I grew up on the west coast of the USA, and so I’ve spent a lot of time in the cold dark waters of the Pacific Ocean riding 5ft+ waves on my boogie board (while trying not to think about all the scenes from the movie Jaws)

Then, I moved out to Tennessee, which is nowhere near the ocean. But I learned pretty quickly that everyone here goes straight down to the Florida Gulf Coast for their beach vacation.

I remember the first time I went down there, and it was really uncomfortable…

The sand was very white, fine, and sticky.

There were hardly any waves (it’s almost like a giant lake a good portion of the time)

And worst of all…

The water is very clear, which means you can see all the way to the bottom and all of the sea creatures that are underneath the surface 😬

It made me really uncomfortable for a long time because I just didn’t want to know what was swimming or crawling around me.

(I was too used to the dark waters of the Pacific Ocean, where you really can't see anything under the surface)

I’ve gotten used to the clear emerald Florida water over the years, and it’s been cool to see some of the sea creatures swimming around me, such as fish and sea turtles.

(So I’ve since traded in my useless boogie board for a snorkel)

I just went to Florida last week, and I was nervous going because in a span of 24 hours, there were three recent shark attacks in the same place I was going 😬

So naturally, once I got out into the water, I was on high alert (especially swimming with my 11-year-old daughter).

Logically, I knew that the chances of encountering a shark in these specific waters were now at the lowest point of my life because it's so rare to happen.

It had been over 10 years since the last shark attack happened on these beaches, and once those 3 people got attacked, the clock reset...

Nonetheless, I think my parental instincts kicked in, and I couldn’t help but think about it and be on high alert for sharks.

After about 20 minutes of going in the water for the first time on this trip, I finally started to relax a little bit as there were no sharks in sight, and everyone else in the water seemed to not have a care in the world.

And then...

From the corner of my eye, I noticed something dark in the water, turned my head around, and looked down...

Which I saw a black 3-foot-long shark jet right past my feet 😬

Fortunately, it was busy chasing a fish, so it kept on swimming away from me.

My daughter was right next to me, and she didn’t see it, and I was trying to play it cool on the outside while I was freaking out on the inside.

I made up an excuse to go back to the shore and relax with Mom under the umbrella.

In life and in business, there are situations where we have a lot of clarity, and we can see what’s going on around us.

And then there are situations where we can’t see... like those cold, dark Pacific Ocean waters.

I think it’s to our advantage to be able to see what’s going on so we can plan, prepare, and react according to what we see.

For a long time, I had no idea there were hidden keywords below the surface of Pinterest that were around my pins the entire time.

I eventually did notice them, but I had no idea what they were, and what they meant until one day...

I read a white paper published by the engineering team on Pinterest and learned that these hidden keywords I’m talking about are called "annotations."

I find that the average blogger and Pinterest creator has no idea what they are and that they even exist because they’re not looking in the right place (more on that in a second).

Discovering annotations has been a game changer for every person I know who is trying to get traffic from Pinterest.

What’s most important about these annotations is that when used correctly, they will help your pins get more visibility in search results and in user's home feed.

In case you don’t know what annotations are:

So, if you’re logged into Pinterest and you look at a pin, you won't see these keyword annotations like this:

But if you're logged out and you look at the same pin, you’ll see the keyword annotations under the description like this:

So what’s really fascinating is that Pinterest only reveals these annotations to the logged-out public.

I think it's because they link them to highly similar and related topics, which does two things:

1) Increases engagement on Pinterest for logged-out users

2) Improves their SEO to help them get more Google traffic

For a long time, Pinterest creators who figured out annotations had to manually copy, scroll, copy, scroll, copy to grab all of the keyword annotations for one top-ranking pin at a time...

But now, a brand new feature in PinClicks reveals all the keyword annotations for the top 25 ranking pins for any keyword search, how many times they're used and which ranking pins use them.

This means in just a couple of clicks and a few seconds, you instantly know the top 3-5 annotations to use for your next pin for the keyword search you're targeting.

There’s no other tool that does this, and it saves me and others a ton of time!

If you want to see a very practical way of using annotations for a Pinterest pin to help it get more visibility, and rank higher in Pinterest, then check out this YouTube video my good friend Jesse Cunningham just published.

(He walks you through the entire process better than I could)

So, if you want to level up your Pinterest game, don’t sleep on using annotations by getting them manually on Pinterest or instantly with PinClicks.

I know someone who just crossed 1M outbound clicks/month from Pinterest, and they use PinClicks. Can you guess what feature was the biggest game changer for them?