AD | One of the things we all want to be able to do is drive traffic to our blog. We all know about sharing our blog posts on social media. That may drive some traffic but if you want to generate more then you should be using Pinterest. It’s often overlooked as a source for building traffic, yet it is a fantastic way to get people to visit your blog, website, or online store.
I am by no means an expert on Pinterest but I’ve learnt enough in the past 3 years to be able to tell you what I did in order to start building traffic to my blog from my Pinterest account.
Here’s What You Need to Know
First things first, if you haven’t already got a Pinterest account for your blog then make sure you create one using the same name you have used for all your other social media platforms. It’s much easier for people to find you and instantly recognise that it belongs to you. This also means keeping your account on-brand too but more on that later.
Switch to a Business Account
The first thing you will want to do after creating your Pinterest account is to switch it to a Business account. It’s really easy to do and will be crucial for stats, demographics and learning what pins drive the most traffic to your blog or website. You can also see your growth and know that what you are doing is working, or sometimes, what isn’t working for you and is something you need to consider changing.
Claim Your Blog/Website & Enable Rich Pins
Make sure to claim your website. You’ll also want to enable Rich Pins too. Enabling Rich Pins is pretty simple & helps to boost your presence on Pinterest. Add extra info to your pins and also a handy link button. There are loads of websites that show you how to enable Rich Pins, just Google ‘How to enable Rich Pins on Pinterest’ and a load of links will come up! They will be able to explain it to you a lot better than I could.
It’s worth mentioning that you can also claim your other platforms such as Instagram, Etsy and YouTube.
Make your Pinterest account visually pleasing
Pinterest is a very visual platform so you want to make sure that your account is aesthetically pleasing. Much like the Instagram of Pleasure Principle Blog, you will want to use beautiful images that appeal to people.
When I first started my own Pinterest account I jotted down ideas of what boards would be good to have and that were relevant to my blog. I then decided which of those boards I actually wanted to have and how many boards I was aiming to have in total. I recommend starting with at least 10-15 boards. Gradually increase them to however many you want.
If you have boards with only a handful of pins then I would recommend keeping them as a secret board till they have more. That’s what I did at least and it seemed to work well. I was able to save pins to it and make sure when I took it off secret that it had a decent number of fab pins. I found it especially useful for seasonal and holiday-specific boards.
You also want to make sure that your boards have attractive covers. Then you can drag and drop the boards in the order you want them. I had my on-brand boards first, the relevant seasonal board next and then the others just in order of preference to myself. You can also use the featured boards option, so you can feature boards you want to draw attention to. Just go to Edit Profile >> Featured Boards >>Edit and you can select up to 5 boards to feature on your profile.
On a side note, it might be a good idea to have a separate personal Pinterest account if you want to create boards and pin things that will seem out of place on your business one.
Is Staying On Brand Essential?
I’m not sure just how much staying on brand impacts your unique monthly views and traffic but I would recommend trying to stay on-brand as best you can with regards to your boards; especially if you have a very specific niche. My own blog topics are beauty and lifestyle which actually covers quite a lot. For example, beauty, skincare and makeup were my priority, so I tried to create boards within those topics. I also had seasonal boards, various holiday boards, and colour-specific boards to name but a few. So whilst I tried to stay on-brand I did branch out and have some other topics too. It didn’t seem to do any harm to my views or traffic at all.
Number of Followers – Do They Matter?
Strictly speaking, it really does not matter how many followers you have on Pinterest. The number of followers does not have any impact on the number of unique monthly views you will get. I managed to reach 1 million unique monthly views and had less than 2,000 followers. I really only upped my Pinterest game in the last year and in truth, probably more like 8 months.
Schedule Pins
It’s really quite crucial to schedule pins when you are building traffic using Pinterest. I use Tailwind and it has been a complete game-changer for me. You can schedule your pins for the week, or even for the month. It will work out the best times for you to pin. You will also get a whole load of stats on the performance of your pins. Another feature of Tailwind is that you’ll be able to join relevant Tribes and pin to those too, as well as save pins from other bloggers in your niche. It’s such a great way to help and support other bloggers and to have that support yourself.
I found the stats really useful and I also scheduled ‘evergreen pins’ on SmartLoop which is another feature of Tailwind. It makes it so easy to reshare your best Pinterest Pins at the best times of engagement.
You can use my referral link to get your first month of Tailwind completely free: https://www.tailwindapp.com/i/lilmizzstake
Create Pins for Every Post On Your Blog
I was pretty lazy when I first started blogging, well, maybe lazy is a bit too harsh on me. Let’s say I didn’t really understand and appreciate the importance of creating at least one Pinterest image for every post I did. Nowadays, I do it religiously without even having to remind myself.
Make sure to save the pin you made for your blog post to your relevant Pinterest boards and groups. Of course, don’t forget to schedule it for your Tailwind Tribes too. Plus, also pin all the other images for the post as well.
It’s important to keep in mind that Pinterest likes original content rather than the same pins being repeated. So, try and create 2 or 3 Pinterest images for each post. That way you have more than one image to share to promote the blog post on Pinterest.
I lost out on a lot of time that I could have been building traffic to my blog IF I had created Pinterest pins for my blog posts from the get-go.
Captions and Hashtags, are they needed?
I’m sure opinions differ as to whether using captions and hashtags is necessary or not. I usually stick to very brief captions, mostly I just use descriptive hashtags in the captions. If it’s a pin of Korean skincare, I will add the hashtags #koreanskincare #skincare to the caption. You can use up to 20 hashtags but I never do though. I limit hashtags to between 2-4 and keep them as specific and descriptive as possible. So, my advice for this is just to try it and see what works for you.
Lastly, Have fun & Enjoy Using Pinterest
When you are building traffic to your blog with Pinterest it’s important to make sure you still enjoy the platform. Plus, you still want to have fun using it too. Don’t just schedule all your pins and nothing else. Make sure to spend a few minutes each day when you have time to browse through pins that you enjoy. That way you can also save some you love to your relevant boards. You don’t have to spend ages doing this. As little as 5 mins once or twice daily is more than sufficient. This way you will have other content besides your own; so it keeps a nice balance of original content and repins. It’s always about balance.
So there you go, that is everything I have learnt whilst using Pinterest to drive traffic to my blog. I hope you find it useful. Don’t expect results overnight though, it does take time to see results. Hopefully, you will start to see an increase fairly soon after implementing these.
What Do You Think About Building Traffic To Your Blog Using Pinterest? Is this something you already do? Do you have any other tips?
Did you enjoy this post or find it useful? If yes, then why not pin it so others can read it too?
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