Easy Tips on How to Boost Pinterest Traffic to Your WordPress Blog
by Susan Velez
As a blogger, we’re all told that we should be on Pinterest. There’s so much potential and if we want blog traffic, we should learn how to use it. In this post, I am going to show you how to use Pinterest for your blog.
When you get done reading this post, you’ll have a better understanding of how to get started. You won’t learn everything from this one post.
You’ll still have to spend time educating yourself and here’s a great article that will show you how to increase your Pinterest traffic.
As a blogger, you can’t afford to ignore Pinterest. Overtime Pinterest has the potential to send millions of visitors to your blog. Of course, not everyone is going to get a million visitors.
But how would you feel if you just got a fraction of that traffic? It sure would beat getting just the friends and family traffic to your blog.
Grab a cup of coffee and let’s get started.
How to Use Pinterest for Your Blog
If you’re using WordPress, then you’re going to realize how easy it is to pin your content on Pinterest. In fact, there are several different plugins that you can use to make it easier.
I personally use the Social Warfare plugin as my social sharing plugin. Here’s a tutorial on how to get started with Social Warfare plugin.
Once you’ve chosen the social sharing plugin of your choice it’s time to create a Pinterest account.
Before you can fully understand how to use Pinterest for your blog, you’ll first need to know how to get started with Pinterest.
Let’s quickly cover the steps you’ll need to take to get started with this power house social media platform.
Creating A Pinterest Account
Before you can start using Pinterest to help grow your blog, you’ll need to create a business account on Pinterest. Don’t worry, it’s free and easy to create.
Head on over to Pinterest and create a new business account. When you set up a business account, you’ll be able to track your Pinterest Analytics.
You’ll also want to make sure that you set up rich pins.
Converting Your Personal Account to A Business Account
If you’re already using Pinterest, you might just want to convert your account to a business account. It’s extremely easy to do, just click on the 3 dots and you’ll see the option to convert your account.
Click on Convert to a Business account. Don’t worry, if you have followers and boards, they will be converted to your business account.
Creating Boards for Your Account
Before you can start pinning on Pinterest, you’re going to need to create some boards. I won’t go into complete details on how to create your boards, however, here’s a great tutorial.
What Types of Board Should I Create?
One of the first boards you should create is a blog posts board. This is the board that you’ll pin all your blog post images.
If you look at my Pinterest account, you’ll notice that I called it blog posts. I probably should’ve called it Susan Velez blog posts. I’m still new to Pinterest and learning the ins and outs.
Don’t get too hung up on what you should call your boards. You can always rename them later and add more boards as you start developing your strategy.
Many people let these small things keep them from moving forward. Nothing on the Internet is set in stone, you can always make changes to blog posts, info products, social media sites and etc.
The most important thing is to get started. You can always make twists and turns as you continue learning.
How Many Boards Should I Create?
Opinions will vary on this, it’s your account and you can create as many boards as you want. I recommend starting with 10 – 13 boards. You can always add more as soon as you get the hang of how to use Pinterest.
Here’s a great article that will go into detail on the 23 Pinterest boards you should create. I recommend reading it, especially, if you’re new to Pinterest.
The main thing is to create as many boards as you can pin to on a regular basis. You don’t want to create a new board and NEVER pin to it.
Pinterest loves relevancy and the best way to do that is to pin on a daily basis.
How to Automate Pinning to Your Boards
As bloggers, it seems like everyone is always asking us to spend our hard-earned money on tools and products.
You’re probably thinking, I don’t want to spend another dime until my blog makes money. I felt that way too when I started my blog.
However, when you start on Pinterest, you’re going to realize that manual pinning is virtually impossible. (at least for me it was)
Remember, I said that when you create 10-13 boards on your Pinterest account, you’re going to have to pin your own pins and other people’s pins.
If you try to do that manually, you’ll never get anything else accomplished.
Tailwind helps make the process of pinning on Pinterest a lot easier. All you have to do is set up your pinning schedule and you can focus on other blogging tasks while still using Pinterest to grow your blog.
I won’t go into detail on how to use Tailwind, but I will tell you that it’s been a life saver for me.
Now That Your Pinterest Account Is Created
It’s time to start using it effectively to help you grow your blog. You’ll want to make sure that you’re pinning every new blog post you create on your blog.
Here’s what I do every time I publish a new blog post on my blog.
Create A Pinterest Image for Every Blog Post
One of the first things that I noticed when I first started using Pinterest, is that you can’t use the same image you use for Twitter or Facebook.
You’ll need to create a Pinterest specific image. That’s because you’re going to need a vertical image to share on the social platform.
If you’re using the Social Warfare plugin, you’ll notice that it provides you with the exact dimensions of the image size you need to create.
Here’s a Pinterest image size cheat sheet you can use, just in case you’re using a different plugin.
Image Creation Tip
As bloggers, we have so much on our plate. We spend time marketing, networking and creating our own digital products.
The last thing need on our plate is another blogging task.
Here’s a great tip that will make your life easier. Use Photoshop to create your image template.
Save that PSD file and use the same fonts, colors, and template whenever you need a new image.
I do this for my blog and it definitely saves me a ton of time. If you don’t have Photoshop, you can use Canva.
The time-saving tip is to use the same template over and over.
Make It Easy for Bloggers to Share Your Pins
If you’re using the Social Warfare plugin, you won’t have to worry about which image gets shared.
Whenever someone clicks on the Pinterest icon, the image you uploaded to Social Warfare will be the one that gets shared.
What If You’re Not Using Social Warfare?
I know that not every blogger is using the same social media plugin. Here’s a great tip to use for those images that you don’t want to be shared on Pinterest.
Unfortunately, when we’re new to Pinterest, we’ll probably have images shared on Pinterest that we don’t want to be shared.
Before I started using this plugin, people were sharing images that I didn’t want to be shared. To date, I still have images on Pinterest that weren’t meant to be shared.
As bloggers, we don’t want all the images on our blog posts shared. The great thing is that you can add some code to the images you don’t want shared. This will prevent people from sharing the wrong images.
Use the No Pin Code for Images You Don’t Want to be Shared
Here’s how to add the no pin code to the images you don’t want to be shared.
- After uploading the image, find the URL of the image you don’t want to be shared.
- Add your image code inside of your WordPress text editor.<a href=”http://IMAGE.jpg” alttext=”1″><img src=”http://IMAGE.jpg” height=”1102″ width=”735″ />
- Place the nopin=”no pin” between the height and width of your image inside in the code (highlighed in yellow). Leave a space before and after the code.
a href=”http://IMAGE.jpg” anchortext=”1″ <img src=”http://IMAGE.jpg” height=”1102″ nopin= “nopin” width=”735″ /></a></div>
This is the easiest way to prevent those images you don’t want shared to be shared.
Of course, if you’re using the Social Warfare plugin, you don’t have to worry about doing this.
Create A Pinterest Description for Your Images
One of the things you’ll learn quickly is that people won’t share your images if they don’t have descriptions.
Whenever I am looking to share people’s images, I bypass all the ones that don’t have a description.
It’s not my job to write a description. I can bet that I am not the only one who feels this way.
If you want people to share your images, you need to write a description for all of them.
Use Pinterest To Write Your Descriptions
One of the things that I’ve started doing is using Pinterest to help me write my descriptions.
As you know, Pinterest is a search engine just like Google. This means that you can see what keywords people are typing in to find information.
Before you write your Pinterest description head on over to Pinterest.
Pretend like you are a user who is looking for some information your blog topic.
Doing A Search on Pinterest Like a User
For instance, I write a lot about WordPress and blogging. If I have a new post about WordPress, I’ll type in WordPress on Pinterest.
Here’s what I get when I type in WordPress.
When I write my image description, I make sure that it contains some of those keywords.
It’s no different from looking at Google to see what people are typing in to find information. Find out what Pinterest is really looking for to help you improve your marketing strategy.
Let People Know You’re on Pinterest
If you want to take it a step further, you can let people know that you’re on Pinterest. You can do this by adding a Pinterest widget to your sidebar or sharing your Pinterest URL on your other social media accounts.
Just like anything else, if you don’t let people know about it, no one is going to follow you.
It Takes Time
The biggest thing to remember is that it takes time to learn how to use Pinterest for your blog.
You can’t expect to pin once and then watch the traffic magically appear on your blog.
You have to keep pinning every day. Eventually, over time, you’ll notice your hard work start to pay off.
The important part is to start today. Just by implementing this promotional method you can grow your blog. Which I’m sure is what you want.
Remember to pin other people’s pins, not just your own. You can’t learn everything you need to know about Pinterest in one blog post, but hopefully, this gave you a better understanding of how to get started.
Final Take Away
Growing a blog is hard. As bloggers, we have to be willing to use all available resources to us. I’m still learning how to use Pinterest to grow my blog.
I’m still learning the ins and outs of Pinterest. However, I’ve realized that it has now become one of the biggest traffic referrals according to Google Analytics.
Are you using Pinterest to help you grow your blog? If not, which social media platform is your favorite? Let me know, I’d love to hear your thoughts about using social media to help you grow your blog.
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Author Bio:
Susan Velez is helping people start, grow and monetize their passions through blogging. She loves helping people with the techie side of blogging sign up for her free 7-day WordPress Course at susanvelez.com. You can follow Susan on Twitter @SusanWPTutorial
Host Blogger’s Comments:
Please share Susan’s post so other bloggers know how to take full advantage of Pinterest as a search engine as well as a content curation site and boost Pinterest traffic to their blogs.
Since Pinterest’s recent algorithm update, bloggers report challenges trying to boost Pinterest traffic. What are your experiences? Are you able to generate Pinterest traffic?
