5 steps to create your first Pinterest board

5 Steps to create your first Pinterest board and take over the world

Are you a simpleton?  Do you read a lot of "Dummies Guide to...." books?  If so, you've come to the right place.  So, your wife told you to "set up a Pinterest board to help drive traffic" to your small business (eg- restaurant, fishing supply store, online junk seller, used tire salesman, pharmacy, or whatever).  But you don't know what Pinterest is, why your wife is on such a rant about it, or how your business could use Pinterest.  And after all you'd rather be applying suntan lotion whilst sipping iced cafe-o-laite.  And anyway, even if you knew how to set up a Pinterest account, you wouldn't know what to do with it.

Let's quit all the pouting and general caterwauling you're doing and set up your Pinterest account and your first "board":


Request an invite to Pinterest.
I have to request an invite?!  What they hay?  Yes, at this point Pinterest still requires an invitation to join.  The invitation must be embossed on 100% linen card stock.  The engraving must be done in 24k gold leaf in 8 pica font.  And, to get an invite in the first place, you must first prove that the engine oil in your car is Valvoline,... no, make that Quaker State.  Anyway, just request the invite and it won't be long before you get an invite.

Create your first "board"
A board is a hard thing made out of wood. Hitting your head on it hurts. But, it's also a place to stick images onto.  Now that you've received your coveted invite to join those of us who are elitist Pinterest pinheads, and your friends are all jealous, you need to create your first board. Before you do so, read this article because it will tell you why you'd want a Pinterest board, and what you are trying to do by creating one.  Within Pinterest, click Add > Add a Board. You'll get a popup that looks like this:

Type in a clever board title, choose a category, and then click Create.

Add pins (images) to your board
There are a couple of methods to add pins to your board.  You can use the Add+ button at the top of the Pinterest page and you'll get the same popup shown above. Then just click "Add a Pin".  But, to use this method, you need to have the image stored on your local computer.  Instead, it's easier and more flexible to install the Pinterest "Pin It" browser plugin so that you can pin images that you have on your website or elsewhere, from right inside your browser. To get to this magical button, you'll have to travel to the land where gnomes and fairies live.  Or, just go to "About>Pin It button" on the Pinterest.com website.  You'll then see this popup:

What the above image means by "Add this link to your bookmarks bar" is that it wants you to save that url as a bookmark in your browser (on your Bookmarks Bar). When you click the "Pin It" button, you'll see this dialog popup:

So, just literally drag the button onto the top of your browser where your bookmarks bar is located.
To use the Pin It button to add a pin to your board
When you are on a webpage where you see an image you'd like to pin on your board, click the Pin It button on your browser bar.  It will present you with a page of all the images on that webpage similar to the below (on this particular webpage there were two images; one with some text in it, and the other of Elaine Benes dancing, which is awesome).

Select which image on the page you want to pin and then you'll see this dialog:

Add a few details
Here you'll have a way to select which board you want to pin the image to, and what text to add to the pin. The text you add is important!  Search engines will see this text.  You should consider using text that relates to your website.  Once your image is pinned, you can Edit it to change the link (the default setting is that your image will link back to the page you pinned it from).

After you've pinned several images to your board, you should look around Pinterest and find similar boards.  Repin some of those images to your board and comment or "Like" other images.  The more you participate in the community, the more people will find your board and repin your pins.  And the more people that visit your board, the more traffic you'll get to your website, and the closer you'll become to world domination, the demise of your arch nemesis, and independent wealth beyond your wildest dreams.

PS- if you don't like the way Elaine dances, I can't help you.  It's awesome.  Come to think of it, get off my blog, you're not allowed here anymore.  You come back, 1 year.