Pinterest: The Most Underrated Social Network for Business?

When you’re growing a business, social media is a powerful communication channel. You can share practical tips, promote your products and services, and above all, start conversations with customers, build a community, and keep it engaged.

Facebook and Instagram are still the go-to platforms, but there are other places to boost your visibility.

Pinterest is one of them.

With its unique mix of social network and search engine, Pinterest has earned a special place in many social media managers’ toolkits. Here’s why Pinterest marketing for business deserves a closer look.

First Things First: What Is Pinterest?

Pinterest works differently from the other social media platforms you know, and that’s what makes it stand out.

The concept? A giant catalog of ideas.

Pinterest is a place to get inspired, shop, and find tomorrow’s ideas, all easy to share with others.

People use Pinterest to plan purchases and spot trends. That makes it a real tool for catching consumers’ attention at the very start of their buying journey.

With 640 million monthly active users worldwide (Pinterest’s figure for the second quarter of 2026), Pinterest is a great place to grow your visibility.

Businesses and brands can showcase their products, services, or expertise. Through inspiration, they can spark desire and interest, and drive sales. A large share of what people find and save on Pinterest comes from businesses.

Pinterest: An Ideal Playground for Your Marketing Strategy

How can you make the most of this platform for your business?

Let’s get to the heart of it. When you’re growing a business, it’s tempting to try everything, but what you really want are results.

Your story with Pinterest starts with a website.

Pinterest: A Visibility Booster for Your Website

Once your business starts to grow, word of mouth isn’t enough anymore. In an increasingly digital world, a website becomes a necessity (here’s why your business needs a website, even if you’re active on social media).

But to pay for itself, your site has to bring in qualified leads and sales. To get there, you need visibility, traffic, and finally inquiries and sales.

Pinterest can help. But how?

If you think about it, Pinterest is a clever mix of marketing channel, search engine, and social network. Let us explain.

Pinterest plays on people’s wants and aspirations. When you post Pins, you influence them. The content on Pinterest meets the needs of a community by offering solutions: inspiration, products, tutorials, and more. That makes Pinterest a powerful marketing channel.

It’s also a social network. You can like, comment, share, and connect with others, just as on any social platform.

And Pinterest is a search engine, too. Type keywords into the search bar, and the platform returns results.

Each Pin points to a piece of web content (an article, a product, a service) and is indexed on the platform through an image.

There’s one major difference: Google crawls the entire web, while Pinterest search is based only on content shared on the platform.

Also, unlike content on many other platforms, a Pin can keep surfacing for months, not minutes. That’s a far cry from the short life of an Instagram post.

This comes down to Pinterest’s search engine: its algorithm keeps serving more targeted content based on the keywords people type. So if your Pin is relevant and answers a search, it will keep coming back.

Pinterest’s Secret Recipe

Pinterest: An Organic Traffic Booster

Now that Pinterest is a little less mysterious, let’s look at how it can increase your website traffic and even win you an extra spot on Google! One more spot on Google means one more chance for people to find you.

At Référenceur, we’re always looking for new ways to get you more visibility online. Let’s go!

Every Pin Is a Signpost to Your Website

As we said, Pinterest is built on Pins that people can save, share, and read.

Each Pin represents a piece of web content and includes a link that takes people straight to that content on your site.

When people browse Pinterest, they can click a Pin to learn more and land on your website. That’s a social visit, and a few extra visits for you. If you turn that visitor into a lead, even better!

A Pin is a bit like a book cover: it makes you want to open the book and start reading. In this case, it makes people want to visit your site.

Pinterest and Google: A Friendly Relationship

Pinterest content can also show up in Google. If your content is on Pinterest, it can earn extra visibility on Google’s search results page.

Pinterest boards and Pins regularly appear in Google results, often for “ideas”-type searches. People can get inspired and click your Pin to reach your website.

That’s one more result on Google, and one more path to your site!

Your Turn

Here are a few tips to get visible on Pinterest:

• Create a free Pinterest business account, and optimize its name and URL.
• Optimize your profile description with keywords related to your field.
• Create boards with keyword-rich titles.
• Add a Pinterest “Save” button to the images on your website so visitors can save them to their own boards.
• Claim your website on Pinterest so your profile picture appears next to Pins saved from your site.
• Research popular keywords in Pinterest search and use them in your strategy.
• Use the right image formats (Pinterest favors vertical images) and give your files descriptive names before you post them, the same habits that help with image SEO.
• When you publish a Pin, fill in every field: a keyword-rich title and description, a call to action that makes people want to click, and alt text. Check that your link works, too.

You’re ready to conquer a platform that could give your traffic a real boost! When you want to go further with paid campaigns, see what Pinterest added with its AI-powered ad tools.

Need help or tailored advice? Référenceur is a digital marketing agency from Belgium and Luxembourg, with a French-speaking team that also works in English with U.S. businesses, remotely. Get a free assessment of your social media and SEO strategy.