The best way to code your Pinterest description, so that Pinterest pulls it properly and you properly use your alt tags for SEO.
…Yes there’s a better way, and most people don’t realize they are making this mistake. 
Please note that this article contains affiliate links. You can read my full disclosure at the bottom of the page. I love Pinterest, and I get a lot of traffic from there (currently 170,000-180,000 page views/month ro my site). I love the extra traffic and I love how it jump starts my SEO so I get to Page 1 on Google much faster.
By the way, if you’re looking to accelerate your Pinterest traffic, I’d highly recommend Carly Campbell’s Pinteresting Strategies course. It is excellent and the biggest reason for my Pinterest Success. Pinterest is great, but it’s not intuitive, and she explains how to get through the maze. it’s very reasonably priced and extremely popular. It will save you a ton of time and frustration. Believe me. I can not recommend it enough.
Anyway, a lot of people have questions about the proper place to put their Pinterest descriptions so they pulled correctly. And, I’ve noticed a lot of bloggers have been inadvertently making a big mistake here…and it reduces their SEO. I’m sure they don’t realize the mistake, so I want to point it out, and then the simple solution for it. (You’ll see…once you understand it, it’s easy). And, I also want to point out that lately Pinterest has another glitch.(What else is new?) so it doesn’t seem to be pulling the rich pin descriptions properly (instead, it’s just pulling the blog post titles). The good news is that the below solution solves both of these issues. As many of you know, I have a huge focus on SEO, and it has been both the strength and the backbone behind my blog. It is the key to making more money on affiliate marketing (and yes, you can make much more money from affiliate marketing (as well as selling your own products) than ads. (And, of course making money on all 3…and even more income streams is better)…and SEO can help you in ALL of these.
Side note, if you want to learn SEO and/or improve your SEO game, check out my 2 SEO books. They have been a huge success and they are super easy to read and understand, even if you’re a beginner. The first book is Easy On-page SEO (the first step in SEO -optimizing your article for users and search engines). The 2nd ebook is Easy Backlinks for SEO. It’s all about improving your domain authority and building backlinks to strengthen your blog posts. This is the 2nd step in SEO. They each account for 50% of rankings.
Soooo…while I love Pinterest, I never want to do it at the expense of sacrificing my SEO. Hence, this solution… The mistake that many (maybe even the majority) of people make is to put the pin description in the alt tags. This is not a good idea for SEO! Why? Because your alt text should be optimized for SEO and the user experience. The “alt” attribute allows you put in alternative text for the image if it can’t be displayed (e.g. slow internet connection, faulty images, or if the person is using assistive technologies such as a screen reader.) These descriptions also tell Google what your image is about helping both your post and your image rank (sometimes, this can help you get into the featured snippet or picture searches a the top of Page 1 (as well as when people do image searches).
Now, Pinterest descriptions have a very different purpose. Your goal is to use the description to both get the user to click to your site and use key words (and even hashtags) to get found in searches in the smart feed. Pinterest descriptions are usually much longer as they are are more descriptive to create curiosity and/or benefits of reading the blog post or buying a product. You may use lots of key variations and hashtags. And, well, if you haven’t guessed already, many of these conflict with the usage of alt text. Alt text should be short and sweet (and descriptive of the picture). Generally, they should be 6 words or less and probably never longer than 8 words. You need to avoid key word stuffing w/ lots of variations and words in the same alt text. If you do this, it is spammy and will actually hurt you. So, what should you do instead???? How can you optimize for both??? Simple.
1. Upload your pin image..as normal. Make sure the title of the picture is descriptive/key word rich before you upload it.
2. Add in the alt tag as you normally would (or should…see above)
3. Add in the data pin description into the code…read on to see how. (hint: once you know to do this, it’s easy. I promise).
Here’s what the code will look like: data-pin-description=”your pin description” Inside the quotes, you will just type in your pin description. Now, here’s where to insert it (the easy way). Click on the pin (when you do this, it will take you to the right place in the hmtl), then you will find all of the gobbledigook for the image. It will look something like this:
<img class=”alignright size-full wp-image-15393″ src=”https://theflooringgirl.com/wp-content/uploads/Why-agreeable-grays-with-everything.jpg” alt=”Agreeable Gray is the perfect greige paint” width=”300″ height=”625″ />
Then, put your cursor right before the / at the very end, and then type in: data-pin-description=” ” Be sure to make sure that you close your quotes and that there is a space before the word data and a space before the slash. So it will look something like this:
<img class=”alignright size-full wp-image-15393″ src=”https://theflooringgirl.com/wp-content/uploads/Why-agreeable-grays-with-everything.jpg” alt=”Agreeable Gray is the perfect greige paint” width=”300″ height=”625″ data-pin-description=”Why agreeable gray goes with everything and is the perfect greige paint color. I love this warm gray shade, and it works in all rooms. #agreeablegray #greige #warmgray #painting #gray #homedecor” />
Then just switch back to the visual tab and you’re done. That’s it! As you can see, once you know this trick, it’s easy to code this on your blog post. You don’t need to know html…you just need to be good a copy and paste. Just copy and paste data-pin-description=”your pin description here.” And, once you’ve done this the first time, you can copy and paste from there. Alternatively, you can buy a plugin to this for you. Tasty Pins is a wonderful solution, and it’s just a one-time cost. While it’s relatively inexpensive, I prefer to avoid plugins when possible (because they can slow down your site and sometimes conflict with other plugins (which can cause a lot of headaches later down the road). So, I prefer to do it the old fashioned way and just code it. Once you get in the habit, it’s easy to do. So, I hope this topic is helpful.
Blogging resources to jump start your blog traffic and income
- Amazon – I love affiliate marketing on Amazon. For the last 5 months, I’ve been earning over $3,500/month just from Amazon. Here are 2 super helpful Amazon ebooks that allowed me to leap frog my previous results.
- Cracking the Code on Amazon – This is for beginners and really covers the types of articles you should be writing to drive Amazon commissions It’s for beginners.
- Niche Post Conversion Strategies – Seriously, I think this is the best ebook/course I’ve ever taken. I can not recommend this enough. You will not find these tips anywhere else. It skyrocketed my sales on Amazon.
- PINTERESTING STRATEGIES: – Pinterest is one of the easiest and most effective ways to drive massive traffic to your blog, especially if you are just starting out. I generally get 140,000 to 180,000 pageviews a month from Pinterest. If you want a jump start on how to use this amazing platform, check out Carly’s course. It is simply awesome. She is so down to earth and straightforward, and you’ll see that in her writing. I LOVE this course (it was formerly an ebook, but now it’s new and improved.
- SEO – As you know, I’m hugely into SEO and it has been the key to my success. I generally get 200,000-225,000 SEO pageviews per month, and this traffic converts much better than Pinterest and other social media channels (especially when it comes to affiliate marketing, products and email sign ups. I estimate that every pageview from organic traffic is worth at least 3x as every pageview from Pinterest! Yes, 3 times as much! And, it’s much steadier, more sustainable and more passive. Check out my 2 SEO books.
- Easy on-page SEO (for beginners and intermediates)
- Easy backlinks for SEO (for intermediate and advanced bloggers)
- Affiliate marketing – I love affiliate marketing and have been earning over $7,000/month just from affiliate marketing. I highly recommend Carly’s affiliate marketing course. It’s amazing and half the price of some of the bigger bloggers’ programs…and I think it’s much better, too.
- Email marketing – Learn from the master, Jennifer Maker. She has over 100,000 subscribers in around 2 years. She’s an incredible teacher. Her ListLove course is amazing. That link has my exclusive $25 off coupon. You can start with her FREE email course here.
- Getting started/setting up your blog – If you’re a very beginner and need help in just setting up your site and getting everything set up, check out Tracie Richmond Fobes’ FREE intro course. She goes over all that critical stuff at the beginning that no one seems to cover, but everyone needs to know such as site structure, how to set up google analytics correctly and google search console, which plugins to use (and which to avoid). She is a wealth of information. (and she has may other courses that are soooo good).
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- How to earn extra more money while you’re growing your blog
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