Visual discovery site Pinterest recently announced an improvement to its search offering, called Guided Search. It helps people locate content that they might not think to search for on their own, assisting users by helping them answer questions like “What paper craft project should I try next?” or “What are some ultimate travel locations?” Guided Search takes a user’s input and presents her with a variety of related categories, enabling her to search through trees of content very easily. Search results are filtered instantly, providing users with results that match the refinements they selected. Users can scroll down to view their results.
This search method is a departure from standard web queries; instead of having users enter exactly what they’re looking for and surfacing that information, Guided Search invites them to search a broad term and then adjust as they see fit, getting more specific by choosing additional refinement categories.
According to its blog, Pinterest has not changed the way it ranks search results, so advertisers do not need to make any changes to pins from their business. However, good pin descriptions are crucial, as they are the best way to help Pinners find your content. For optimal Pinterest SEO, you must describe your pins with rich, descriptive keywords that your target audience will be willing to stumble upon.
As Pinterest looks to monetize, Guided Search is a healthy opportunity for inserting advertising content in a non-intrusive way. We could see sponsored search categories becoming a monetization option for Pinterest, which would couple nicely with their yet-to-be-officially-launched Promoted Pins. Pinterest has built up its vast library of visual content, and now is the time to help people sort through that treasure trove of data. Search marketing has always been an effective form of digital advertising, and now Pinterest is poised to insert itself into the second most-trafficked social-media site on the Internet.
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