Social media is obviously a big part of my life and my blog. I’m constantly posting and engaging with all of you on Instagram, Twitter and Facebook. While I love connecting with all of you on social media, my blog has always been my first love.
I use this space here to share my thoughts, my life and ideas that you can use on your own. I put a lot of effort into researching and writing my blog posts. It make sense that my goal is that you enjoy reading the content, and that you see it! I share a lot more on tips you can use if you’re looking to start a blog of your own in my other post, plus ways you can make a living off of it.
One of the tips in my post on starting a blog involves ways to increase blog traffic. I’ve tried a lot of different ways to increase my blog traffic over the years and I found a bit of a hidden secret: Pinterest.
You might be thinking,
PINTEREST?! The wedding planning, recipe finding, teaching inspiration board site?
YES, YES, and YES to all of that.
For the longest time, I’ve just placed Pinterest on the back burner of a mere visual board website that I don’t have time for. While that might be the assumption for Pinterest, it is actually an incredible source for generating blog traffic.
If you’re ready to optimize Pinterest for your blog, I have some tips!
Here is a guide to how I use Pinterest to drive traffic to my blog:
Create a Board Specifically for Your Blog
Well, first of all, start a free Pinterest account!
Pinterest is all about pinning things you’re interested in and using boards to organize those pins. Each pin or photo has a link attached that drives traffic to other websites whether it be a Youtube video, a clothing store, a recipe or your blog!
Create a board specifically for your blog content. Every time you write a new blog post, make sure you share pins and photo excerpts to this board.
Make sure the title of your Pinterest board relates back to your blog or simply use your blog title. I used “My Vancouver Based Blog” since my blog readers are from various places other than just Canada.
Don’t forget to utilize the description section too! Include keywords that relate to your blog content. This makes it easier to pop up in search engines as you use Pinterest to drive traffic to your blog.
Build Boards That Relate to Your Interests and Blog Theme
While it can be tempting to just share and post content from your blog and other channels, Pinterest is all about variety, themes and sharing. Engagement and pinning from other boards and creators are just as important as pinning your own content.
My blog topics focus mostly on lifestyle, travel and fashion.
When I started with Pinterest, I created boards that related to keywords in those topics like summer fashion, shoes I love, and luxury bags. I even created a whole travel board series titled: “Travel to: [Insert Location].”
This helped me nail down what content I should be pinning and what boards to follow and engage with on Pinterest.
I also optimized the description by using keywords and search terms to make it easy to come up with what Pinterest users are looking for.
START YOUR BLOG
How to take great photos with your iPhone!
My Morning Routine for a Productive Start
How to Use Pinterest to Drive Traffic to Your Blog
Get a Pinterest Business Account
If you’re going to get serious about Pinterest, update your Pinterest account to a Pinterest Business Account. It is really easy to do. All it takes is just a few clicks in the profile section under your name. A business account is free to use and gives you access to in-depth analytics about your pins and boards. It’s important to understand which content is the most popular and gets the most engagement.
The analytics go all the way into impressions, re-pins, clicks, top boards and pins, close ups and more.
Analytics are so important. You are already putting in all this effort using Pinterest to drive traffic to your blog so you might as well optimize it.
By looking at the analytics weekly, you’ll be able to pinpoint your most popular content. You can then create and repin items that are similar to what works. It’s also a great way to find new ideas for content based on what your followers are interested in.
Optimize Your Boards and Pins with SEO
Did you know Pinterest is actually a search engine?
Think about it, how you search for pins is so similar to what you would type into Google. You use keywords to find and search pins you are interested in.
Pinterest is a haven for SEO and keyword searches. By placing keywords and phrases in your pin descriptions with hashtags, they can easily pop up not only on Pinterest searches but also on Google and Google Images.
A fun trick is that in the drop down, it also generates topics that are popular within Pinterest at any given time. I find that this is a great tool to compliment keyword searches when you’re brainstorming blog topics.
As mentioned earlier, make sure you optimize each of your pins descriptions and board descriptions to include longtail and short keywords that people might be searching. A great way to find these keywords is to practice searching for topics people might be looking for.
Design an Exciting Pin for Each Blog Post
You finally have a blog post ready to share and your Pinterest account is all set up, what now?
Pinterest is all about visuals. To use Pinterest to drive traffic to your blog post, you first need a pin that people want to save. You’ll notice people’s Pinterest boards tend to be full of pretty images or posts with eye-catching headers.
Pinterest traffic is driven largely by images rather than links. You need to make sure you pick images that really speak to your blog and are interesting to look at. I always try to pick good quality photos that fit a certain colour theme for my pins.
After I choose my photos, I’ll usually create a set of three specially designed pins with the title of my blog post and some key excerpts from the content. I pick sentences or pieces that can give the reader enough context on my post. Just enough to catch their attention through colours and fonts.
Make the title in a big font that is easy to read. Pinterest images aren’t about crazy and fancy designs. It’s actually better to keep them simple with titles, catchy sentences and your website at the bottom so people know where it’s from.
Here are a few examples below:
I like to pin a mix of these designed pins and simply just the photo by itself.
It gives your pins a bit more variety so Pinterest users are seeing the same design every time.
Engage With Other Pinners – Shared Boards are Key
Pinterest is all about connecting with each other and creating boards of items and pins that you actually want to save or like. Just like with other social media account apps, engaging with users is paramount to getting more followers, impressions and saves.
While pinning from your favourite creators and brands is great, Pinterest has a cool shared boards feature where you or other users can create boards that multiple people can pin to and contribute. I join different blogging and travel boards where I share my content and pin other interesting content from those on the shared board.
Pinning your pins to shared boards gives your pins more visibility, increasing the likelihood it will get pinned on someone else’s board and shared even further! I love engaging on shared boards related to my blog topics. Connecting with other creators allows you to find your niche and have your pins widely shared with places and gain new followers.
I suggest joining at least a few new shared boards each month for new content and followers. While Pinterest is a great way to drive traffic to your blog, don’t overdo it and make sure you follow boards that you’re genuinely interested in.
Try a Scheduling Platform Like Tailwind
Pinning can take up a lot of time! It’s a lot of work to keep up with trends and continue to pin throughout the day without getting sucked into a black–hole of never-ending boards. I actually use a scheduling platform called Tailwind that was created specifically for Pinterest. It allows me to schedule pins, move pins around, see analytics and pin directly from my Instagram.
First, I try to pin at least 30-40 times a day. Then throughout the day I pin with a mix of my content and other content. Fridays and Saturdays tend to get the most engagement as people are planning their week ahead or looking for activities to do during the weekend.
While scheduling 30-40 pins a day is great, I also suggest pinning outside of these parameters when inspiration strikes or when you see something interesting. Don’t feel like you have to stick to just 30-40. The more the better!
Don’t forget that variety and of course, shuffle your pins so your pins come in at different times and days.
Tailwind also includes a tribes option where you can pick certain focus topics where groups of pinners and creators come together to share their best content in one big group. Users are then able to repin content to their own boards and also share their own content for people to pin. The rules are usually for every pin you share, make sure you pin someone else’s.
A good rule of thumb for these is to pick your most aesthetic pin and make sure your description is engaging and full of keywords. You want this pin to stand out because the more tribe members that pin it, the more likely you’ll get more reach and go viral. I’ve had a lot of success with tribes and it’s a great way to engage with other content creators.
I love the loops feature on Tailwind as well. It allows me to group together groups of pins that are popular and schedule them automatically on loop. You pick exactly how often you want a pin from this group to show up on your feed whether it’s once a week or a few times a month.
This gives you flexibility to adjust and set options for your most popular pins to continue to work into your feed for new followers and people to find. I usually have about 8 loops ongoing and they are adjusted based on the season. These are a great way to drive traffic to your blog by setting it and leaving it!
Another great part of Tailwind is the extensive analytics that come with the platform. They put together your top pins, posts, users and engagement scores so you can see exactly what content your audience engages with. I do my best to check analytics once a week to adjust my strategy.
Adjust Your Profile and Boards as Needed
Pinterest changes all the time. Trending topics go up and down and depending on upcoming holidays, different pins will go viral. What I like to do is take time each week to take a look at trending topics on Pinterest. I’ll then ramp up certain topics, content and boards that make sense.
I adjust the order of my boards constantly based on what is popular at the time. I keep my branding boards at the top but I’ll bring up my fall fashion boards higher in the lineup when the crisp weather hits and then my Christmas boards just after November.
During the summers I tend to boost up my travel boards because people are looking to plan vacations. Take time to make your content easier to find for your community and drive traffic to your blog.
I also repost my content when it makes sense. Tailwind has a great re-pin option. It allows you to search through your most engaged pins and see what might be good for a repost. I’ll post to different boards and repin when trending topics relate to my current content.
Pinterest is all about adjusting and following the trends. Take some time each week to tweak and adjust. You see progress in no time.
Pinterest has been a big factor in driving traffic to my blog. I’ve seen so much success with it and I really should have started it earlier!
It’s an amazing social media platform that is often overlooked. If you aren’t active on it yet, I highly recommend you start.
Add me on Pinterest so we can stay connected. I’d love to see what you end up pinning.
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till next time,
xoxo Sam