If you have a brand that targets women (and in many cases, even men) you’ve probably heard of Pinterest. The bookmark-style brand has skyrocketed to over 100 million users who log on daily to save some of their favorite products, wedding DIY, dream home decor and fashion styles. Touting a nearly 75% purchase rate (that’s right, 75% of Pinterest users have purchased something they found on the site) it’s a digital platform that can't be ignored.

Thinking about getting into Pinterest or have tried in the past and haven’t seen success? Well, like anything, there’s an art to pinning that can make or break your Pinterest page. Below we’re breaking down some of our favorite tips to help ensure that your pins will get seen, clicked on, and converted to sales.

1. Create a "Buyable Pin" if you can. "Buyable Pins" are something that are still growing in popularity and are still very limited to only certain commerce platforms. However, if you are one of those lucky ducks who hosts their online store on a compatible one, you can easily activate "Buyable Pins". These allow the end user to purchase your product DIRECTLY from Pinterest, making it even easier to get that sale. Plus, word around town is Pinterest is promoting buyable pins more in users feeds than a normal pin. If you have an Etsy store, it's not compatible with Buyable Pins yet, but you can create a "Rich Pin". Pin directly from your store listing to feature the product price and description more prominently than a regular pin.

2. Create an eye catching image. This one may seem obvious but you'll be shocked by how many people pin cut off or poor looking images on the site. A great idea is to create almost a cover photo by combining a great picture with some brief text of what you pin is about or where it links to. Now, you can't add call to action text like "click here" to your pin, but a general title helps give pinners and idea of what they can expect for your pin without having to read it so the chances of them pinning to read later go up dramatically.  Research has shown that vertical images with a 2:3 ratio (the recommended Pinterest size is 735 x 1102 pixels) tend to be the most eye catching and get repinned the most. Need help crafting the perfect pin image? Check out Canva where you can utilize pre-sized templates and get some ideas.

3. Keywords, keywords, keywords. You knew it was coming...  You HAVE to add keywords to the description of your pins if you want to see any traction. People are not only searching for pins within the actual site, but they show up on Google as well. Take a few minutes to ensure your pin descriptions include not only keywords about what your specific pin, but about your business as well.

4. Timing is everything. This one is the big one. Research has shown that pins are the most effective about 20-40 minutes after they are pinned. Because they are shown in users' feeds based on the time they are pinned, they have an EXTREMELY short shelf life. When you sign up for a business account, you'll get access to your analytics. This will help you see when people are responding to your pins the most and what is getting repinned. Take some time to research and test when your users will be online and save your most important pins to go live during that time (although a good rule of thumb is about 2-4pm or 8pm-1am as popular times). However, be careful because....

5. There's nothing worse than going overboard. It may be tempting to pin all your products to your page over the span of a few hours. We get it - You're on a roll, you have a plan and you just want to knock it out. However, because the shelf life of pins is short, it's recommended to spread out your pinning over days, weeks and months, to ensure there's always something fresh in your viewer's feeds. Also, bombarding your followers with 60-70 pins at a time is super overwhelming and may turn them off from your feed. The best rule of thumb is to plan on about 15-30 pins per day, spread out over the course of 24 hours (with your most important ones going live during your optimum engagement time). Now, it's not always ideal to check in to Pinterest at 1am, so check out some scheduling options like Buffer to help make it easier on you.