Is Your Site Pinterest Friendly?

Looking to build your business with the newest social site on the block? Pinterest can be a great way to drive traffic and build awareness for your business and brand. One of the most useful ways to build traffic to your site via Pinterest is to make your site "Pinterest Friendly." Essentially that means that your website or blog is visually interesting and that the images on your site are easy to add to Pinterest.

Your Site is Pinterest Friendly If...

The most important criteria for a Pinterest friendly website or blog is visual interest. Pinterest is a social site where people share images and create theme-based pinboards. For example, many Pinners (aka Pinheads) have created boards titled "My Style" where they pin images of clothing, accessories, shoes and so on. If you have a blog dedicated to fashion your site has a good chance of being pinned if you include an assortment of images.

Now your images aren't limited to pictures. On Pinterest you can pin:

- Images/Pictures

- Videos

- Infographics - graphic visual representations of information, data or knowledge.There are several online tools like visual.ly that help people create infographics related to their topic and niche.

The second essential ingredient to a Pinterest friendly site is the ability to actually pin an image. While anyone with a "Pin This" bookmarklet on their browser toolbar can pin an image, it's not always easy. Images or text embedded in Flash videos and even picture galleries often don't display properly with the bookmarklet and it can be a challenge to actually pin the image you want.

This is quickly solved by adding a "Pin This" button on your site. It solves a few problems. First, it makes it easy for your visitors to add your image to their pinboard. Second it gives visitors permission to pin so they don't have to worry about copyright issues. Finally, a visible "Pin This" button may actually motivate them to pin the image.

Make your images, videos, and infographics easy to pin by placing them on the page rather than displayed as a background. Each item you want to be able to share needs to be saved as an image or a separate file. Also provide nice descriptions of the photos for added information and keyword opportunities. Make sure that the photos and images you place on your blog or website are actually related to your topic.

Finally, if you have a blog consider adding a recent pins plug-in. There are a few to choose from. This plug-in actually links directly to your Pinterest account (or someone else's if you prefer) and it displays the last few pins they've posted. It adds visual interest to your blog and motivates people to pin and to follow you on Pinterest too.