The Complete Pinterest Guide That Will Make You See More Traffic & Money

By: | January 15, 2017 | Tags: , , , , |

This Pinterest guide explains how patient #bloggers can get traffic to their #blogs from #PinterestWere you surprised by the results of my Pinterest interview?

Pinterest experts were interviewed in my post 15 Experts Share: Pinterest is the Best Way to Get Mind-Blowing Traffic. Regardless of their gender and blogging niche, the overwhelming majority of them indicated Pinterest is still worth your time.

Blogging expert Gee Nonterah feels incorporating a Pinterest graphic in every post is one of the seven key elements to blogging success.

Therefore, it is important you know how to use this popular social media site. After all, its user base continues to grow. For this reason, this Pinterest guide has great value to you as a blogger if you want to woo Pinterest’s users to your blog.

Other social media sites’ popularity may fade, but not Pinterest, this online virtual bulletin board visual feast.

What is Pinterest?

Think of Pinterest as a gallery full of giant bulletin boards. On your home feed, you will find pins from people you follow, suggested pins that Pinterest has strategically placed on your home feed based on your other pins, and promoted pins from those who purchase their spot on your home feed.

Within your Pinterest account, you will find your boards. Here you can create many boards relating to different topics as a way to categorize your pins. There are also secret boards, ones only you can see, and group boards, where multiple people pin to the same board. It’s a fairly simple set up but can yield incredible results.

The Popularity of Pinterest

Pinterest’s user base currently boasts over 100 million users, 85% of them are women.

An 8-Section Pinterest Guide

How to Make a Pinterest Account

Go to Pinterest.com and make an account.

Try to make your account look professional. For example, add your avatar. People are more apt to trust someone they can see.

If you are asked if you want to verify your account, do it. Again, people will be more apt to trust you and send traffic your way if your account is verified. Verifying your Pinterest account is easy.

How to Make Pinterest Boards

You make new Pinterest boards by clicking the + sign.

Beginner #bloggers can get blog traffic from Pinterest

When you make a new board, you are given the opportunity to describe it. Make sure you use keywords in your board description so pinners (Pinterest users) can find your boards when they use Pinterest’s powerful search engine.

Break your blog into subtopics. Make each a Pinterest board.  People say you should have personal interest boards, so pinners know you are a real person, well-rounded, and multifaceted with interests outside your blog.

I offer 23 suggestions for Pinterest boards you can publish. These are generic, applicable to any blogging niche.

How to Add a Pin to Your Boards

You can add your pin (your blog post’s graphic) or anyone else’s pin to your boards.

This Pinterest guide will help you see traffic & money from #Pinterest #TrafficGen

By looking at the screenshot, you can see two ways to pin to your boards. I have a Pinterest browser extension and a social share button on my blog. I could use either of those to save my pins to my Pinterest boards.

How to Order Your Pinterest Boards

You want your boards listed in order of traffic potential. This means you may have to change the order of your boards throughout the year. People say your holiday boards should be first during the holiday season. When people scroll through your boards on mobile devices, you want them to see the boards that have a chance to bring you blog traffic first.

For example, my blog is about blogging tips. I have my board name with “tips” in the title first. “Blogging Tips,” “Social Media Tips,” “ SEO Tips” are among the first of my boards.

After the boards that are likely to bring traffic to your blog, you should have other boards that reflect your personal interests.

After these, you should finish with the Community Boards you pin to. (Community boards will be explained more in depth later in this article.)

How to Make Pinterest Pins

Your Pinterest pins should be long and narrow. Your pins should look vertical.

The optimized image size on Pinterest is 735 px x 1102 px, 735 px is the widest an image is allowed, and 1102 is the tallest a pin can be. I usually make my pins no longer than 900 pixels just to be sure my pins will fit on Twitter.

I once had an administrator of a Community Pinterest board I pin to warn me against pinning horizontal pins to her board.

Many people take a photo that relates to their blog content and save the photo to their Pinterest board, which is fine. Other bloggers turn their photos into graphics.

They take their photos and upload them to a photo-editing site. Canva, FotoJet, PicMonkey, and BeFunky are examples of excellent, free websites which enable you to add colorful backgrounds, borders, and text with a variety of fonts to turn your photos into beautiful graphics. The more eye-catching your graphics are, the more likely the chances are that people will notice and click your graphic over at Pinterest which will bring you blog traffic.

Strategy to Get Blog Traffic from Pinterest

In February of 2016, Pinterest changed its algorithms which made it harder for bloggers’ pins to get visibility.

Previously, all pins were put to the top of the “smartfeed” which is not the case anymore.

However, there are steps you can take to increase the chances that people will see your pins and click on them.

  1. Choose bright colors. When choosing colors for your background and border, it is important to note that certain colors work best at Pinterest. For example, bright colors like red, purple, and pink are colors so bright that your pins will get noticed amid all the other pins at Pinterest.
  2. Comment on pins. Pinterest is a social media site. Be social and comment. You might even comment on your own pin when you see it in the feed since comments have been known to increase visibility.

Recently, I received a comment on a pin. I commented back. Immediately, my visibility at Pinterest increased.

However, you can still see your pins in the smartfeed even if they have no comments on them. What matters is you are commenting on pins, not necessarily the pins you comment on. I have been following this strategy for six months, and my experience is the same: commenting on pins brings you visibility at Pinterest, which can, in turn, bring you blog traffic if people click on your links.

I used to link to the Pinterest Game each week since the hostesses of this linky party commented on my pins. My Pinterest traffic grew as a result.

When your pins increase in visibility, it is likely you will see your own pin in the feed. I often see my own pins in the feed with the caption “Picked for you.”

A Pinterest guide that will help you boost money & traffic from #Pinterest #MakeMoneyOnline

This pin was made at my former site, MyCurrentNewsBlog.com. It still gets visibility at Pinterest.

3. Pin to Community Boards.  Sites like Pin Groupie have Pinterest Community Board directories where you can find other pinners with content like your own. Pin to those boards so like-minded pinners can find you. (Note: Mostly Blogging has a Pinterest Community Board. If you are a follower of this blog and not currently pinning to our board and would like to, let me know in the comments section of this post.)

Philosophy about how many pinners should pin to the board varies. Community Board directories will tell you how many pinners pin to the board, how active the pinners are, and when the last pin was placed. I have heard anywhere from only 200 is advisable to the more pinners the better. I believe the latter is best.

4. Use automation tools. Automation will help you pin to your boards. If you pin too often, people may accuse you of spamming their boards. If you don’t pin often enough, you may be missing optimal times when you like-minded pinners are on Pinterest.

I highly recommend Viralwoot as a way to automate your pinning. I have over 100 boards, yet I am able to pin to my boards within a few minutes. Viralwoot has a free plan.

Ahalogy also is a free Pinterest scheduler. Others like Tailwind have a nominal charge. Viralwoot takes me less time than Ahalogy which is why I recommend it.

5. Make Pinterest pins rich. Rich pins have extra information on them. Bloggers can make #Pinterest pins rich

Look– when I click my Pinterest social share button, I have two options for which pin to choose. Since I have Pinterest rich pins, I can actually have part of my article 5 Ways to Be a More Successful Blogger with a Perfect Homepage show under my graphic if I choose the pin on the farthest right. The name of my blog shows up as well.

According to the Pin Groupie blog, making your pins rich will actually help your SEO since your visibility will rise in search engines. The Pin Groupie offers an excellent article on how to make your pins rich.

6. Tag your pins. This is important. Pinterest is a content curation site. People use content curation sites to find content. By tagging your pin by putting a hashtag in front of your keyword, you can help people looking for posts to read find your content.

Certain tags get researched more than others. If you tag your graphic a popular keyword, you will increase your chances of your graphic getting found.

My advice is to tweak your keywords, so they fall into one of the popular searches. My article How to Blow the Roof Off Your Traffic Using Pinterest lists the nine most popular searches at Pinterest. Buzzsumo.com can tell you topics that are currently trending on the Internet that people may be searching for.

7. Click the heart. In her book THE ART OF PINTEREST PROFITS, Pinterest expert Julie Syl Kalungi recommends clicking “like” when you see your pins on Pinterest. If the powers-that-be think people like your pins, they will display more of them. I tried this, and the next morning I had traffic to one of my pins, a different pin.

8. Repeat your successes. There are several ways you can check to see how your pins are doing.

  • You can check your blog’s dashboard and see how much traffic you are getting from Pinterest.
  • Click Analytics. This will show you how many people saw, saved, clicked, and liked your pin. Pinterest Guide to help #bloggers get traffic from #Pinterest
  • Look at the Pinterest social share button. The number of repins appears. My top screenshot shows the graphic to my post This is the Way You Can Make Big Money Blogging Now was repinned over 1,100 times. I can repeat this success by analyzing why the pin was so successful. I know the answer– it solves a pain point for Pinterest users– they want to know how they can make money blogging.
  • Look at the number on the pin. It will tell you how many times the pin has been repinned. Since the graphic for How to Increase Blog Traffic by Writing Comments has a 2 on it, I know it’s been repinned twice. Clearly, Pinterest users would rather know how to make money blogging than how to write traffic-generating comments.
  • Look at your source to which pins have been repinned and the repin count. This is MostlyBlogging.com’s source: https://www.pinterest.com/source/mostlyblogging.com/ Follow this model. Go to Pinterest.com/source/yourURL to see how popular your pins are.

9. Have multiple pins in each blog post. This will increase your chances of getting traffic from Pinterest to your blog. For example, you could have an infographic to accompany your post along with the graphic. I’ve even received Pinterest traffic from people clicking my screenshots.

10. Pay to promote. You can pay to promote your pins and get them more visibility.

Pinterest experts advise how to get traffic from Pinterest

  1. Katie Paul advises having a transparent shape over the photo. She recommends putting the letters over the transparent shape. This has a dual purpose. The colors from the photo “seep through” the transparency. You can still tell this is a dark, stormy day which fits the content of the article This Is How to Deal with Negative Blog Comments, 47 Ways. The second advantage of the transparency is the letters are visible as well. How to make a #Pinterest pin, a Pinterest guide

2. Julie Syl Kalungi recommends you make your pins “sensory”. Looking at the above graphic, you can almost feel the wind. There actually was no wind that day. However, staring straight on, it looks like the rain clouds are being blown around the sky by the wind.

3. Raelyn Tan recommends a different strategy. She volunteered that she shares other people’s pins often and feels her pins going viral is a direct result of that sharing. According to Raelyn, when asked why her pin as received so much visibility, she responded:

Yes, that pin is going semi-viral.. so are some of my other pins.
I would put the pin’s success down to having a long attractive pin, using strong fonts and bright colors plus just having a really informative post with a ton of experts being featured!
I don’t comment on pins, and yes I do share a ton of pins by other people.
4. Kathryn Sneed, the admin of the Facebook Pinterest Promotion group feels commenting does help get blog traffic. “Likes and comments are welcomed as well as it helps with boosting the pin.” Boosting the pin’s visibility does increase your chances of blog traffic, according to Kathryn.
How to Make Money Using Pinterest
  1. Loop 88 will pay you to make pins.
  2. Many people use Pinterest for marketing purposes. Make a Pinterest board with “offers” so people know what they see on the board is available for purchase at your site.
  3. Have a “Buy Button” on your pin. This enables people to buy your products directly from Pinterest. According to Jayson Demers, Pinterest now has “buyable pins“. If the pin has blue on it, the site user can buy the product pictured in the pin.
  4. According to Sunday Williams, bloggers and companies that make products for women are likely to do well on Pinterest since 85% of its users consist of women.
  5. Are you an affiliate marketer? Pinterest is now allowing affiliate links.

Pinterest Tools

Pinterest Schedulers:

To help figure you who has unfollowed you on Pinterest

Recent Changes to Pinterest

Have you noticed the Tried It button? This new innovation by Pinterest enables you to keep track of which ideas you’ve already tried.

Conclusion

In closing, anyone can use Pinterest to increase website traffic.

I’ve guest-authored for author sites like Chris, the Story Reading Ape, and Sue Coletta’s blog and explained how authors can get attention to their books by using Pinterest.

In addition, recipe bloggers and crafts (DIY, Do It Yourself) bloggers are among the most commonly found pinners at Pinterest.

I blog about blogging tips. Many visitors and new subscribers to my site explained they found my blog on Pinterest.

Clearly, Pinterest is not niche specific. The site is also not specific to genders. Both genders can benefit from using Pinterest.  Pinterest is composed of 85% women. Clearly, men are using Pinterest as well.

Many people lose interest in Pinterest believing they will never get traffic from the site. Pinterest is for patient bloggers. Once your graphic is on the site, people could click it years later.

Pinterest is designed this way. It’s a social bookmarking site, and your pin is the bookmark. People bookmark and come back later. What is important is that they eventually do return, and that is when you’ll see your reward– your blog traffic.

Please share this Pinterest guide, so other bloggers learn how to use Pinterest and its traffic-boosting and money-making potential.

Readers, what is your experience with Pinterest? Have you had success getting blog traffic from Pinterest? I look forward to your answers in the comment section.

Related Posts:

How to Quintuple Your Page Views Using Pinterest

How to Use Pinterest and Still Have Time to Breathe

Mediashower.com/blog/content-distribution/

Source:

AhaNow

  1. Donna DeGuglielmo

    hi there thanks again for your wonderful work … I notice I hit the like button here on you posts and it says that I Like it but no photo even when I hoover around it… no photo… just wondering if others have this going on too. hope all is well great post need to try out. I was not giving pinterest much thought I thought instagram would be better for promoting my blog. but now pinterest is in the thought and may try. TY blessings

    • Janice Wald

      Hi Donna,
      I’m glad you like my article. Thank you for your comments. Which photo is missing? Your avatar?
      Janice

  2. Elsie Hagley

    One thing I’m not certain about is: Are we allowed to use someone else’s pin on our blog if we give credit to it?

    • Janice Wald

      Hi Elsie,
      I have never been asked this, so I tried to embed the URL to a pin in the draft of a post several ways. The pin never showed up.
      Therefore, to show the pin, you’d need a screenshot. My answer is yes: definitely give credit.
      What people put on the Internet is public. However, you should always give credit to your source.
      Great to hear from you. Thanks for writing me.
      Janice

      • Elsie Hagley

        Thanks, Janice, it’s just I see other writers using them, I thought we needed permission, just wondering if it is true, I would think we would have to download then onto our computer and then upload it to our own site, but wouldn’t do it without being sure.

        • Janice Wald

          Hi Elsie,
          I download screenshots and upload them to my computer, but I’ve never heard of downloading and uploading pins. Please let me know if this works. That way I can learn something also!
          Janice

          • Elsie Hagley

            That’s what I do with all my photos I use on my WordPress and Blogger blogs, I upload them to my blog using the button “image files from my computer”, I have never tried Pinterest though, but I don’t see any reason why I can’t other than we may not have permission to use Pinterest photos must download one and see if it works. I have a Mac.

  3. Brenda

    I do have a Pinerest account but I do admit I don’t use it that often. I like flipboard.

  4. Kingsley

    Hey Janice,

    I came to respond to comments on the posts here about Kingged Affiliate program but couldn’t help reading and enjoying this awesome Pinterest guide.

    It’s detailed and helpful even for those who already know a lot about Pinterest.

    I haven’t told you this before but whenever I get the time to read your posts here, they are always helpful and provide value. It goes to shows how much time and effort you put in writing them.

    In particular, I really like how you graciously link out to other sites/blogs which provide more information on the subject. While other bloggers might feel linking out takes away traffic from them, you are an example that it’s the exact opposite, as traffic to your blog continues to increase, month after month!

    Thanks by the way, for linking to one of Sunday Williams’ posts on Kingged about Pinterest.

    • Janice Wald

      Hi Kingsley,
      I actually became moved when I read your glowing testimonial to me. Thank you!
      Janice

  5. Rasma Raisters

    An awesome and informative blog. A bit over my head at the moment but I will reread slowly and make notes like I always do when it is important. I have an interesting question – I have created Pinterest boards for my poetry blog, my travel blog and my music blog. Whenever I pin from these blogs do the pins lead people to my blogs? It might seem elementary to you but not to me. Thank you for the info.

  6. GiGi Eats

    Pinterest. I know it is necessary, yet I sort of ignore it. I pin stuff, I re-pin stuff… But that is about it. I really need to leverage it more, but I am just so tired from ALL of the social media. I think that’s the next one I need to tackle. It shows that I don’t use it much (ie, not many followers at all)…. But I know if I unlock it… It would help traffic increase for sure! I should hire someone else to do it for me LOL!

    • Janice Wald

      Hi Gigi,
      Welcome home from your honeymoon and congratulations again!
      Outsourcing your social media promotion is a great idea! I know a V.A. who specializes in Pinterest promotion. You could find someone at Fiverr or Upwork for sure. Thanks for writing.
      Janice

    • Julie Syl Kalungi

      Tut Tut Ms Dubois,
      With your wit, Food recipes and sheer fun-tastic blog you would thrive on Pinterest. So give it some of your time. Or as Janice rightfully says, outsource that part of your Biz. We should talk!

      With that said, Wow Janice, once again thankful for the mention and Sharing “The Art Of Pinterest Profits” much appreciated.

      Pinterest is all about your senses for sure, once we connect at that level our energy attracts more people looking for Us and our brand offers. There are some amazing additions to this virtual filing cabinet, some great others we await to see the long term effect! I am enjoying the showcase board with your top 5 boards And Definitely every one should create at least 5 Top branded boards and get attracting more bog traffic! 🙂 Awesome post.

      Julie Syl

      • Janice Wald

        Julie,
        You are so kind! You are a Pinterest expert, so you praise means a great deal. Thanks for writing. Your validation is much appreciated.
        Janice

  7. Leanne

    I love Pinterest for it’s visual nature. I use it to collect pretty images. Any flow on to my blog is a bonus. I hate having my Pinterest feed filled with community board pins and tons of blogging pins that don’t interest me. I have gone away from group boards and from a lot of the strategies and just “do my own thing” I don’t use a scheduling tool either – I hate the clinical nature of using tools and because it’s not important to me to go viral I’m happy with the results I’m achieving. A steady increase suits me fine.

    • Janice Wald

      Hi Leanne,
      So, considering you’re moving away from group boards and automation tools, is Pinterest bringing you blog traffic? I hope you don’t mind my asking. As a blogging tips coach, I like to know what works for people.
      Janice

      • Leanne

        I get a steady small stream from PInterest. Overall, I think Pinterest lends itself to “doing” posts – ie food bloggers, How-To bloggers, craft bloggers etc because people click the link to see how they can do it too. Lifestyle type blogs like mine work better from other sources. SU is still a big referrer for me + FB groups and link parties (but I’m really choosy about those too!) My blog has to be fun for me and not a chore so I don’t go gung-ho with SM because it is so time consuming or automated – to grow and make money you need to be a lot more “intentional” about it all than I am and that’s where your posts come in so handy 🙂

  8. Kathleen - Bloggers Lifestyle

    A great informative post, that covers it all. You mentioned that older pins still get pinned. I have a two year old pin that is constantly my most pinned nearly every month. Pinterest is my favorite social media.

    Kathleen
    Blogger’s Pit Stop

    • Janice Wald

      Wow! That’s a great testimonial to the power of Kingged. Thanks for telling us.
      Janice

  9. Cathy Lawdanski

    Janice – I would like to be a part of your group board. I had not considered hashtags or commenting in my Pinterest Strategy. Will do that now!

    • Janice Wald

      My apologies Cathy. I just saw your request to join the group Pinterest board. However, it’s a perk for my subscribers, and I couldn’t find you on the WordPress list, the MailChimp list, or the Email list. I took the liberty of signing you up on the MailChimp list and then I sent you an invitation to pin to our group board. Officially– welcome!
      Janice

  10. Sara

    Hi, Janice. It’s been a while since I participated in a Blogger’s Pit Stop. Pinterest is definitely a favorable platform for bloggers. I’ve yet to tap into it for my blog.

    I find making images to be time-consuming. I just purchased a set of stock images so I’m hoping this will allow me to make better ‘pin-worthy’ images.

    I also started using tailwind which was recommended to me as a way to pin often by using the scheduling feature.

    When I first started using Pinterest, I was a crochet blogger. That was a great topic for me and I still have group boards that people pin to.

    I pinned this to my Pinterest Tips boards.

    Enjoy your day,

    Sara @ SaraDuggan.me

    • Janice Wald

      Hi Sara,
      Great to see you. Welcome back to Pit Stop. Making images can be time-consuming. However, the pins have a long shelf life and can get you traffic now and tomorrow. Besides, they engage the reader which increases page views.
      Thank you for pinning my graphic.
      Janice

  11. Laurali Star

    I have a Pinterest account and I really like it so far. These tips will help a lot. One of the things i struggle with is how to make my images pinworthy. You know, do I add a title to them, make them more elongated, etc. This article was great, thank you!

  12. Sarah Fuller

    Canva and PicMonkey are my two favorite graphics tools for creating pins.

  13. Leslie

    These are great! I have pinned it for later when I can really delve into it about a post. Thank you for sharing! Your content is always so helpful.

    • Janice Wald

      Hi Leslie,
      What kind words about my content. Thank you. I’m glad you enjoyed my guide to Pinterest. Thank you for pinning.
      Janice

  14. Roy Miller

    What a comprehensive and information packed post. Thank you so much for sharing this. I learned a lot from it.

    • Janice Wald

      Hi Roy,
      I am glad you enjoyed my Pinterest guide. Thank you for writing to tell me and reading what I wrote.
      Janice

  15. Ryan Biddulph

    Here, I’d like to add the best tool for pinterest ever made.. PinPinterest com
    I’m using it myself for more than 7 months now, and I’ve gained unparalleled results both in the form of followers and revenue. It lets me schedule as many Pins as I want, and it also intelligently pins only images related to my business. It learns this every time as I keep using it. PinPinterest is free to use, based on the cloud, has a mobile ready website, works on Intelligent algorithms and sets up quick.

    • Janice Wald

      Hi Ryan,
      Great to see you here. Do you mind if I ask where you found this rather old article? I always wonder.
      Regarding Pin Pinterest, I never heard of it. If I don’t have time to explore it this week since I’m getting ready for my next trip, I definitely will when I return. Thanks for the recommendation.
      Janice

    • Janice Wald

      Hi Ryan,
      I tried to sign up for PinPinterest, but it says it’s only free for 5 days. It costs $25.00 a month. I wonder if they started charging since you signed up.
      Janice

  16. Rahul Yadav

    What a great, informative article on Pinterest. Thanks for making such an easy to follow guide.

    • Janice Wald

      Hi Rahul,
      May I ask where you found my Pinterest guide published in July? I always wonder. Thanks for writing to tell us you enjoyed! Happy new year to you!
      Janice

  17. Max

    I’m glad to see you recommending using automation tools… just because most people tend to say to avoid them because “you’ll get banned”, but you really won’t as long as you’re smart and respectful with how you use them. Everything I do on Pinterest is automated, but I do it intelligently (ie. I don’t spam like an idiot) so I don’t get banned and I’m presumably not bothering people with my pins.

    • Janice Wald

      Hi Max,
      1. Thanks for writing me. I clicked on your link but was disappointed to see Social Envy isn’t free. I try to use free automation tools. I am interested in growing my Instagram there. Can we follow each other there? I’m Janice Wald at Instagram.
      2. I use automation tools all the time and happily haven’t had a problem, at least so far! Thanks for writing that warning!
      3. Did you find my article on Google?
      Janice

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