Pinterest is the number 1 driving force for your new blog and new business. Without Pinterest, I apologize, but your blog can and will fail!
I don’t want to discourage you however, I need you to understand that Pinterest is super important for the success of any blogger especially a new blogger. Yup, I’ve said it!
Honestly look, I don’t see how you could seriously make it in the blogging world without it! There are many successful bloggers who can honestly vouch for this.
There are literally over 300 million people surfing Pinterest each month. With an audience that large, it’s so imperative to start putting yourself and your blog out there. It’s like fishing. Consistency is key.
Pinterest is the absolute easiest, free, and most effective way to drive traffic to your blog. Almost 90% of bloggers are on Pinterest. Think of Pinterest as a search engine and not another social media. This is where many bloggers get this concept twisted. Pinterest is not just another ordinary social media outlet. But rather, it’s a visual search engine such as Google.
Pinterest allows its consumers to search for products, ideas, and services daily through the process of boards and pins. Therefore, the many business owners that sell products are using Pinterest to push their products and services directly to their customers.
Now there are many bloggers who have strategic ways that Pinterest can be used to drive traffic. I will explain what has worked for me in my short span of using it. Unfortunately, I didn’t use Pinterest since day 1. Yes, this is my truth! I focused on Instagram and Facebook instead. While those outlets sent me a good audience, it was not consistent.
Instagram was my favorite for a while until I realized the algorithm. Basically your posts on Instagram fade into the dark entirely too fast. There’s so much going on on Instagram and unfortunately, the way that their algorithm work is short term. Basically, the life of a really good post only booms for about 3 days, if that. Whereas on Pinterest, a Pin can stay alive for up to 3 months and maybe even longer depending on the content.
In my strongest opinion, it’s so much better to put your focus on what is going to drive the horse back home, and in this case, it Pinterest! Yes, hands down!
By now you should have your blog up on a self-hosted site. If not, claim your seat for my free email course to get you started today with your very own blog!
Okay! Now that we have the basics down, you shouldn’t go any further without truly knowing your niche for your blog. Search Pinterest for niches based on your interest.
Once you start researching your niche and what people in your niche are blogging about, then you start getting ideas on what you have to offer.
This will also give you an idea of what people in your niche are in need of. Remember, you are seeking to solve their people.
Set up your business Pinterest account
Okay, I already explained to you the importance of Pinterest in your blogging business. Now is your time to stop and create a business Pinterest account if you have not done so yet.
It’s super easy and so beneficial! From your personal Pinterest account, you can choose to create a free business account. There you’ll be prompted to fill out your business name (blog name) add in the important information in your profile and then claim all of your social media accounts as well as your site to Pinterest.
Create a catchy Pinterest Bio and Profile Picture
The next important thing to do before creating Pins is to include keywords throughout your bio, name, and boards. Keywords are important for SEO optimization. This actually brings traffic back to your Pinterest account which could potentially bring your audience to you, voila!
Now onto the good part, remember when I said Pinterest is like a visual search engine? Well, you want to make sure your picture is a good one.
When people search for information your profile, if it’s good and relevant, will show up. It’s a good idea to have a nice bright picture present for your audience. You’ll be more likely to gain traffic if your profile picture is clear and inviting. For example, if you’re a travel blogger, perhaps having a picture on the beach or somewhere tropical would be great. Just something to invite your audience into your account.
Now that Pinterest is set up, research
Again, start researching what bloggers are creating for their audience in your niche. This will give you a much-needed idea of what kind of pins and content you should perhaps create. Once you have a clear and concise idea, start creating your pins for each blog post that you have already published and ones that you will begin publishing.
Create Successful Pins with paid stock photos
Pinterest typically wants all pins to be vertical with ratios being 2:3. Remember, Pinterest is all about visuals. Make pins that are immediately attractive and will grab your audience’s attention right away. Basically put yourself in their shoes, what will attract your eye, when looking for inspiration or a solution to one’s problem.
When creating successful pins, you’ll want to use clear and bright photos. This typically attracts your audience.
Here’s my secret to creating awesome Pins:
- 1st and foremost! Use bold colors. Bold and beautiful is everything for Pins! If you use colors that don’t attract a viewer, then the chances are less likely for the pin to go viral.
- 2nd: Make sure to use font pairings that easy to read! Listen, there’s nothing worst than a great Pin that’s unreadable! There are just some fonts that can make it extremely difficult to read. If it’s unreadable your audience will most likely go onto the next!
- 3rd: Use clean and clear photos! No one likes foggy or blurry photos. This looks bad and unprofessional for the pin. Don’t put your work out there like that.
- 4th: Last but certainly not least, use Paid stock images! This is a business. Yes, blogging is no longer just a hobby. It’s a 7-figure business. Therefore, get comfortable making investments into your business. It’s necessary and you will reap the benefits in the long run. Honestly, I noticed that paid stock photos perform better than free stock photos. There are many reasons behind this however, the most popular reason is that there are not as many people are using paid stock photos. The mainstream of bloggers still uses free stock photos. Therefore, there are many common photos out there.
Be careful using free stock photos because they can be dangerous. Unfortunately, there are many bloggers who have been sued for using stock photos that they thought were free.
I started using my own photos and it just didn’t bring me the traffic I’d thought it would. Therefore, I invested in paid stock photos with PicMonkey.
PicMonkey is an online photo editing and design service. I started using PicMonkey since day one of blogging for other services besides Pinterest. I subscribed because they offered a large selection of paid stock photos, along with sample Instagram posts, Facebook posts, Youtube Thumbnails, logos, and many other digital design services for your blogging business. Therefore, this is why I paid for a subscription immediately!
PicMonkey is so convenient and affordable. It’s like your all-in-one shop for online editing and digital services.
If you are interested, click on any of the PicMonkey links and save today when you sign up!
Rule of thumb, with every blog post, a pin should be created and added to Pinterest. Make a habit out of doing this. This is a great way for your audience to find your content and get back to your blog.
Pinterest Boards and Pins
Now that you have the hang of creating your own pins, now you’ll need to start creating boards for your pins.
Create boards roughly 15-20 boards that are relevant to your blog and niche. Then you’ll want to fill up each board with pins that coincide with your board name and description. This is going to be very important for SEO, search engine optimization. Basically, it would appear faster for google.
Therefore, you have to be specific with the pins you decide to put on boards. Please don’t make the mistake that many do by just randomly finding pins and placing them on boards just to fill them. This is not helpful for your blog or website. You need to strategically pick great pins for each of your boards.
Here’s an example: If you’re a travel blogger, some boards can include
- cheap travel,
- family travel,
- beach travel,
- winter travel,
- summer travel,
- couple travel, etc.
Therefore, start thinking about what other types of boards might attract your targeted audience.
While creating these initial boards, DO NOT FORGET to add a description to each of the boards.
And when you do, avoid typing a bunch of single keywords, which is also known as “Short Tail Keyword.” You need to master the so-called “Long Tail Keywords.”
Short tail keywords are just collection of few words, like these:
“DIY, craft, crafting, DIY inspirations, craft ideas, cheap craft”
If you want your pin to rank higher, then you need to learn how to write Long Tail Keyword, like this:
Therefore, research plays a major role in the success of pinning. You can type in your board name, and search around at some of the pins that come up. The first ones that show up are typically the pins that rank the highest in keyword. Look at those pins and get a clear idea of how you show do yours.
Daily Pinning schedule
Like with everything else, consistency is a necessity for Pinterest. You need to seta schedule to pin 20-25 time through the day on Pinterest. It is recommended to pic several different times a day to pin as well. Typically, you don’t want to re-pin the same link and pin more than once. Therefore, it’s best to recreate new pins daily.
Manual Pinning
Let me be loud and clear manual pinning is possible. In fact, I did this when I first began. However, it was super time-consuming. As a new blogger, I’m sure you’re busy with other important things such as writing and curating your content. Therefore, I went to the next best thing. I am all about working smarter and not harder. That’s when I started with Tailwind.
Tailwind is a Pinterest approved network that partners with Pinterest. You are able to set up a pinning schedule for your pins that will save you so much time and energy to work on the other 105,980 things to do for your blog.
When you start off, you’ll want to schedule your pins to repin to relevant boards over the next few days. Very important– always put your pins in interval spacing and never repin the same pin back to back. That is considered spam. Basically, this can and will get your account flagged and possibly shut down.
Tailwind makes scheduling super easy! All you have to do is create a new pin, and add it to Tailwind. Simply enter up to 10 relevant boards for your pin and use the “interval” button on the bottom left to space them out. I recommend setting them one or two days apart, but the timing is totally up to you.
Tailwind is super awesome as they will warn you if you are scheduling the same pin back to back. It will also warn you if your schedule goes against Pinterest’s best practices. This is very helpful to new bloggers who are just getting started. This has helped me so much.
If you don’t have Tailwind already, this is a great day to get it for free for 30 days!
I hope you take advantage of this free trial! I am still shocked at the growth in both my Pinterest account and my blog traffic since I put these steps into practice just 3 months ago!
Look, I know Pinterest may seem confusing at first, but once you get the hang of it, you will wish you started sooner. I have so many resources on this blog to help you optimize your Pinterest business account and get more traffic to your blog.
Check out the recommended posts below. If this content has helped you in any way, please leave me a comment. Happy Pinning and reach out if you have questions.
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