I’ve been using Pinterest for the last 12 months, and it has helped with driving consistent daily traffic to my blog and grow my audience from a mere 80 to 780 followers as of 21 July 2020. Here are some reasons you should consider using Pinterest for your blog and simple hacks to use it smarter (not harder).
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Why use Pinterest?
Pinterest is a social media platform that commands respect as one of the largest social media websites attracting over 235 million active users a month.
Pinterest can help build your brand awareness, increase website traffic, grow your audience and improve your search engine rankings. If you are a blogger, Pinterest can promote your blog posts and attract a huge audience for free. It’s all about converting your blog posts into attractive images that other people can share and help drive traffic to your blog over time. Pinterest is not some magical overnight traffic machine! You have to work smarter (not harder) by creating attractive pins for your blog posts that other people can share, be patient, and you should see some great results come your way.
What I love about Pinterest is it’s free to use and introverted in nature, where you can go about your blogging business and generate lots of traffic. Unlike Facebook, Twitter, and other social media websites, you won’t feel judged for promoting your content, and Pinterest completely free to use.
Getting use to the Pinterest language
Here are some commonly used lingo when playing around with Pinterest:
Board – This is where you can “pin” your stuff into, i.e., think of it like a folder where you can put files into. You can make multiple boards with different titles, and these can be edited at any time.
Pin – A pin is an image or video with text and a link to your blog post.
Pinning – Posting a pin to a board, i.e., posting, uploading, and adding a picture to your own or another user’s board.
Pinners –Pinterest users who are actively pinning and creating creating boards.
Re-pin/ Re-pinning – Posting a pin to your own board or another user’s board.
Follow – Similar to other social media sites, where you can follow someone’s boards.
Give your blog a boost with these 16 tips
Here are some simple tips for getting your blog properly fired up on Pinterest:
1. Fly Pinterest business class for free!
Use your full business name when setting up your profile and verifying your website. This will help give your brand your boost within Pinterest and make it a whole lot more optimized. If your blog is built using WordPress, check out this easy-to-follow guide for verifying your website here.
2. Create a blog post board
To make it easier for your followers to find your blog posts, create a blog post board for your posts and make the title the same as your blog site, for example, below “The Lazy Society Blog”.
3. Create blog boards that link to your blog categories
It’s important to create a board for each of your blog categories and label them appropriately to help build brand awareness. For example, if your blog is about travel, you may have categories as Travel Tips, South American Delights, My Caribbean Adventures, etc. – keep it simple by creating boards with the same titles.
4. Set an attractive cover image for each board
Setting a cover image for each of your blog boards will help your followers emotionally connect with your blog and keep them coming back for more. How? Use Canva to create an 800 by 800px image which describes each board and set it as your board cover photo. Watch the video below for a quick demo to do this correctly.
5. Set up to 5 feature boards
Setting up to 5 ‘feature’ boards directly relating your blog will ensure your profile represents your brand identity effectively. See the video demo below.
6. Create lifestyle boards
Create a set of lifestyle boards that you and other people are generally into, for example, food, funny stuff, fashion, COVID-19 hacks, or anything else that’s generally popular today. Think of other things (apart from your blog categories) that you’re into and create those boards. You are bound to get more traffic to your blogs from people just browsing these boards and then stumbling upon your blog boards.
7. Organize your boards
Organize your boards to make it easier for your audience to find and save pins with these two simple tips:
- Organize your boards’ display from left to right, starting with your blog post board first, followed by your boards related to your blog content and then other general lifestyle boards.
- For boards with more than 50 pins, include Sections to separate content and make it easier for your audience to find content.
8. Do multiple images for each blog post
Being a logically minded person by nature, images don’t come naturally to me but enter Canva! Canva is a simple online tool for doing up stunning Pinterest images and you can get started straight away. Simply sign up here, select a Pinterest template that you fancy and start promoting your posts. Get your free Canva template set here and check out the video below.
9. Use keywords in Profile Name and Bio
Use keywords in your Profile Name (by using a bar symbol “|” to separate your name from the keywords), in your Bio by using the 160 characters wisely.
10. Make your blog post pins SEO friendly
Search friendly means making all your Pinterest boards and blog post pins search engine friendly by including:
- Your blog title is the title of your blog board.
- Relevant keywords to describe your blog post in the Pin description.
- At least 5 hashtags in the Pin description.
- Including a simple call to action, for example, “Click through to see.”
11. Follow, follow, follow!
Follow and they will follow back has been my general principle for building up my Pinterest profile over the last 12 months. It also helps to follow people who are following the top influencers in your niche.
12. Pin consistently using Tailwind
It is recommended that you should pin approximately at least 30 times a day, but I rarely achieve this feat. Tailwind is a social media scheduling app that helps you pin and grow smarter on Pinterest to get more traffic to your blog over time. Tailwind has kept it easy for me by automatically posting my pins when my audience is most engaged. There is no guesswork required – let Tailwind do the work, and you’ll be hooked. You can join relevant groups (aka Tribes) and help each other by re-sharing pins. It’s free to join (no credit required), but I recommend upgrading your account to reap the most benefits. Please note that this is not a magic overnight pill to increase traffic to your blog and take some time.
13. Do video pins
I’ve found, purely by chance, that a funny video pin can go viral on Pinterest, in turn attracting a heap of traffic to your blog. For example, I edited a popular Dude Perfect clip, created a pin, and embedded the corresponding Youtube video into one of my blog posts. It has helped increase my website traffic twofold! The easier way to create a video pin is via Canva, where you can drag and drop the video across, insert it into a pin, and edit it. Please don’t make it too long, and make sure it repetitive friendly.
14. Join relevant Group boards
Joining Group boards relevant to my blog has helped attract a wider audience (through the re-sharing of my pins), building brand recognition, and getting more even traffic to my blog. Pin Groupie is a great place to start for sussing out group boards.
15. Join the Bloggers Traffic Community
The Bloggers Traffic Community (BTC) is a large online community dedicated to growing their respective blogs and websites. BTC is free to join, and it works by ‘pimping up’ each other’s pins daily and connecting with like-minded individuals. BTC has given me a huge boost with building up my followers and re-shares on Pinterest. Click here for our full review and instructions to join BTC.
16. Embed your board to your blog post
Embedding a relevant pinboard directly into your blog post is a great way to keep your readers engaged and, hopefully, entice them to follow that board. I’ve noticed an increase in followers once adopting this strategy recently here at The Lazy Society. You can do this via the Pinterest Widget Builder and watch below for a quick demo.
Looking at starting a blog? Do it the easy way by check out our 6 step guide here.