Is Pinterest the Secret to Your Web Domination?

In a recent interview with Cassandra LaValle, market editor for Rue Magazine and owner of Coco+Kelley, she walked me through the amazing potential of Pinterest. This online community could quickly become your No. 1 referral of website traffic and a huge generator of revenue.

So what is Pinterest anyway? Pinterest allows you to add images on a large virtual pin board, from where you went on vacation and what food you enjoy to information about your products and services. The images include links back to their source.

As you navigate the web you are able to “pin” photos to your board. Once the image is added to your personal pin board, the Pinterest community can like it, re-pin it, comment on it or share it through social media channels.

Cassandra is fast becoming an expert on Pinterest. In fact there are days when Pinterest is her top referral source for her already extremely successful website. She shared with me some her best tips for getting the most out of Pinterest.

“Pinterest is a visual bookmarking site for inspiration, whatever that inspiration might be," she explained. "Once on Pinterest the design and ease of use make it very intuitive.”

Like Twitter or Google+ you can follow users and they can follow you back. This helps you control the stream of information you see. If you want to get information about technology or another major topic, you can also sort by niche and see everyone who tagged an image to that specific area.

“The search function has a little to be desired, but they are still small and growing company," Cassandra said. "The biggest issue is people are not properly tagging their images.”

So, how do you use this new medium to drive business?

Here is a list of tips for making Pinterest work for your business:

1. Don’t over-promote yourself. You can pin the images on your own website but keep this to a minimum. Over-promotion is a turn-off in most situations. Remember to have a good description and proper tags on the image.
2. Follow people in your industry and re-pin their images when you like them. Also commenting on others' images will help you build a larger following.
3. Add a “Pin This” button to your website to remind people to pin your images.
4. Marketing is becoming more visual, so think about taking great pictures or producing awesome images in the form of infographics.
5. Make sure you properly source the images you pin.
6. Carve out a market space if one does not exist. If you can’t find it on Pinterest there is a huge opportunity to be the first one in the niche.
7. Follow the leaders. A couple of great companies to follow are Kate Spade and GAP. They may not be in your market, but you will learn from their strategies.

So, while Pinterest may be new, this website is producing huge results for lots of people. If you are savvy about it you should be able to get a good bump in website traffic very quickly.

Jabez LeBret is the author of the Amazon No. 1 best selling law office marketing book How to Turn Clicks Into Clients. As a partner at Get Noticed Get Found, a legal marketing agency, over the last nine years he has delivered over 800 keynote addresses in six countries. His main area of expertise is managing Gen Y in the workplace, advanced Facebook strategies, LinkedIn strategies, Google+, SEO, local directory optimization, and online marketing.