Pinterest & SEO (with a side of AI) w/ Meagan Williamson

podcast

Jul 25

**AI is here, but that doesn’t mean you & your opinions are no longer valid or wanted.**

Get your message out there—spread the word easily with the help of Pinterest & SEO!

In the age of AI, I’ve seen far too many entrepreneurs start to doubt if what they have to say is worth sharing. If that’s you—this conversation with Meagan Williamson is a MUST listen.

Yes, there’s a strong focus on Pinterest in this episode, but it’s packed with advice on why you need not be scared or intimidated because AI’s on the scene.

You’ll also discover which keyword research tool you need for Pinterest, how to properly title images for Pinterest, & which pages you might not want to link to anymore.

Topics covered in this podcast episode:

How long Meagan has been working with Pinterest
The first blog Brittany ever had
If Pinterest can support website SEO & blogging
The difference between Pinterest for Business Owners vs Creators
Which business owners should use Pinterest
How people search on Pinterest
Where to do keyword research for Pinterest Pins
Side rant about NOT using ChatGPT for keyword research
If it’s a no-no to have a Pin link to a paid product
Pages you should/shouldn’t link a Pin to
What to know about image titles & Alt text on Pinterest

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Meet: Meagan Williamson

Meagan is a seasoned Pinterest marketing expert dedicated to helping businesses grow their audience through strategic social search methods. With a passion for empowering entrepreneurs, she specializes in using Pinterest to drive visibility and sustainable growth.

This episode of The Basic B podcast is brought to you in partnership w/ Leah Bryant Co.! Help me reach more service providers like you by following the show & leaving a rating or review on Apple & Spotify!

The unedited podcast transcript for this episode of The Basic B podcast follows

Brittany Herzberg:

Hello, and welcome back to The Basic B podcast. I love having you here each week. Sometimes we're solo, sometimes we're with guests. And today we have a guest. My friend Meagan Williamson is joining us for all things SEO for Pinterest. And yes, I'm leaving it broad because I have no idea where we're going to go, but let's find out together. Before I bring Meagan on, let me introduce you to her. Meagan is a seasoned Pinterest marketing expert dedicated to helping businesses grow their audience through strategic social search methods. With a passion for empowering entrepreneurs, she specializes in using Pinterest to drive visibility and sustainable growth. Hello, my friend. Hello.

Meagan Williamson: I just wanted to make the joke. I'm like, I'll get in that boat with you. Let's go. I'm ready.

Brittany Herzberg: Row, row, row.

Meagan Williamson: Let's see where it goes. Yeah. Will we go in circles? Maybe.

Brittany Herzberg: Probably knowing us. And there's gonna be lots of fun stories. So buckle up, party people. I am so grateful because I had you come into my group coaching program last year and you shared so much about Pinterest and SEO with us that I was like, megan, can we have the same or similar conversation on my podcast?

Meagan Williamson: Right. It's so complimentary. It's like a no brainer.

Brittany Herzberg: Yeah. So I'm really grateful and I have lots of questions to throw at you. But of course, shove anything else in the conversation that you feel is important and helpful.

Meagan Williamson: We will meander through it. I'm ready for all your questions.

Brittany Herzberg: So let's start off with you and Pinterest. Tell us how you ended up in this world. Yeah.

Meagan Williamson: I'm such an accidental entrepreneur. So by training and all my life, I wanted to work with children. I ended up in first clinical psychology, then child psychology, then meandered into neuroscience and finally landed on school psychology. So I did that work for 10 years. I went to graduate school for that. I loved, loved that work. But there was a small sort of like, detour in my life where I was dating someone who wasn't from Canada. So I'm a Canadian, and we did lots of long distance. And of course it came to a fork in the road where I had to leave Canada, left my job in school psychology. And first I lived in Edinburgh, and then we lived in Belfast, Northern Ireland. And around that time, blogging became more accessible. So it was like a dinosaur age of the Internet where we didn't really have a lot of social media. Right. And it was even when Facebook was only available to you if you had a university or college email do you remember that?

Brittany Herzberg: I do. I have a fun story because I was in high school, but I was in high school on a college campus, so I got to join early.

Meagan Williamson: Yeah, it's kind of loophole. Look at you, loophole. And I remember I was at McGill doing my Masters, and my younger, hipper roommate, she was like, have you heard about this thing, Facebook? And I was like, no, what is it? Anyways, I remember signing up for it sort of reluctantly, and it was all about sort of the people you knew. And it was around that time where I started reading blogs. And, well, I read them before that, but like, on my lunch hour, like I worked at a children's hospital, we would read like gossip mags. And I don't know if you remember Fug Girls, but I'd read Fug Girls and it would be like, I'd read about, like, DIY projects, that sort of thing. And so a few years later, I moved to Scotland and my friends all wanted a way to, like, keep up with what I was up to. So I started first a travel blog that was sort of like where we went, what I did. But then when I moved to Belfast, it was like the honeymoon period was over and I was just really bored. Like, as somebody who had always done a lot, I went from working a full time job, having my own money. I burnt through all my money in the first two months. Like traveling to Italy and having nice dinners out. And then the harsh reality of being someone who was, you know, although I had my passport, I was an immigrant in the country and I had a really hard time securing a job. Nobody wanted to hire me. So to fill my brain with busy work, I started blogging. And that is when I discovered what, like, Pinterest was brand new and some of my favorite bloggers were talking about it, that they really loved it. So I got a beta invite when I was just like a budding blogger and kind of the rest was history. Within a year and a half, I had over a hundred thousand followers on Pinterest, their algorithm. The way it used to be was that your profile would be recommended in the feed. So I was sort of like, how I describe it to people who are kind of like, don't remember the old Pinterest is like, I became like a taste maker. Like, I would recommend and curate stuff that I just found beautiful and inspiring while also sharing my own blog content. And I went viral overnight. Like, I went from like, you know, having a few hundred blog readers to like 15,000 in one day. And I was like, this is wild. And literally the rest was history. Like, that is the beginning of my Pinterest story.

Brittany Herzberg: So I actually had a blog way back when I started following photographers, especially following, like wedding photographers, because they would tell you about the couple and how they met and their journey and da, da, da. And so you got the story, plus you got the beautiful pictures.

Meagan Williamson: Love that.

Brittany Herzberg: I know. So then fast forward, I was like, I want to do photography. Signed up for a class, it was canceled. I still had this fancy camera and I was like, what do I do with it? So in order to get myself to do something, I started a blog. And I was like, every day, whether it's the fancy camera or my phone, I'm posting a picture and a little.

Meagan Williamson: Bit about my day. Oh, I love that.

Brittany Herzberg: I don't even think I knew of Pinterest at the time. And that was 2011, so.

Meagan Williamson: Yeah, well, it's right after that, I think. Right. That's in and around when Pinterest came out. And then it was within a few years that it started sort of gaining momentum as a different platform to promote your blog. I love that though. I feel like a lot of us who started out really early and I feel like that's probably why you and I get along so well. There are certain people, and I'm not to say like, people who didn't come from this world, you're allowed in the club too. But there's a group of us who, like, back then, we did things because we had a personal passion or interest. So it was like that's what drove the curiosity and the interest. And then we naturally evolved our skills from like, oh, we love this, maybe we're good at it. And then it became strategic and we saw social media, we saw blogging, we saw SEO evolve. And I think that there's so much that we can learn. Actually, Gemma Bonham Carter and I was on her podcast, so. And her and I have a similar story. Like, we were DIY and decor bloggers. We met in a Canadian blogging event and it was back when, like we were both blogging, working with brands, learning about monetization, and it sort of like really taught the power of like investing in long format content, growing a more sustainable model. Like, what you'll notice is there's this divide of like new creators and old creators. New creators. And again, I'm not trying to diss it, it's just different. Will be like, they'll get on Instagram, grow really big Instagram account, and then they're like, oh, shoot, like, I Haven't grown an email list. I don't have a website. Like, what's SEO? Whereas, like old school bloggers who have been doing it since the early days, their blog or website is their home. And then because they emerged at a time where you had your website and blog first, then you were like, wait, how am I going to get people to find my amazing blog content so I can, you know, make more money? And it's monetized. It was like, I think there's just like a perspective that's a little bit different in that you, like, you really invest all your best resources into your website. And then we see Instagram, Pinterest, YouTube, it doesn't matter, threads, whatever. We see these all as places to bring people back to the thing that we own or that we have the most ownership over. And I think I've noticed, like, I see newer creators reverse engineering and it are kind of like, oh, shoot, like, what do I do? Or what if TikTok disappears? Or what if this disappears? Whereas that mindset of like owning your best assets, a lot of us who are early, like, we saw things emerge. So we just approach content marketing in a, I think a very different way.

Brittany Herzberg: Yeah, I couldn't agree more. And same thing for business owners where they're like, oh, I'm being told I should be on something like Instagram, Let me go do that. Put all my eggs in that basket. Yeah, just like what you said, oh, no, I need to have a website. And then they start scrambling. So it is this very, like, different approach. Strategy first or strategy kind of after, which is really interesting.

Meagan Williamson: Yeah. So when we actually look at Pinterest today, they have Pinterest for creators and Pinterest for business, and it's segmented as sort of like two educational silos. But what I always say is business owners should be looking at the creator resources and the creator should be looking at the business resources because I think that they're really beneficial to both. Like, I was chatting with someone a while ago who also got into blogging very early and I said, like, do you have any regrets? And she said, well, my only regret is I wish, like, as somebody who naturally is good at content marketing, is that I kind of figured out the strategy and the product side of things earlier in my business. And then I think business owners, they're almost too obsessed with the product that they forget to market their businesses or that it's not intuitive for them. So we can learn a lot from creators about how they storytell, how they weave in discoverability how they create a community. And then I think creators and bloggers can take a lot from business owners with understanding. Like, this is my customer journey. This is how people can learn about what I do. And there's like so much we can learn from each other.

Brittany Herzberg: Yeah. I didn't even realize that there are two camps of, you know, creators and then business content because of course, Britney hasn't paid the most attention to her Pinterest. However, it's a go. I have learned that scaling back and really mastering one channel at a time is really the way to go. And when I do Pinterest, I want to invest time in it.

Meagan Williamson: Sure.

Brittany Herzberg: You know, and do it the right way.

Meagan Williamson: Well, it's so complimentary to your own expertise and what you're doing. It just does take a little bit of adjustment and let me like cut you free of that. Like, I don't want any business owner to feel guilty. I think the thing is, is that there's a lot of shoulds in running an online business. And for me I just see it as like complimentary. So when you have the headspace, when you have the time, we all have that list of like, I should be sending another email. I should be, you know, doing some new SEO research. I should be creating Pinterest pins, but those don't really help us in moving forward and growing.

Brittany Herzberg: That is very true. Thank you for that permission slip for all of us, including myself. Oh my gosh, there are a lot of shoulds. All right, let's go down that street though, shall we? Of when someone is like, either I want to reignite my Pinterest account or I'm ready to jump on Pinterest. What's maybe a good first step for a business owner?

Meagan Williamson: So I really have had a lot of shift of like, I think maybe it's a little bit of my like, neurodiversity in that I'm like, it should be done this way. What I will say is each of us is different. Each of us is probably already creating content for our businesses. And we know if you've been a business even for just a few months, you probably have had some things do better than others. So what I like to do is make this as easy as possible. And what I would suggest to people before you invest, before you like, you know, go guns blazing, is actually just look at your best performing content, whether it's blog post, whether it's short form video, long form video. So like YouTube or Reels or TikTok or if you're more information based, it could even be like, you know, you've had success on LinkedIn or Threads, and look at your content that's done well. And I always call it like, repurpose with purpose to Pinterest. So start with the easy stuff, right? Like, I will try out something new somewhere where there's not as much friction for me to create that content. So I can do it quickly. It doesn't require hours of preparation. I'll put it out there, and if it does well, then I'll be like, okay, where else can I take this where I can create discoverability? And the concept works? I always call it. It's like seeding an idea. So if you're a business owner who's created content that does well with your audience, whether that means you're getting email subscribers, product purchases, clients, or even just people liking and engaging in your creating community, look at that content that's done well for you and then bring it to Pinterest and make it, like, as easy as possible. So when I say that you don't have to have a full Pinterest strategy done is better than perfect. So just think about how you could take that content and make it make sense for the platform you're bringing it to. So Pinterest is a visual search engine. You know, much like Google and YouTube, Pinterest is amongst the top three for, like, from the beginning, have been designed around discoverability and pairing problems to solutions. And so what I want everyone to think about is you don't have to do a huge amount of research, but I do want you to think about how your audience, customers, clients are potentially what they are searching for on Pinterest. So it's a little bit different. Like, I get asked a lot and I don't know if you get asked this, Brittany, but people will be like, well, I'm doing SEO. Isn't it just the same? Or I'm on YouTube. Is it the same as YouTube SEO? And we do see, like, if I was like to be able to draw out a diagram on a, on a podcast, you know, we see this, like, overlap. Like there's like the three circles and there's overlap between the three. But we do find that consumption patterns and search behavior of our audiences are slightly different depending on what platform or where they are. And so on Pinterest, you'll get people not searching full questions, they'll just be searching, like, natural wedding makeup, not how to do natural wedding makeup, just like this short phrase. So we tend to see more like shorter keywords being searched and always Remember that, like, you know, people are making decisions with their eyes. So as a visual platform, the same way that a thumbnail on YouTube grabs somebody's attention, you want to think about how you could visually grab their attention and get them to engage with your content when it shows up in their search results.

Brittany Herzberg: I like that. That's a really good point. And I love the idea of see what's working well and then repurposed with purpose. I love that phrase.

Meagan Williamson: Yeah, that came straight from a Pinterest employee. I was interviewing a Pinterest employee for. I hosted a big Pinterest summit in 2020 and I interviewed two Pinterest employees and one of them said, you know, like, we understand that most creators or business owners aren't going to be creating just for Pinterest. And it's this idea that we're repurposing, but we're thinking about where we're taking things. And I feel like I've always embodied that in my own business. And I'd really teach the folks who are in my world. It's the omnipresence versus Omni channel debate. Right? And we've all seen a brand do that, right? They create one idea and they spray it in the exact same format, words, picture, whether it makes sense or not for the platform. And then it's like weird and doesn't make sense for all the locations because that it was created with one platform in mind. You know, I get like, I once saw a coach. I think it was one of my first, like online beefs on threads where a coach was like, why wouldn't you auto publish to all the platforms? Like, I got my client an extra thousand views. And I was like, but what if they took one minute and optimized for the place it was going? Like they could have like a hundred, a thousand times the views or engagement or the right type of engagement. And they were just like, I don't agree with you, like, that's a waste of time. And I was just like, eh, okay, well, you know that it is what it is. If that's what you think, I don't agree.

Brittany Herzberg: I'm with you on that debate, if it counts for anything. I am curious though, you kind of touched on this keyword research for Pinterest. Are we doing this on Google? Are we doing this within Pinterest? What are your hot tips for this?

Meagan Williamson: I think that SEO can. Again, there's overlap when you're doing your. I call them like traditional search engine research. But I would recommend if you are putting that content or promoting something on Pinterest. Do your keyword research on Pinterest. It's free, it's very, very simple. And there's different tiers of research you can do. One very simple one is just jumping into the search bar, adding in, you know, whatever the root word is. And it might be the same root word that you were looking for your blog content or your website. But then what Pinterest is going to do is literally guide you through the different ways of making it like longer or long tail keywords and add adjectives, right? So oftentimes, the way that people are searching on Pinterest, and Pinterest has designed their algorithm to help you refine your search results. So if you're looking for maybe a summer road trip tips, just think about that. Like, it's going to be very different if it's a girls summer trip, if it's across the US if it's with kids, you know, there's like all these different lenses and perspectives of what a summer road trip might mean to you, depending on your stage of life. And so Pinterest will literally let you know what the top searched phrases are related to. Road trip or like, weddings. Like, just think about weddings, right? Like, yeah, there's a summer wedding, but is it boho? Is it outdoor, indoor? Is it maybe black tie? Is it casual? Is it a farm wedding? You know, there's like a garden wedding. There are so many different ways and really that can be guided by the keywords that you're adding. And so what I like to encourage people to do is to always spend time and again, it's free. Like, jump onto Pinterest. Do your keyword research for Pinterest. On Pinterest, they also have a tool that's called Pinterest Trends. It also allows you to do free research. And if you're more advanced and you're already using Pinterest, you really like it. You can also set up a mock Pinterest ads campaign to get an idea of search volume. I know that a lot of SEO folks are like, it can be a little bit annoying because there isn't as much data readily available for us. Like, if you are more advanced and have an advanced understanding or foothold in your SEO strategy. So Pinterest tends to be a little bit more vague. And I'll never forget, I once did a consult with head of SEO for a SaaS company and they were like, what do you mean we can't, it's not the same as, like, we can't get all the Search volume and you know, all this rich data and it's just not available. I will also give the heads up and people don't talk about this, but if you're using ChatGPT, ChatGPT does not gather. Like please don't use ChatGPT for Pinterest keyword research if it does give you anything and of course it will help you. But it's pulling from Google, it's not pulling from Pinterest. So is it better than not doing any research? Sure. But what I would love people to do, especially because it doesn't cost anything, just open up Pinterest and start playing around with what keywords are being searched on Pinterest. And it's not even necessarily always about volume. I feel people can become really obsessed with volume, I think because they feel that that empowers like, well, I'm not going to use that word because it doesn't have as much search volume. But you know, like that can be an argument for why you should be using that, especially if it's part of your differentiation or what makes your product, service or content unique.

Brittany Herzberg: Exactly. Please don't go to Chat GPT for any kind of keyword research. Just if it's a starting point. Okay, fine, but then go use a keyword research tool, whether that's for Pinterest, going in Pinterest or going to some, you know, website, SEO keyword research tool.

Meagan Williamson: Well, I think too like when you don't know any different, especially if you're a beginner, what I worry about is there should be this like caution.

Brittany Herzberg: Yeah.

Meagan Williamson: You know, like this is AI and people are overconfident in the output. And I think if you don't have the ability. So my father in law used to work for IBM and when AI was really emerging he was like, I really worry about people who are beginners because they don't have the critical thinking experience or the subject matter expertise to understand and scrutinize the output. So when ChatGPT or Claude or any AI tool, if I'm using it to help me complete something like right away I'm like, that's not true. Or that's made up. And I have in the past month or so it has completely hallucinated answers for things like look at this document, read this document and extract these ideas. No joke. I'm like, that's not in the document. That's strange. And I'll say, did you make that up? And ChatGPT will say, yes, I did.

Brittany Herzberg: Oh my gosh, it'll actually admit to that.

Meagan Williamson: Yeah. So it's quite worrying that if. And I'm not trying to put people off. Like, AI is very powerful.

Brittany Herzberg: Yeah.

Meagan Williamson: But be very, very careful when you're using it. So I do see people saying, like, marketing roles are obsolete or like, you cannot replace critical thinking. And I think that sometimes when I look at, there's just like outdated information, information that's completely hallucinated, especially about Pinterest. And of course, I'm really, really glad that it has made platforms more accessible. But just remember that there are limitations and it will completely throw you under the bus. Did you hear about what happened this week? So this past week, there's an article about a summer reading list that appeared in 12 national newspapers across the US about your 15 reads for this summer. People started writing into the newspaper saying, like, hey, I was really interested in that article and I looked up some of the authors and I can't find them. Like, these books do not exist. So somebody wrote an article with the aid of AI. It made up books. Brittany. And then, and then 12 different national, reputable newspapers published the article. And more than half of it is made up. And so nobody checked. The journalists didn't do that.

Brittany Herzberg: That's why the question is like, what the crap are you thinking?

Meagan Williamson: Can you imagine your entire reputation? So be very, very careful because it's still happening and you have to know sort of like, what is good quality and when things don't make sense anyways, there's a little tangent besides story, but like, it happens, right?

Brittany Herzberg: Yeah. No, I'm glad you shared that. And that's my thing is that go and use the tools in a way that they are supportive to you. One thing that ChatGPT and all these AI tools are doing is if you try to use them for keyword. First of all, if they're even operating from any kind of best practices, they're pulling from a group of people. I may say something different than three of my friends who are also SEO pros. We all have different strategies and techniques and things like that. And AI just doesn't understand the difference.

Meagan Williamson: No. Well, there's that piece of like, I think really good marketers, whether you're in Pinterest, SEO, Instagram, traditional marketing, advertising is like, we all know that when somebody asks a question, it's a. It depends. Tell me about your business, tell me what you're selling, tell me about your content, what are your goals? How are you tracking those goals? And ChatGPT and Claude. And again, I use AI every single day in my own Business. I don't want anyone to like mistakes about that. But it does not have the ability to scrutinize and take in context. And I think that ultimately like that is when you and I are talking or we're working with a client or supporting a student, it's always like well it depends, let's talk about it. Maybe we'll see AI evolve. Actually my background in neuroscience, like what I know about how the brain works and how we learn and that critical thinking actually it's why probably I will never ever buy a self driving car even if I like the idea of it. I would not because I think that there are just decisions that of course there are always there's human error and mistakes that happen but like there's just unplanned situations that you would need to. I want a human with critical thinking skills to be able to make that decision for me or I make it myself in the end.

Brittany Herzberg: Yeah, I could not agree more. All right, one driving us back to Pinterest. Yeah, I am so curious cause I just, I've been dying to ask you this ever since I heard it a couple weeks ago. Someone was mentioning that they heard from another Pinterest coach, I don't even know who it was that it's not a good idea to pin to. For example like a course of mine or a digital product, anything that's paid. I would love to know again what's the nuance? What's your thought and strategy with that?

Meagan Williamson: Hmm, it's an interesting thought. So I'll tell you what I teach my students or my clients ultimately I think with most social media and you have to remember that Pinterest is best used as top of funnel. It's not middle or bottom of funnel very often. So when we talk about bringing people to a paid product, you might know what my answer is going to be. It depends Britney. So this is what I will say we do see people buying digital products from Pinterest if they tend to be lower priced items or budget digital products. So when I say that I really mean under a hundred dollars if your product is on demand and offers a very like tangible solution to problem. Especially it also really depends on what you're driving traffic to. Like we see teachers selling lesson plans, guess what they sell directly. I have people who are selling planners and all sorts of interesting different types of digital products. I think like people like you and I tend to, we meet other people in marketing who are selling marketing courses. So our niche is quite small. But if you look at like the Bigger scope of that. You could be in any niche or industry. We do see lots of people buying directly from Pinterest, but it is sort of one of those depends. I do find that higher priced items, it's just smarter to bring people into your funnel because they're cold, they don't know who you are. So when you have top of funnel traffic coming to your website and you're sending them directly to a 200 digital product or even say it's 97, they're gonna be like, unless that landing page is a long format landing page that has lots of context surrounding information. Like what I find is a big mistake that a lot of people who sell digital products courses is that they'll drive traffic to their digital product, it might be higher priced and then the product page has little or no information on it. So they're just like, it has a high bounce rate because people are like, well I don't know, like I'm not sure if I'm ready. So what we find is that most Pinners are in the planning mode. So they're like gathering who they might want to buy from, who offers solutions. But the reality is is that oftentimes it will be an assisted conversion. So they find you on Pinterest, but convert via your website, your podcast, your community, your email marketing. And so assisted conversions are really, really important and that's part of that customer journey. So what I do teach is if you want to increase your sales from Pinterest, get them into the places where you are already converting your audience. And for some people that might be Instagram stories, a Facebook community, your email marketing. If your website has a really high conversion rate, then you want to bring them to the places on your what like your high converting landing pages and blog content. So I don't disagree with that person, but I've seen contrary and you know, having worked with thousands of people, I would say it really does depend on the product, who their audience is, how much information and context is on the landing page or the product page. But I do see better like long term investment in your funnel. That's where we really see something magic happen is like, you know, they come in, they start to learn who you are and then you stay top of mind. Like you have to move people from the top to middle and bottom. And so I think email marketing or another platform where you're really creating community and conversations and connection is just a no brainer. So I agree, but I don't totally agree.

Brittany Herzberg: I love that. No, I'm, I'm Here for the nuance. All right, last question. And maybe it's a little bit more of an advanced one, but because I do what I do with SEO, I'm very curious about titling the images and potentially using alt text. It's been a minute since I've been on there and I don't know if it's there or it's back or.

Meagan Williamson: Oh, these are great questions. Okay, so it's back. This is actually really conflicting. So I consulted with a social media accessibility expert a few years ago and their direct information, which I have screenshotted back then, was that if you're using alt text on your website, you do not need to use alt text on Pinterest as it's redundant. So it was a little bit confusing, but I was like, okay, like you know, that's from them. What's interesting to me is that I think the reason why there is an alt text feature right on Pinterest itself is for when people are pinning content that does not lead to an off site and then you do. You should be making accessible to screen readers. So it's more important that you are making your website accessible by using the alt text feature. Please don't keyword stuff. It's awful, awful, awful for accessibility. There is a very large Pinterest coach that teaches that. I've asked them years ago to stop and they told me they would not. I have no idea if they're still teaching it, but as someone who used to work in the special needs area, it's really, really harmful. So there's that now. I was just talking about this with my students, naming your images. So here's the thing is that we know that naming your images are good for your SEO. And oftentimes like those signals between Pinterest and Goog, Google and all the other search engines, there is connections there and it is being tracked. So what I would say is I recommend naming your images because it's just going to be good for your SEO as well. We cannot get a straight answer from Pinterest, but we do believe what will happen is if you name your images or video and you upload those images to Pinterest, they will surface on Google search results in image and short form video.

Brittany Herzberg: Great. I love hearing that. To add like a caveat or an asterisk to that, I'm imagining that we would want to use the Pinterest keywords that we found to name the titles of the images that we're going to use on Pinterest. Would that be right?

Meagan Williamson: Yes. Although I feel like adding in that layer of friction. So like I tend to use Google SEO based keywords for my images because that's what I'm doing for my website. And I feel like adding in one more thing to do sometimes prevents people from just getting active on Pinterest. And also I want my Pinterest pins to surface in Google search results, which I've successfully done recently, as well as short form video. That's part of the social search signals that I'm really, really interested in. And Pinterest is just really like, for lack of a better term, easy. Like it's like low hanging fruit to be able to send those signals and it always has. So back in the day when I ran a Pinterest agency, I used to get a lot of heavy hitting bloggers like literally who made their full time income from their website traffic. These are people making $500,000, 600 up to a million dollars as bloggers. And the reason why they would hire me so always when I onboarded a Pinterest client I'd be like, what are your goals? And you know, product based businesses would always be like, I want to sell, I want email signups, you know, we want to create another audience full time bloggers. And this has always been true historically is they want saves. And it's because we've always known that saves is the metric that pings to Google. And what we would see if is if you could get something to go viral on Pinterest and have a high volume of saves, your Google rank literally within 24 hours skyrocket as well.

Brittany Herzberg: Wow.

Meagan Williamson: So we could get people ranking on Google by sending those signals. And I think in 2025 this is like more important than ever because of all the shifts that have happened with the helpful content update which you know, I know different people have different opinions on, but it's like here, you know, we gotta do something about it. What are you gonna do? And so like good content is good content, but also like thinking about how things are creating authority and relevance in search across the platforms is just like investing in yourself. And I've been quietly playing with it for a year and a half and I've seen the benefits. So I think a lot of people don't necessarily wanna be doing TikTok or Instagram anymore. And so but then it's like, well how are you gon those signals if you're not using those platforms that are now surfacing in Google search results? And Pinterest is the easy answer, especially if you're already invested in blogging and SEO.

Brittany Herzberg: I love hearing that. You've given us so much to chew on, which I knew you would. And that's one reason why I wanted to have you come on. Because, like, every second is just so valuable with you. Now tell us, where can people go now that you've got us? Like, all the wheels are spinning with Pinterest.

Meagan Williamson: Yeah. If you want to learn about Pinterest or growth marketing or search signals and all that good stuff. It's funny because it's like, I feel like when people are like, what do you do? I'm like, well, I do a lot of things. I feel like I've been doing it so long. But I do love talking about Pinterest and, you know, growth marketing and growing businesses. But if you want to learn more about that, you can head to my website. So MeaganWanson.com and my email list is the very best place to learn for me. So that's often where I share, you know, weekly emails about different tips and tutorials and strategies, my thoughts about things that are happening in marketing. But then that's also where I'll share, like, different ways that you can, like, strengthen your strategy using paid products and free things that I run. And I have lots of cool things coming out that are a little bit different in the over the next little while. So yeah, I'd love if people want to learn more just like, or come say hi to me on threads or Instagram. I'm kind of a little bit everywhere. I dropped the term omnipresence marketing. And truly, you know, like, I double dip on all my content. That is just because again, I used to work in the world of like, people who have different learning needs. So like, for me it's really important, like whether it's audio or video or you love to read or you, you know, you like social. I try to make sure that my content and learning is accessible.

Brittany Herzberg: I've had friends that I've worked with and one of them actually, the reason that I even learned about titling images properly is because she had me on the phone and she was a blind web developer. And I love this woman because I'm like, I don't know how you do this job. This is incredible. So she's like, listen to her screen reader read my website. Images weren't titled. Things didn't have alt text. I was like, that's confusing as crap. I am so sorry. So I will never make that mistake again. But it's also like what you said at the beginning, moving forward with Best practices and just doing your best, like, one day at a time.

Meagan Williamson: Well, you know what, though? Your story is an important one because I think once you have met somebody or you're related to or know somebody who depends on that feature to be able to access the Internet, it completely changes how you show up because you're like. If you do it where it's like you're kind of hacking something or using something that was meant for someone else. Like, I always talk about ramps into the. Into a shop or into a bank. Those are really good for all of us. Or like automatic doors. Like, we're so used to automatic doors. But there are people who are in mobility devices or have different needs, and they can't literally go into the bank unless those are there. I think that sometimes people don't realize that they're actually making the Internet inaccessible to somebody. And once you've met somebody, you will constantly think about them and change what you do and use things the way they were meant to so that they can access your website or your social media too.

Brittany Herzberg: Yeah, I love that. And I really love the tip that you shared about making images accessible. If you're sending people to your website, just make sure at least your website images are optimized. If you're keeping them only on Pinterest and there's no real page that they're going to optimize that image. That was my big takeaway, I would say.

Meagan Williamson: Yeah. I meant to say this earlier, that the way that Pinterest has set things up is they know some creators aren't driving traffic off the platform. And so to make. Make their platform accessible to screen readers. That's why that feature. My educated guess. Will you ever get that from them? No, but I believe that that is what the. The idea. I would love to sit down for, like, I was gonna joke for like an hour, but really I would need, like three days with some of their engineers to ask, like, why did you do this? And that would be one of them that I would love to talk to their accessibility team about that. But that's my educated guest.

Brittany Herzberg: I can't thank you enough for being here and for sharing everything that you did.

Meagan Williamson: Oh, you're so welcome. I'm so glad.

Brittany Herzberg: Yeah, of course, for those of you listening, you have lots of things to act on. Go find Meagan. She's amazing to talk with. I'm always hanging out on threads and I see your stuff and she's got pictures of puppies, like, all the time.

Meagan Williamson: Well, that is just like the bones. Those are the cherries. We just gave those puppies back.

Brittany Herzberg: Did you really?

Meagan Williamson: Yes. We fostered respite. Fostered three week old puppies last weekend. That's part of. So in my spare time, I volunteer in dog rescue because I love dogs. It's my way of giving back. And a perk is that I get to look at pictures of puppies every day. Honestly, it's like my guilty pleasure. And if I can help them find a home, that just is the. Yeah, it's amazing.

Brittany Herzberg: I love it. Thank you so much. I so enjoy talking with you.

Meagan Williamson: You're so welcome. Thanks for having me, Brittany.

Brittany Herzberg: Of course. And I'll catch you next time.

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