Positively Sensational Pinterest SEO Jewels

Have you set up your Pinterest business account?

Did you know there is a SEO bonus by doing so?

The Internet has been buzzing the past few days with the breaking news that Pinterest has officially opened the door for businesses.    You may now choose to set up a new Pinterest business account or convert your personal account to a business account.  This is fantastic news for businesses and organizations who would like to harness the power of Pinterest and expand their Internet marketing efforts.

Once you have created or converted to your Pinterest business account and filled out the account information in settings and have verified your website, you will notice that your website’s URL is a valid link.  A closer look with tools like Firefox’s Firebug or Chrome’s right click > Inspect element will show that the link does not have the rel=”nofollow” value.  The following are examples using Social Solutions Collective’s Pinterest business page to show how to inspect a link in Chrome:

Example of Chrome’s “Inspect element”

Notice that the link in this example does not have the rel=”nofollow” value in it.

What does rel=”nofollow” mean?

The rel=”nofollow” value is added to an HTML link to tell the search engines not to count the link’s influence in the ranking in the search engine’s index.   The intent is to reduce spam indexing.   In essence, when a link has the value in it, it will not count towards the linked page’s ranking.  An example of a rel=”nofollow” value in HTML is:

Social media networks that do use the rel=”nofollow” for the page owner’s website link include Facebook and Twitter.  By using this value, the link does not count as a backlink.

What is a Backlink?

Backlinks are links from other web pages that link to your website.  Also referred to as incoming links or inbound links, they are one indicator that the search engines use and are similar to a popularity vote.  Search engines use backlinks and a number of other signals to rank web pages to determine in what order they will place in search results.

The SEO Benefit

As Pinterest does not include the rel=”nofollow” on a business account website URL, the link then becomes a backlink which in essence will count as a “popularity vote” for search engine ranking.   Search engines have typically used the number of backlinks that link to a website as one of the most important signals for determining the site’s ranking, popularity and importance.  There are other factors that influence the backlink’s value including the authority of the site linking to other sites and the anchor text that is used in the link.  The Pinterest website backlink may not be a top ranker, but it is still a backlink.

Take Away

Pinterest’s growing popularity and the launch of business pages has opened up an exciting new avenue for online marketers to develop the social media network into a valuable marketing channel.  The bonus is the SEO jewel of the valid website link that should count as a backlink.

If you haven’t had the chance to open a new business account or convert your personal one to a business account, please see: http://business.pinterest.com/.

What are your thoughts?  Are you excited about the new Pinterest business page opportunities?

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Robin Strohmaier

Creative Director at R & R Web Design, LLC

Robin is passionate about helping others reach their Internet objectives through a strategic online presence. Fascinated with the growing potential and power of the Internet, she founded R & R Web Design LLC in the Chicago area in 2000. A published author, she is detail orientated and is a strong advocate of writing compelling and logically optimized content for one’s audience, not for the search engines, with strategic keywords and phrases.

@RRWebDesign

Michigan web design company offering results driven custom web design, search engine optimization and marketing.

Savvy 7 Interview Series: Brandie McCallum - Social Solutions Collective http://t.co/oZaASAoQHj via @collectivess by @carriejkeenan - 4 hours ago

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