I’ve been using Pinterest for years. It had always been my go-to for home decor inspiration, recipes, gardening tips… you name it. Then it started to explode with bloggers over the last couple years and of course, I jumped on the bandwagon. Why wouldn’t I? Pinterest is one of the best ways to drive traffic to your blog. In fact, it’s the main source of traffic to mine.
Here are the exact Pinterest strategies I used to more than double my website traffic and gain over 4,500 followers.
Switch to a business account and verify your website
Verifying your website gives you access to Pinterest Analytics, promoted pins, and so much more. In order to verify your website, you must have a business account. Don’t freak out if you don’t have one. It’s super easy to confirm your website. Learn how right here.
Set up rich pins
Rich Pins add extra details to your pins using data pulled from your website. After setting up article pins for your website or blog, your pins will always include the name of your website or blog, your logo (favicon), the title of your post, and description. This will help direct readers back to your blog – win! Make sure you include keyword rich ALT Text descriptions when you upload images to your posts – this is where Pinterest pulls the description for your pins!
If you sell products, the product pin feature allows you to include real-time pricing on your pins and will even notify users of price drops.
Rock your profile
Upload a professional and friendly image of your face. I recommend using a photo vs a logo – this makes you more relateable to your readers. If your profile doesn’t have a photo, I’m not followin’.
Next, add keywords related to your niche after your username. Mine looks like this:
Summer Mae | Blogging + Social Media Tips
For your profile description, write a couple of sentences about you and your biz. You can even use this space to promote a post or product like i did:
Helping bloggers and virtual assistants kick start their blogs and biz.
Need a welcome packet for new clients? Get ours here –> http://bit.ly/2driZE4
Use keywords in your board and pin descriptions
More and more people are using Pinterest more as a search engine than just another social network. When you’re looking for a new recipe, where do you go? Pinterest!
So, think of the things you search for — are you searching for words like “yum!” or “love” or “cute”? Nope… you’re not, and neither is anyone else. If you use words like “yum” to describe your pins, chances are your pins won’t be found because people aren’t searching for “yum”.
Be descriptive and specific, and your chances of having your pins found by other users will increase greatly.
Brand your board covers
Use eye-catching cover photos for each board and choose covers that are in-line with your brand. This can be as simple as choosing photos that have the same colors or fonts as your brand. Or you can even create custom covers for each board using a design tool like Canva or Photoshop. The current board size is 236 x 111 px.
Showcase your best content
Start by creating a board for your website and make that the first board in your profile. Create several pinnable images for each post and pin them all to this board (not all at the same time! More on that later…). Arrange the rest of your boards with your best content and images at the top of your profile.
I recommend removing boards that aren’t relevant to your target audience or, better yet, making those boards secret. Your readers probably follow you for a specific reason – they love your travel tips or awesome recipes, and wouldn’t be interested in your pins for say… Disney Princess birthday party ideas. Making these boards secret allows you to still use your account for personal use, without boring your followers with stuff they don’t want. Win!
Pin eye-catching images and amazing content
Pinterest is all about beautiful images. Vertical images take up more real estate in the Pinterest feed and are more likely to catch your readers’ eye. I create my pins using Canva with a template that is 735 x 1102 px. I try to use a consistent theme with my images by using the same fonts and colors, and I always add my URL to the bottom of my pins.
Make it easy for others to pin from your site
Add a Pin It button to your posts and images (I use SumoMe) and a widget to your sidebar. You can easily create a widget of your profile or a single board or pin. Visit the Pinterest Widget Builder to get your unique code, then just paste it into a text widget on your sidebar.
Join group boards
Join a few group boards with large following. By pinning your content to these group boards, they’ll be seen by a wider audience. Your pin will show up in the feeds of the entire audience of each contributor. You could potentially have your pin show up in hundreds or even thousands of users’ feeds.
Use a scheduling tool and spread out your pins
Pin a lot. I mean a LOT. The more you pin, the more your pins will be seen. I try to pin at least 50 images a day. BUT…
The fastest way to lose me as a follower is to flood my feed with pin after pin after pin. Your readers most likely don’t really care about your obsession with all things pink, cute kittens, or Sonic the Hedgehog (True story – I actually unfollowed someone who pinned over 20 Sonic images in just a couple minutes).
So how do you pin 50+ images a day without flooding your followers’ feeds?
I use BoardBooster to schedule my pins. It’s free to try and plans start at $5 per month after your free trial. In my opinion, this one is absolutely worth the small expense.
Here’s how it works: your select which boards you want it to schedule pins for and it creates secret boards for each one. You then set a schedule for each board – I set each board for 10 pins a day, dripped out between 7am and 11pm. Now you can sit down for a pinning session – say half an hour – and pin all your pins for the next few days in one sitting. Bam! Look at you, being all productive and stuff 😉
Okay… but where do I come up with all that content??!
I know 50+ pins a day seems like an impossible task. It’s not, I promise. If you’re following quality influencers in your niche, you should have a Pinterest feed FULL of amazing stuff to share with your followers. I follow the 80/20 rule – about 80% of the content I repin comes from other influencers in my niche – from my Pinterest feed, or while I’m checking out their blogs. The other 20% come from my website – new blog posts and pins, and old content that is recycled using Boardbooster’s looping tool.
Can you tell that I’m a boardbooster fanatic? It has seriously been a game changer for me!
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