I’ll never forget the time I got 1,000 monthly views from my blog.
It was when I started using Pinterest. It’s insane how much traffic you can get from Pinterest organically.
I was just starting on the platform and learning how to validate rich pins.
Pinterest Analytics: Updated June – August 2021
Now, Pinterest drives thousands of clicks to my blog every month and over 500K impressions through pins. This proves that the reach on Pinterest is significant.
Pinterest Analytics: Total Link Clicks (Organic)
I still feel extremely lucky.
Starting a blog and gaining traction so quickly sometimes feels like a miracle.
And while I feel slightly uncomfortable sharing statistics (because it feels like bragging), I decided to mention them in this post to show you that it is possible.
If you’re still figuring out how to use Pinterest as a traffic source for your business, then you are so in the right place!
I’m going to show you the most important things you need to do on Pinterest to get over 100K organic views every month from Pinterest.
How to drive 3x more traffic to your blog with Pinterest
When you first think about starting a blog you kind of don’t imagine Pinterest to be a reliable source of traffic.
After all, it’s a social media platform for recipes and DIY crafts, right?
Wrong!
Pinterest is a search engine, just like Google, Yahoo, Bing.
Its goal is to display the most relevant pins to a user’s search query.
The more authoritative and relevant your Pinterest profile and content are, the higher you’ll rank in its feed.
In this post, I’ll lay out the crucial steps I took in my Pinterest journey and help you succeed on Pinterest too.
Content List
- 1. Create a Pinterest business account
- 2. Target keywords for Pinterest SEO
- 3. Publish fresh pins
- 4. Set up rich pins with Pinterest in 6 minutes
- 5. Create beautiful eye-catching custom Pinterest graphics
- 6. Create boards, SEO optimize their title and description with keywords
- 7. Join niche group boards with this outreach template
- 8. Sign up for Tailwind to schedule your pins and skyrocket your reach
1. Create a Pinterest business account
The first thing you want to do is create a free Pinterest business account.
Or if you’re currently using a personal account, convert it to a business account. It’ll take less than 20 seconds.
This gets you all the benefits of a personal account plus Pinterest Analytics.
2. Target keywords for Pinterest SEO
After creating a business account on Pinterest, start finding keywords that you can target on Pinterest.
This is because Pinterest is a search engine, which means people are using the search function on Pinterest to look for content (pins). What people type in the Pinterest search bar are keywords.
You might have noticed this works very similarly to Google. And you are absolutely right because keywords are at play on Pinterest, we have to optimize our pins, boards, and Pinterest profile for Pinterest SEO.
When you optimize for keywords, your pin starts appearing on Pinterest search and you’ll start getting clicks to your website FAST.
I recommend adding keywords in the pin title, pin description and even the pin image itself! Pinterest is using visual search which allows people to search for content with photos alone.
Continue reading about Keyword Strategy for Pinterest SEO here.
3. Publish fresh pins
Pinterest rewards fresh pins and prioritizes fresh content. This has been discussed at length in early 2020, and Tailwind and Pinterest have recommended publishing fresh pins.
In terms of how much impact publishing fresh pins had on performance, I experienced that there was a huge spike of impressions and traffic during the first few days when a new pin is published.
Also, publishing fresh pins prevent the situation of overpinning the same pins excessively.
Pinterest takes spam seriously and overpinning would very likely lead to account suspension – make sure that doesn’t happen to you!
4. Set up rich pins on Pinterest
Setting up rich pins is super easy and incredibly beneficial for growing your Pinterest following.
Since activating rich pins, the number of people who viewed my profile and interacted with my pins have nearly tripled.
I’ve also noticed that my pins were gaining more traction – re-pins, saves and clicks.
Pinterest rich pins are like Google’s rich snippets.
Rich pins show extra context directly on a pin which makes your pins stand out.
But you need to have metadata enabled on your site first. I’ll show you how in the next few steps. 🙂
Step 1: Install Yoast SEO Plugin (WordPress users)
For WordPress users, you just need to install and activate the Yoast SEO Plugin.
After Yoast is activated, go to the Yoast’s “Features” tab under ‘General’. Make sure the “Advanced settings” option is “Enabled” and that will enable the metadata.
Done.
Step 2: Use the “Rich Pins Validator”
Visit the “Rich Pins Validator” on Pinterest.
Enter your URL and hit “validate”.
Plug in a link to any blog post on your site (NOT the homepage). Any blog post will do and you only need to do this just once. Voila!
Then just wait for the confirmation page, which should look like this:
Step 3: Claim your website on Pinterest
Final step: claim your website on Pinterest.
This will ensure that any Pins from your site will have your profile picture added next to them.
You’ll also get access to website analytics so you can see what people are saving from your website.
First, go to your account settings and in the ‘Claim Website’ section, enter your website URL and click on “Claim website”. Then, copy the meta tag.
Second, go to Yoast Plugin and in the ‘social’ section, head to ‘Pinterest’ tab. Paste the meta tag you’ve just copied.
Then you’re all set. Give it 24 hours for the confirmation email to arrive in your email.
Easy, huh?
5. Create beautiful, eye-catching custom Pinterest graphics
To succeed on Pinterest, you need to win people over with beautiful graphics.
Just as you wouldn’t save ugly pins, make sure your wins are rocking good lookin’ to get people to notice your pins.
What makes a great looking pin:
a) Format: Create vertical pins, with a 2:3 aspect ratio. There are a few image sizes Pinterest recommends, you can check the full list here. I personally use 1000px X 1500px and they have worked well so far.
b) Consistent design: Try to use the same font and complementary colors for every pin. This creates a consistent layout for your profile and helps people remember you.
c) Inspiration from others: check out some of your favorite Pinterest profiles and take inspiration from them
Pinterest Graphic Resources
Canva: a free online tool to easily create amazing Pinterest graphics within minutes. Don’t waste time on Photoshop.
Colour Calculator for professional design: the best colour wheel finder to find different complementary colours from your base colour.
6. Create boards, SEO optimize their title and description with keywords
Your Pinterest profile should have at least 3 boards.
Think of your boards like blog categories.
For starters, create three boards based on the following:
- main board (all blog posts): this is a general board for all your blog posts, such as ‘yourdomain’ board
- category 1 board: a niche board for a specific topic, could be your main focus topic in your blog
- category 2 board: a niche board for a specific topic, could be your secondary focus topic in your blog
Optimize each board with SEO keywords
Pinterest is a search engine, and you need to optimise your board and pins just like you would for SEO.
So Pinterest’s goal is to display pins most relevant to a user’s query.
And it has to find millions of pins to do so. Just like Googlebot, Pinterest finds and understands your pins based on the keywords you provide it.
Pinterest Board Title
Include the main keyword of a blog topic as your board’s title.
Here are some good examples:
Pinterest Board Description
Describe who your blog is for and what sub-topics will be under it. Think about related keywords, sub-categories that are related to the board’s focus.
7. Join niche group boards with this outreach template
There is debate on whether or not pinning to group boards is still effective.
In my opinion, they are still at play. While my analytics tell me that my own boards have the highest engagement score, there is still engagement activity from group boards.
When I first started using Pinterest in 2018, the secret to getting traffic to your pins was joining group boards.
When you’re just starting out, you have zero to very little visibility on your pins.
But the fastest way to accelerate that visibility is to put your pins in front of a large group of people.
Check your main competitors or Pinterest profiles with monster followings, then check out the group boards they’ve joined.
Identify the group board based on the “picture collage” profile image.
Click on each of these group boards and reach out to the owner (its the first profile image).
Make sure you follow the instructions on the group board’s description.
Usually, you’d have to personally email the owner, or private message him/her on Pinterest.
8. Sign up for Tailwind to schedule your pins
I recommend a Pinterest-approved marketing partner such as Tailwind.
Tailwind allows you to schedule pins in advance and has a number of automation features to optimize your pinning capabilities.
Smart Schedule
One of my favourites is Tailwind’s smart scheduler. This is something that goes beyond Pinterest’s own 30-day scheduler which is rather simple.
Tailwind’s smart scheduling feature suggests timeslots when your pins receive the most engagement. You can publish your pins when your audience are most engaged on Pinterest using Tailwind.
Recommended Pinning Frequency
Tailwind’s scheduler also has a pinning frequency checker to ensure that you are not overpinning.
Currently, my pinning schedule is about 10-15 pins per day. This frequency seems to work well and aligned with Pinterest’s best practices.
By the way, are you following me on Pinterest? I share tons of digital marketing tips for bloggers and entrepreneurs, including Pinterest Marketing! Follow me here @leannewongco.
62 people reacted on this
Oh this is great! Pinterest is a huge source of traffic fr me!
I am working on those keywords for my pins and boards, all the same! They should be able to finally get me through to 100,000 monthly viewers from the usual 90,000 I have!
I love Pinterest, but have found that it isn’t nearly as “friendly” as it used to be. At least for me. My views have taken a hit over the last 6 months or so. I will definitely check out some of your suggests and make sure my account is set up properly!
There are so many great tips. When I was first on Pinterest I was very dedicated but now mot do much
This is such a great post! I love applying Pinterest for traffic to my blog. Already get 1.4M views/month but I always want to find ways to increase the number. Thanks for sharing the tips!
Pinterest has been an interesting case. It definitely had some changes in the algorithm. I just hope that I can drive more traffic to my site using that platform.
Wow! I am glad Pinterest is working well for you. I had a hard time keeping up when the algorithm suddenly changed
Thank you Brianne! Actually, early this year, my views and traffic on Pinterest completely tanked! What I did to recover my Pinterest traffic – https://www.leannewong.co/why-pinterest-monthly-views-decrease/
I honestly have given up on Pinterest. It takes so much effort and time to make pins but this made me want to try again and get same results
Give it another try, Beth! I believe consistency and resilience to adjust to Pinterest’s updates and best practices will pay off.
getting your first 1000 views is unforgettable. I’ll never forget mine either but the end goal here is to 100x that number. Congrats on your successful setup on Pinterest
That’ll be fantastic indeed!
I have a blogger friend who also uses Pinterest, and I think this is a great way for her to increase her Pinterest traffic. Thank you!
Cheers 🙂
Honestly, regardless of what I do – Pinterest just doesn’t work for me. And now, I just don’t think Pinterest is much of a thing anymore. Or maybe it just never was really a thing for me!
Oh no! I’m sorry to hear that. Pinterest has been fluctuating for many accounts this year and they had an algorithm update in Jan- Feb 2021 which caused a traffic decline for me too. I layout the exact steps to recover my traffic and views on Pinterest here, hope it helps! https://www.leannewong.co/why-pinterest-monthly-views-decrease/
Pinterest is my next big thing to research and put a lot of time into for my blog. It’s driving traffic right now, but could use some help.
Pinterest is quite an effective marketing channel still. I’d continue to invest and put time into it too.
Oh my goodness, thank you so much for all this useful information about pinterest and SEO. I am a photographer and will be implementing all of this info!
Cheers!
Interesting – I have to admit I have all but given up on Pinterest since the algo changes. I used to get a fair bit from Pinterst…do you think it is worth having another go then?
Hey Talya, yes I think it is worth it to have a presence on Pinterest! The monthly active user base is huge, and impressions and clicks pick up over time with a consistent strategy. 🙂
Wow! Those numbers are so impressive. Pinterest has really been hit or miss over the last year.
It has been fluctuating this year, hopefully stats on Pinterest can recover
I am very glad that you have shared this useful information for users new on Pinterest. Keep posting good content..Cheers!!!
Thank you!
I don’t know before reading your case study about Pinterest. I was shocked when I saw people generate massive organic traffic from Pinterest. Then I decide to make a business account on Pinterest and get a more organic visitor for my website. Thanks!! for sharing your amazing and informational content with others
The good thing about Pinterest is that it can provide huge organic reach with little following. Great for those who are starting out on the platform!
Admiring the time and effort you put into your blog and detailed information you provide.
It’s nice to come across a blog every once in a while that isn’t the same outdated rehashed material.
Wonderful read! I’ve bookmarked your site and I’m adding your RSS feeds to my Google account.
Thank you so much, Jamika. You’ve just made my day 🙂 Really glad to hear this guide on pinterest was helpful for you (indeed this was one of my larger guides, so i think i spent 15 hours writing its first draft!) Cheers.
Many thanks for this article. Great check-list!
Kind Regards
Raffaele from Zürich
No problem, Raffaele! Glad you enjoyed the article 🙂
Thanks for the great article…I’m now focusing much more on Pinterest for my business, so this helps!!
Cheers!
This is great! I know that I am way underutilizing Pinterest. So this is great info…I didn’t even know what a rich pin was…
Glad you found this article useful, Natasha! Best of luck, and feel free to share with me any questions you might have along the way. Happy to help!
thank you for explaining the rich pins thing! i had heard it before, but had forgotten about it (along with a million other things you’re supposed to be doing as a blogger, ha!) will definitely do this!
– cassy | blissfullyher.com
No problem, Cassy! Yup, rich pins are sooo important to pinterest engagement. Let me know your progress, my dear. 🙂
This has been by far the best post I’ve read about how to work with Pinterest. Thank you so much for all those tips. My Pinterest needs a lot of work and this is just what I needed to start.
That’s great to hear, Gabi! So glad you’ve found these Pinterest strategies helpful. Best of luck, and let me know if you have any questions along the way, my friend!
Thanks for sharing on this topic. I’ve been feeling at a standstill with my Pinterest traffic for a while now. It’s always great to get advice from people with success!
No problem, Laurel! Glad that you enjoyed the article, feel free to drop me a message about your progress with Pinterest so far 🙂 Would love to hear how the strategies have worked for you, my dear.
Awesome tips for building up your Pinterest following. I appreciate that you shared your group board templates! Thanks!
No problem, Cassie! Enjoy 🙂
Hi Leanne, coming across your post has been such a blessing. I’m at a stage where I’m trying to learn more about Pinterest and grow my blog. Your post has been insightful and so very helpful in my journey. Thank you so much..
Hi Kelly! You’re most welcome, my dear! Really happy you’ve found these Pinterest tips helpful – let me know if you have any questions along the way.
It is a great article Leanne! I loved the way how you put all great tips in one place including group boards! I am going to try those outreach mails for some group boards 😉 Thank you !
Thanks Sri! Glad that you enjoyed these Pinterest tactics – they are an incredible way to grow your blog’s traffic!
An amazing content u wrote
May i know which theme are u using
Thanks Sufyan! I’m using Spiracle Themes 🙂
This is a great overview of Pinterest tips! I just started really putting effort into my Pinterest account and can already tell a difference with my pageviews and website traffic in the last couple of months! Thanks for your post Leanne!
That’s amazing, Kristin! So happy to hear you’re getting results with Pinterest. Let me know if you have any questions along the way, my friend!
These are some great tips, I need to utilize Pinterest more!
Hey Krystin, so glad to hear you found these Pinterest tips helpful. Let me know if you have any questions along the way, bud!
WOW congrats on the success with Pinterest! These are some amazing tips and I can’t wait to give them a go with my own Pinterest account 🙂
It’s so true that it performs like any other search engine – I get so many Pinterest results when I do my own Google searches, and they usually lead me to some great resources!
Hi Jodi! That’s awesome, good for you man. Keep me updated on your Pinterest progress!
I love Pinterest! I went a few months without creating any new content but kept my pageviews up thanks to Pinterest traffic and tailwind! There are a few other tips here I didnt know, so thanks for sharing 🙂
YAY super stoked that these tips have been helpful for you, Lauren! I love Pinterest too, it’s amazing. Glad to hear you’re doing well!
I’ve just started using Pinterest seriously in 1st Aug. So far I got quite a few visitors but not too much.
I got a few questions if yo don’t mind. When you said you have ” 20K organic views on Pinterest” that’s the impression of your pin on Pinterest right? If that’s it, I get about the same but result.
But a few paragraph down you said “20,000 organic visits a month”. Unfortunately, mine doesn’t equal to 20k views = 20k visits.
The article starts with ” I got 1,000 monthly views from my blog”. So I am confuse.
Sorry if I sounds like nitpicking but I am trying to gauge what Pinterest are capable of sending and I am fascinated with other people results.
Anyway, thanks for the wonderful post Leanne.
Hi Gaman! Thank you for pointing that out – indeed, views are impressions. It could be confusing to use visits and views interchangeably but you are right they are not the same metrics. In terms of improving CTR on pins and getting more visitors to your site, the greater impressions your pins have, the higher likelihood of conversions into clicks (and visits).
I’d say the most results I’ve gotten were diligently participating in relevant group boards with a sizeable following, which exposes your pins to a huge audience. Especially in niche boards where your target audience hangs out who are likely more primed to click-through to your site, thus increasing the referral traffic from Pinterest. Hope this helps!
Hello Leanne,
Not sure why this article doesn’t have any comments yet, but this is a real gem. I’m actually implementing some of these tips to grow traffic to my blog and it seems to work. Slowly.
One thing I don’t like to do is to include as many keywords as possible in board description as to me it looks way to spammy. Can’t tell how effective that tactics is but I assume if this continues Pinterest may do something about. Just like Google did about the meta keywords and meta description tags.
Take care!
Thank you for your kind words! Indeed, spamming is definitely a no-no. What’s interesting though is that adding related, relevant keywords to your board topic does help users find your board faster. I guess it’s about balance and not overdoing it 😉