to-date information? Do the pins go to the sites you think they go to? Well, let’s find out and do a little Pinterest spring cleaning!

Step 1: Clear out old pins

This one will take some time, but it’s really important. You need to go through all those old boards, scroll to the bottom, and start getting rid of the clutter that isn’t accurate, isn’t of interest, or just doesn’t reflect the image you want to portray. I almost made a huge Pinterest faux pas the other day with the “pin now, review later” mentality. There was a pin that showed a social media posting calendar that looked pretty spiffy and I thought I might want to look at it in more depth later. Then a little Google+ icon caught my eye, and I was like, time out. Who is recommending I waste time on Google+? So I took a deeper look and not only was it recommending Google+, but Instagram wasn’t even listed! So obviously, I don’t want to repin this in 2018. And while you’re at it, take it a step further and actually click on the pins that make it through the first filter above and make sure they’re still going to an accurate site. Many pins lead to non-existent (or inappropriate) websites, and you don’t want to be known as the person that sends people to “no man’s land” through pins.

Step 2: Reorganize/Rename boards

Now that you’ve gotten rid of the clutter, let’s think about reorganizing those pins. Go through the same filter process with your boards as in step 1. Are the board names old terminology? Could topics be combined or split up? There’s a great new feature on Pinterest where you can now create sub-categories (or “sections” as Pinterest calls them) within a board. So for instance, you could create a travel board with sub-categories like Europe, Carribean, Disney, etc. This is a great addition for organizing boards with a lot of pins! Again, we’re trying to minimize the need for endless scrolling, and create direct search results.

Step 3: Write a description for your boards

Now that you’ve cleared out old pins and reorganized your boards, you need to make sure people can find your stuff! So lastly, don’t forget to write a board description for each of your newly categorized masterpieces. Be specific to your topics and be sure to use keywords around your niche to improve searchability. People are becoming smarter about searching what they want to find on the internet, so you want to use words that lead them directly to it.

So for instance, if you have a board about blogging, write a description about what types of things people can learn from your board: “Collaborate with other bloggers to learn about incorporating SEO, affiliate marketing, keywords, social media marketing, and royalty free photos into your blog”. The more specific keywords you use, the better quality audience you’ll reach.