One of the most tedious forms of SEO is link building. Getting a good amount of high quality, relevant links from other authoritative websites takes creativity, patience and a lot of trial and error. Fortunately, as new websites and trends pop up, so do opportunities for new ways to build links. Enter Pinterest.
What is Pinterest?
Very simply, Pinterest is another website that allows you to save the things (mainly images from the web) that you like, think are funny, inspire you or help tell a little about who you are. Some of the recent and most common uses for Pinterest have been wedding planning, home decoration and recipe collection. The site’s main demographic has primarily been women, but as more and more people join and discover the uses of Pinterest this demographic should gradually expand.
Pinterest is defined by three main components:
- Pins
- Boards
- Repins
Pins are images that are added to Pinterest via the Pin It button or uploaded images from your desktop.
Boards are sets of pins that users create, usually around a certain topic (eg. Recipes, Cars, Furniture).
Repins occur when you add an image you find while browsing Pinterest to one of your own boards.
Pinterest is a very simple website to use and explain, but the best way to really understand it is to try it out for yourself. Go ahead and signup, create your profile and then start searching, pinning and repinning images to get a better idea of how Pinterest might work best for you.
Using Pinterest to Build Links for Real Estate Websites
Unless you have a pretty innate understanding of the anatomy of a repin, then you may not be seeing the opportunity for using Pinterest as a link building method. So, let’s dissect a repin so you can easily grasp how and why Pinterest can be a great link building tool.
How are Repins Valuable for Link Building?
The explanation of a repin, provided by the Pinterest Help Guide, is pretty clear on how a repin becomes a great link building tool:
In other words, when you pin an image that becomes viral on Pinterest (i.e. users repin it to their own boards), you are getting a source-link on each of those repinned images that now exist on other users’ boards.
In this example, you will see an example of a repin (with the original source being LuxuryHomes.com):
How to Use Pinterest for Real Estate?
Hopefully by this point, you have already spotted the opportunity in using Pinterest for building links to your real estate website or blog. If not, no worries, that’s what we’re hoping you get out of this article.
The main idea / opportunity with Pinterest is to promote any and all of your best real estate images on Pinterest with the goal of having other users repin them on their boards. We don’t want to leave you with just a broad recommendation so here are some specific ideas of what to pin to create increased interest and engagement:
- Celebrity homes
- Unique photos of top communities
- High resolution, artistic shots of exclusive neighborhoods
- Luxury homes
- Homes with unique architecture
- Funny looking homes
- Ugly homes
- Massive homes / mansions
This short list should get your creative juices flowing.
TIP: When pinning and tagging your photos, think about what a user might search for on Pinterest, NOT what you would want them to search for. In other words, “Luxury Beach Homes in California” may be a little more likely to get some traction right now as opposed to the homes address or something too specific. The long tail will probably come into play down the road, but right now it is a little too specific for the current user behavior.
Don’t Over-Complicate Your Link Building Efforts
One of the advantages that real estate professionals have in the online marketing world is that there are tons of different, but relevant, topics to create content around for online marketing purposes. Everything from articles to videos to images can be created around relevant, interesting real estate specific topics or themes and easily distributed or re-purposed across the web.
Pinterest is just another tool where you can re-purpose already created content – in this case quality images of homes and neighborhoods.
The best advice we can give you is to spend the majority of your online marketing efforts creating high quality, unique content and publishing it on your website or blog first and foremost. Once it is posted there you should then be syndicating and re-purposing it across the web via the numerous social media tools available to everyone (eg. Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Google+, Pinterest, Reddit, StumbleUpon).
Good luck with your Pinterest Link Building efforts. Hopefully you found these simple recommendations helpful.
As always, if you have any questions, comments or suggestion, then please feel free to leave a comment below.