Pinterest For Bloggers: How to Use Pinterest to Drive Traffic to Your Blog

This post is a comprehensive guide on Pinterest for bloggers. 
 
In this post, I’ll explain exactly how to drive traffic from Pinterest to your blog. We will explore some tools and tactics for streamlining your pinning process – even if you’ve been doing it a while.
 

Let’s get started.

How to drive traffic from Pinterest to your blog?

Make sure your blog is Pinterest ready

If you want to see the impact of Pinterest, be sure you are using a business account, rather than a personal one.

Pinterest For Bloggers1. Sign up for a business account on Pinterest

With a business account, you will gain access to things like Pinterest analytics, promoted pins, and rich pins. These features will help you grow your account and send traffic to your blog in the long run. 
 
If you have an existing personal account, you need to convert it to a business account or create a new one. 
 
Convert your existing account if your existing pins are related to your blog. If not, then create a separate account. This will help Pinterest know more about your topic faster. 
 

Converting your personal account to a business account or creating a new one is free.

Disclosure: This post contains affiliate links, meaning that if you choose to click through and make a purchase, I will receive a small commission at no cost to you.

Here’s how to create a new business account:

  1. If you have a personal account, log out
  2. Go to pinterest.com/business/create/
  3. Fill out your email, password and business name then select a business type
  4. Click Create account

Here’s how to convert a personal account to a business account

  1. Log in to your personal account.
  2. Go to pinterest.com/business/convert/
  3. Fill out your business name and website then select a business type.
  4. Click Create account

2. Verify your site

Next, verify your website to get access to Pinterest Analytics and other features. Your profile picture will show up next to any Pins that come from your blog.
 

To verify your site, Pinterest will give you a “query string” that you need to connect to your site so you can claim it.

Read more:  How to claim your website on Pinterest?

3. Enable Rich Pin

Rich Pin is useful for your blog because it provides all the information the readers need on the pin.

pinterest for bloggers : rich pin

With rich pin enabled, readers don’t need to click over to an article only to find it’s not at all what was expected. 

4. Install social media plugin 

You need to make sure that it is easy for your readers to share your post. There are tons of social media sharing plugins out there that you can use. Here are the popular ones:

  1. Shareaholic
  2. AddThis
  3. Social Warfare
  4. Sumo

I personally use Social Warfare. Their social media share buttons are fast and gorgeous.

One of the reasons why I love this plugin is that I can control what people can share and how they share it. On the backend, you will see an option like this:

social warfare pinterest options

With this feature, you can create a specific image that you want to be shared. You can also write the description that you want to show up when they pin it. 

This is important because readers are too lazy to write their own descriptions for the pin.

Create Pinterest friendly images for your blog

You probably know that visually attractive images are part of a successful Pinterest marketing strategy. You’ll want to give people a reason to take a second look at your content and to click on it.

Beautiful, motivational, inspirational and useful content is what Pinterest users thrive on. Thus, your graphics should be the focus of your pinning.

What is the optimal size for the Pinterest image?

  • Long images are best, and the optimal size is 1000 pixels by 1500 pixels.
  • Pinterest recommends a 2:3 aspect ratio
  • According to Pinterest, other ratios may cause your pin to truncate, or may negatively impact performance.

Read more: 5 Essential Components Of A Perfect Pin That Gets Noticed And Repinned

Customizable Pinterest templates

Image Editing tools like PicMonkey, Snappa, and Canva make it easy for anyone to create eye-catching pins. These sites offer easy to customize templates you can edit in minutes.

You can also shop for pin templates to make it easier for you to brand your pins.

Creative Marketing Pinterest Templates

If you are not skilled in this area or don’t have time, you can always hire someone and outsource the work.

Join relevant Group Boards and Tailwind Tribes

What are Group boards?

Group boards are very much like individual or business Pinterest boards. They’re still a collection of curated content about a set theme for each board. 
 
Group boards have multiple contributors instead of just one person or entity. There’s no limit to the number of contributors you can have in a group

pinterest group boards

The type of content, the number, and influence of the contributors and the pinning frequency are all factors that will determine how many times your pins may be seen. 

The more eyes that view your valuable content, the higher the likelihood it will be shared. The potential for traffic growth and engagement is great.

How to find and join Pinterest Group Boards?

You can find worthwhile group boards in your niche by checking out your favorite pinners.
 
Find accounts of those in your niche or a related topic, then see what kinds of group boards they belong to. You can also find Pinterest group boards by visiting a site called PinGroupie

pingroupie

Pingroupie is a great site for finding boards by the number of pins, collaborators, and followers each has.

Read more: Pinterest Group Boards – The Ultimate Guide

Group Pinterest boards are great not only to grow your own traffic and engagement but also to collaborate with others who have an interest in your product or niche. 

Networking is almost always a worthwhile endeavor when it comes to business. So go out there, find some boards, make new friends and get pinning. 

What are Tailwind Tribes?

Tailwind Tribes consist of like-minded bloggers and content creators helping each other grow their Pinterest traffic and reach. They do this by sharing each other’s content to Pinterest – right from inside Tailwind.

tailwind tribes

Tailwind is a scheduling and analytics tool for Pinterest. Tribes is a feature within Tailwind. 

How to join tribes? 

The easiest way to join tribes is to use the “Find A Tribe” option on Tailwind and search by keyword.

There you will be able to check out the rules and activity level of each tribe. 

how to find a tailwind tribe

You will also get a glimpse of the content being shared on each tribe. This will help you determine if the tribe is the right group for you. 

I recommend joining five tribes first and see how it works for you. From there observe whether Tailwind tribe is worth investing for. 

I started seeing more shares and traffic to my blog ever since I started using Tailwind Tribes. Because of that, I went ahead and upgraded my account to the Unlimited Tribe plan.

Develop your Pinning Strategy

1. Pin your blog post to Pinterest

Be the first person to pin your blog post on Pinterest.

Let Pinterest know what your blog post is about by pinning it to the most relevant niche board that you own (a personal board, not a group board). 

Then over the next few weeks, pin it to other personal boards and group boards. 

It is important you promote your blog post on a consistent basis. Don’t just publish and forget. 

You can use Tailwind SmartLoop to pin your old content consistently. 

Update: Reshare your own pins in moderation. Avoid sharing the same pin to more than 10 different boards. For more details, read my Pinterest Best Practices for 2020 guide.

2. Pin related content only

This is one mistake I made in the past. I’m using my Pinterest account for business and personal interest. While I’m pinning my blog posts, I am also pinning cat photos, fashion accessories, and dream travel destinations. 

Because of this, It took me a while to get solid followers. If you want to get more followers faster, focus on pinning things that are related to your blog topic. This way, you will only attract people who are interested to read your blog.

3. Re-pin for your top pins

Did you notice that Activity section on your Pinterest profile? That section shows the list of other people’s copies of your pin. 

pinterest activity tab

Check out which of those pins are getting repinned and make sure to repin them especially the ones that are getting a lot of clicks and saves. 

They are already working so make sure to share them.

Update: Reshare your top pins in moderation. Avoid sharing the same pin to more than 10 different boards. Create a fresh new pin for your top pins instead. For more details, read my Pinterest Best Practices for 2020 guide.

4. Pin consistently

How often should you pin?

There are different pinning strategies out there. Some will say that you should pin at least 50 pins a day. While others will say you should be pinning less.

The best way to find out is by testing it out yourself. You can check out how TrafficWonker did their own experiment here

I suggest you start out low and then work your way up. It is not about the number of pins you post. 

You need to keep in mind is that Pinterest wants you to be consistent

Update: Pinning more than 50 per day can be risky for your account. For more details, read my Pinterest Best Practices for 2020 guide.

Manual pinning vs Automated pinning

Manual pinning

I’m learning a lot of new things about Manual pinning these days – thanks to Carly Campbell’s Pinterest course.

I’ve bought a lot of courses before but her Pinterest course gave me a “fresh” perspective. 

Why manual pinning is important?

Just like any other social network

Pinterest wants us ENGAGING on their platform.

Scheduler can help us to be consistent and get our pins out there but I also agree with Carly when she said that everyone should manually get into the smart feed a few times per week at the minimum.

Pinterest will then consider you as an engaged user.

Automated pinning

Pinterest loves “consistency” that’s why automating some of your pins is also an important part of your pinning strategy. 

You see, while I try to manually pin on a daily basis – it doesn’t always happen. Tailwind helps me out on those lapses. 

Scheduled pins are always better than NO pins. Consistency is huge. – Carly Campbell

Tailwind also helps me figure out the best times to pin on Pinterest

Track your stats

The only way for us to know whether our efforts are working or not is by monitoring our stats.

Pinterest Analytics

Pinterest analytics provides a great deal of information.
 
The information found in your Pinterest analytics dashboard is definitely an asset when it comes to making the best use of this platform

Pinterest for bloggers: Pinterest Analytics

Here you’ll be able to see the past 30-90 days worth of your top clicks, repins likes and pin impressions. 

If you noticed, Pinterest Analytics doesn’t have a section for follower stats. It just shows that they don’t focus much on the number of followers you have. 

While some people might see Pinterest Analytics as useless. The geek in me says it is worth checking. 

Here are some of the things you might want to check at your Pinterest Analytics:

1. Top pins with most clicks (not from your website)

  • If you are only pinning related content, this will give you an idea of topics you should be writing next. 
  • You will notice that most of these pins are the old pins you shared 6 months ago. Make sure to pay more attention to those pins with a high click-through rate (CTR). 

Why choose top pins with most link clicks and not engagement? 

While top pins with most engagement can also be a nice way to get topic ideas, I think it’s better to focus on topics that are getting more clicks than saves. 

At the end of the day, no matter how many repins we get, we want them to click the link and visit our blog. 

2. Top pins with most clicks (from your website) 

  • This will give you an idea of your blog post are doing well on Pinterest. 
  • Make sure to pay more attention to those pin with “other pins” as the source. These are also other people’s copies of your pin so make sure to repin them.

Tailwind Analytics

If you wanted to track the number of pins added, followers and repins you receive on a monthly basis, Tailwind Analytics can provide you that. 

While these metrics are mostly for vanity purposes only, it also reminds me of whether I’m consistent or not with my Pinterest daily routines.

Pinterest For bloggers: Tailwind Analytics

Pinterest for bloggers: Wrapping it up

For bloggers, Pinterest can be a great place to test your design and marketing skills. To see results from Pinterest – website traffic – try using these steps:

  • Make sure your blog is Pinterest ready
  • Create Pinterest friendly images for your blog
  • Join relevant Group Boards and Tailwind Tribes
  • Develop your Pinning Strategy
  • Track your stats

Additional Resources:

Pinterest Strategies – recommended for intermediate – advance Pinterest users.  This course gave me a “fresh” perspective on how to drive traffic on Pinterest with manual pinning. 

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