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Last updated on October 10th, 2019
Are you a small business owner struggling to find your way in and around social media? This simple guide will help you tackle the landscape of Pinterest. Ready? Let’s explore.
!
## WHAT EXACTLY IS PINTEREST?
 is a visual bookmarking tool (according to Pinterest). Most people consider it a social network. But it’s not really anything like  or .
If you scroll through a Pinterest feed, you’ll see  a stream of IMAGES or VIDEOS with descriptions (called PINS).
!On a laptop, they resemble a colorful collage. This is different than the vertical column of posts you’d see on Facebook and Twitter.
Also people don’t really go on Pinterest to engage with others. They interact with each other mostly by re-pinning each other’s PINS which they place on customized, themed boards.
Just by looking at a Pinterest feed, you’ll see instantly that it doesn’t resemble Facebook or Twitter.
Another difference is that Pinterest users can access PINS later. PINS (that link to your website) can last for months or years unlike most social content, whose lifespan is measured in minutes.
Also see 
### UNDERSTANDING PINTEREST BOARDS
Just like pinning to a corkboard, you pin the content you like to your own virtual boards. Users create boards for just about any topic. Businesses create boards related in some way to their brand.
### PINTEREST FOR SMALL BUSINESSES
Pinterest is a great tool for small businesses. It is especially popular for brands with tangible products. If you have a business blog, you should also consider Pinterest.
Put your blog post title on an image in your blog. Go for taller PINS. Vertically-oriented PINS look better on mobile screens. Then add your company logo to the bottom of it. Pin that image to one of your Pinterest boards for others to discover. If your content is interesting and you have headlines that grab people’s attention, people will share it on Pinterest.
### GETTING STARTED
You first have to sign up for an account. For businesses, be sure to sign up for a “” You can upload a profile picture, pick a custom username, and write a summary about your business. You can also link to your website.
### PINTEREST PINS AND BOARDS
**Ready to PIN?** If you find a PIN you like on Pinterest, you can save it. If you find an interesting board, you can follow it.
But before you can pin anything, you need to create your own boards. PINS are the content you share on Pinterest. Boards are where you save your PINS. Name your boards with short phrases that are related to your brand.
### TAKE TIME TO EXPLORE
Exploring Pinterest will help you better understand it. See what others are sharing. You may find PINS with links to some amazing articles that other business owners have written. You can save these PINS to one of your boards.
There are all kind of PINS on Pinterest. You’ll see infographics, photos, cartoons and even Buyable Pins. Buyable Pins let people buy products on Pinterest. They have a blue price tag, which tells people your product is in stock and available for purchase.
### 5 GREAT WAYS TO EXPLORE PINTEREST
#### 1) Scroll through your home feed.
When you first login to Pinterest, you’ll see your home feed. Your home feed shows recent pins from all the Pinners and boards you are following along with a few Promoted Pins and Pins that Pinterest has picked for you. One nice feature of the Pinterest home feed is that it has endless scrolling. As you scroll, more and more Pins are loaded onto the page.
#### 2) Use the Search Bar.
Across the top of most pages you visit on Pinterest, there’s a large search bar. To the left of the search bar, you’ll see the **Pinterest logo.** To the right of the search bar, you can click on your **Profile Picture.** Clicking on it shows a drop-down menu with options.
**Ready to Search?** Type the term you want to search for in the box at the top of the screen. You can use the search bar to add keywords of topics you are interested in.
You will also be able to switch from searching ALL PINS to searching YOUR PINS then switch to BUYABLE PINS, PEOPLE or BOARDS.
In the image below, the word typed into the search bar is “coffee.” The “All Pins” tab below it has been clicked to show PINS related to coffee.
#### 3) Try Guided Search.
If you’re not sure what you’re looking for, try using “Guided Search.”
**Guided Search** offers a variety of options related to your search. This colorful tabbed bar will show up once you type something into the search bar. Click any of the guides that appear to help refine your search. You can continue to type in the search bar to get even more precise returns.
If you typed in the words “pinterest” and “business” into the search bar (as in the example below), guides such as “Account,” “Tips” and “Marketing” with colorful backgrounds appear below it.
**4) Try Instant Ideas with the “MORE” button.**
**Instant Ideas is one of those tools that has the WOW factor. It wowed me and actually inspired me to write about it.**
This remarkable visual discovery tool improves the user experience on Pinterest. This is more important than it sounds. You have to keep in mind that you are a Pinterest user too, not just a marketer. Your experience has to be “enjoyable” for you to keep coming back. Instant Ideas not only makes it easier to explore Pinterest, it’s actually fun! You will only be able to truly appreciate it by trying it out.
**Let’s take a closer look.**
See a PIN you really like in your Pinterest home feed? Tap the CIRCLE (with the word **“More”** next to it) in the bottom-right corner of the PIN to see similar ideas. No need to type in the search bar. No need to know what the product is called. When the circle is tapped or clicked on, around a half-dozen similar pins appear right below or around the pin you like, pushing other pins out of the way. Pinterest can identify colors, shapes, and textures to bring you those related ideas.
If you’re bored because your feed is overflowing with infographics, **Instant Ideas** can come to your rescue and transform your feed. Tapping the **“More”** button on a black and white photography pin would change the feed to show more black and white images. Tap or click to see more of whatever catches your attention.!
Exploring this way is a lot more natural than using the search bar. You can continue to press the **“More”** button until the exuberance wears off. With the simple click or tap of this addictive little button, you may discover content or products you didn’t even know you were interested in. Pinterest is counting on that!
#### 5) Use a Feature called EXPLORE on Pinterest
Pinterest has another interesting feature called Explore to show trending ideas. On your computer, click the Compass button to the right of the search bar to find it. On your phone, tap the magnifying-glass icon at the bottom of your screen. Go to EXPLORE when you want to see what’s trending on Pinterest. It will display not only popular pins, but also videos.
Once you’re comfortable navigating through Pinterest, you may want to consider adding a nice PINNABLE IMAGE (similar to the one at the bottom of this page) to your next blog post on your company website.
Pins with blog post titles are popular on Pinterest because people understand what they are linking to. Someone else may spot your image, check out your article and then decide to share your PIN to his or her Pinterest profile. Then 5 more people may re-pin that content and so on and so on. That’s the beauty of Pinterest.
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Last updated on July 31st, 2019
If you have a small business website, especially one that you haven’t paid much attention to lately, you’ll want to take a moment to read this blog post. Things are happening on the internet that will affect your website.
* Perhaps, you’ve just checked your site and seen the words “**Not Secure**” before your   in a web browser. Now you’re wondering why.
* Maybe you’ve been told you need to add a  to your website and you’re wondering why and how.
* Perhaps you just discovered “” when you logged into your WordPress dashboard. “What on earth is Gutenberg?” you say to yourself.
This blog post explains each one. It’s not the most enjoyable blog post to read or write. It’s pretty darn serious. But it ranks high in importance for owners of small business websites.
Don’t sweat the technical details included with the 3 tips. They’ve been added to help motivate you to take action. If you get bogged down, go straight to the ALERTS.
Let’s get started.
### Tip #1: Your website needs an SSL certificate.
(If you already have one, skip to )
A few years ago, SSL was recommended for eCommerce websites and specific pages of websites where sensitive information would be transmitted or received. In **2018**, that has changed. Now all websites need an SSL certificate.
**What is an SSL certificate?** It’s a digital file that establishes a secure connection between a web browser and a site server. It has a public key and a private key that work together to establish the secure connection with encryption. The certificate also contains the identity of the certificate/website owner.
**3 Levels of Trust**
There are three main trust levels for SSL Certificates (from highest to lowest): Extended Validation, Organization Validated and Domain Validated.
* **EV Certificates** (EV) include the most company data. Companies must meet the highest, most stringent requirements to receive this type of certificate.
* **OV Certificates** (OV) also include business authentication. Information about a company is included, but, is not as prominently displayed as in EV Certificates.
* **DV Certificates** (DV) are the most basic type of SSL Certificate, with the least amount of identity information included.
**How to Recognize a Website with an SSL Certificate**
When you visit a website with SSL, the URL says “**” instead of “**“.
The ‘**S**‘ at the end of HTTPS stands for ‘Secure’.
### Understanding HTTP and HTTPS
**What is HTTP?**
When you type a website address (URL) into your browser, the browser (such as Google Chrome) sends an HTTP request message to the server, asking it to send a copy of the website to your computer. The server response contains the web page you requested. It is sent to your computer using HTTP. When you send information back to the website, to log in to it for example, your computer also communicates with the server using HTTP. But, communications such as these are sent in ‘**plain text**‘ and could be read by hackers that manage to break into the connection between the browser and server.
This is where the secure version of HTTP, known as **HTTPS**, comes in to provide a more secure connection.
!Using HTTPS, the messages sent between the server and computer are scrambled so that no one in between can read them. This keeps your information safe from hackers. They use a Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) to send the information back and forth. You can tell if a site is protected by SSL encryption, when you see a “**padlock**” icon and HTTPS before a page’s URL in the address bar of a web browser (such as Chrome or Firefox).
In the past, SSL used to slow page load times by 3-4 seconds per page. Now the delay is barely noticeable. SSL not only secures information transmitted between an online business and its customers, it also has SEO benefits.
If that is not enough to get you to take action, this probably will. In 2018, Google is no longer just encouraging website owners to install SSL Certificates, it is putting more and more pressure on everyone to do it.
**Read: .**
!ALERT: If you don’t have an SSL Certificate, Google Chrome is going to flag your website.It has already begun marking all HTTP sites as ‘**Not Secure.**’ In October of 2018, websites without HTTPS certificates that are visited with Chrome 70 will trigger a RED “Not Secure” warning.
**READ:** 
Now we’re moving on to Part 2 with Tip #2.
## PART 2
### Tip #2: Your Website needs a Privacy Policy.
**!What is a privacy policy?** A privacy policy lets your website visitors know what type of data you’re collecting from them and what you’re doing with that data. It may also provide information about how you’re collecting data, how you’re storing it and for how long. If your website is incorporating third-party tools such as **Google Analytics** to capture user data, your privacy policy needs to mention this too.
Privacy policies provide a safeguard… not only for your visitors, but also for your online business. They are also legally required if you are collecting any type of information from your visitors, such as names and email addresses.
Read: **.**
!ALERT: You must also comply with the  if you “collect and process data” belonging to European Union (EU) citizens, even if your company is located in the **United States.**
If you offer **products** or **services** to European Union (EU) citizens through your website, and are not following their regulations, you could receive a fine for noncompliance.
You could enlist the help of a lawyer to help you write your privacy policy, but that’s not a practical option for most small business website owners. There are online tools that can help. Read: ****This   from the BBB may also help you get started. When writing your privacy policy, try to keep it clear and explicit so anyone can understand it.
Now we’re on to Part 3 with Tip #3 for WordPress website owners.
## PART 3
### Tip #3: Become familiar with “Gutenberg.”
**What is Gutenberg?** “Gutenberg” is the new visual WordPress editor that will be coming in the next big release of WordPress (5.0). The current TinyMCE text editor that you have been writing content in for blog posts or pages will also soon be deprecated.
(NOTE: you will be able to install the  to continue working the way you have been.)
Gutenberg has a cleaner look than the current TinyMCE editor. It has been created to be “free from distractions” and is supposed to make writing posts and pages easier. **But it does take some getting used to.**
Right now, WordPress developers have started allowing WordPress users to try it out as a plugin. (Once you activate it as a plugin, you will see a DEMO post where you can try out the new features.)
**Gutenberg Content Blocks**
One thing you’ll notice right away is the introduction of **content blocks**. Content blocks let users add headers, text, images and other elements with the click of a button. By clicking inside any part of a post, you will see what type of “**block**” is being used.
The Paragraph Block is the most important one in the Gutenberg Editor. You will likely work with it more than any other block. Here’s a helpful guide: ****
**Why You Want to Know about Gutenberg Now**
!ALERT: There is some concern about the compatibility of Gutenberg with existing plugins and themes and how it may affect existing WordPress pages and posts. Beta testing is currently going on to try to address these concerns. Since there are thousands of WordPress plugins available, it is fair to say that some of them might not work with Gutenberg. For this reason, you should test your favorite plugins to determine their Gutenberg compatibility before it becomes the default editor.
Read: 
### Summary
!Now’s the perfect time to examine your small business website so you don’t get blindsided at the end of 2018.
* Look for HTTPS in your site URL.
* Check for a link to a privacy policy in the footer of one of your web pages.
* Log into your WordPress dashboard (if you have a WordPress site) to check out Gutenberg. It will be worth the effort.