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Pinterest is one of the BEST ways to increase your blog traffic and grow your business online. I used to think that you need to be on every social media platform to grow an audience online.
But now, I am convinced that you only need two sources of traffic:
- Google Organic Traffic (SEO)
I was trained as an SEO specialist and learned a LOT about how search engines work.
So when it came time to optimize for Pinterest, a visual search engine, it was very intuitive to implement SEO strategies, and almost magically, my Pinterest traffic skyrocketed within a few weeks.
Pinterest was a total gamechanger for my blog and generates more than 40% of total traffic to my site!
And now, I want to share my top 10 tactics that have worked for me on Pinterest and help you achieve some traffic goodness from it too!
Here are 10 tips to make sure you’re getting the most out of Pinterest. Let’s dive in.
1. Target the right keywords on Pinterest
Pinterest is a search engine, just like Google, and you need to optimize it with keywords. This helps Pinterest’s algorithm understand what your pins are about and rank them highly on users’ feeds.
The golden rule of keyword research is — target keywords that people are searching for.
There are 2 levels to Pinterest keyword research:
- Auto-suggested keywords: Go to Pinterest’s search box and type in a primary keyword, then observe the auto-suggested keywords Pinterest suggests.
- Long-tail keywords: Click on one of the auto-suggested keywords, and use the coloured tiles as long-tail keywords. These are related keywords that Pinterest believes are relevant.
Step 1: Type a primary keyword in Pinterest’s search box
The auto-suggested keywords Pinterest provides are a goldmine of keyword opportunities you can target.
If you’re in the blogging niche, you might be thinking which blogging topic to focus on and build content around. Well, Pinterest is giving you the most searched for keywords on a silver platter! Use this to your advantage.
Step 2: Use the coloured tiles as long-tail keywords.
Clicking on the coloured tiles effectively appends that phrase in the tile to your primary keyword. Essentially creating a long-tail keyword.
- blogging for beginners
- blogging ideas
- blogging for money
- blogging inspiration
- blogging to follow
- blogging lifestyle
- blogging starting a
- blogging tips
There you go. Keyword research for Pinterest SEO done!
2. Sprinkle target keywords on your pins and boards
Now that you have a list of potential keywords to target on Pinterest, it’s time to sprinkle them all over your pins and boards!
Unlike SEO for Google, where you have titles, meta description, technical optimization, etc…Pinterest SEO is waaaay simpler.
You only need to sprinkle your target keywords in 4 key areas:
- pin title
- pin description
- pin image
- board description
3. Write a click-worthy pin title
Your headline is everything. You have great content in your blog post, so give it the traffic it deserves!
Write a click-worthy pin title by including:
- power words: “amazing”, “best”
- numbers
- FOMO: “must see”, “don’t miss”
These words create a sense of urgency in your pin title and encourages click-throughs.
4. Add a call to action in your pin description
Your pin description is a summary of your article’s content — you want to entice users to click through to your site.
Try to add a call-to-action phrase like, “learn more about growing your blog in this guide”, “click here to enroll in my free SEO training”…this will encourage users to find out more and visit your site.
Your CTA phrase brings your article’s value proposition upfront.
5. Create eye-catching pin graphics for more re-pins
Pinterest is a visual search engine so prioritize your pin design — they make a huge difference in traffic!
Make sure your pins are vertical images and of the right dimensions (735 x 1200 px). Here’s a really handy Pinterest cheatsheet to the right Pinterest image sizes.
Then incorporate some of these pin design best practices:
- Use stock images, try out templates on Creative Market (premium) or Canva (free) to create a good looking pin.
- Use consistent colour schemes and fonts to create brand affinity.
- Add some contrast between background and text
- Use more whitespaces in your text to make it easy to read
- Red colour tends to perform very well in my experience
6. Create a GREAT description for your boards
Think of your board description as a summary of your pins regarding a specific topic:
- What is your board about and how can it help potential readers?
- Include your main keyword and add in related keywords and sub-topics. This will help Pinterest’s algorithm understand what your board is about and improve your search visibility.
You can also include all those auto-suggested keywords and long-tail keywords from the coloured tiles in your board description. This boosts the visibility and relevance of your board to users searching for that topic.
7. Use Tailwind to schedule your pins at optimal times
The only way to see results from Pinterest is to be consistent and pin regularly. Pinterest prioritizes fresh content and how active your profile is.
I use Tailwind to schedule my pins for up to 2 weeks and this has been a GAMECHANGER for my blog.
You could pin manually (say, 2-3 times a day) but there’s a limit to how many times you can do within a day. Tailwind takes that repetitive task from you and pins FOR you — behold, scheduling!
Before using Tailwind, I was pinning manually and I saw great results from it. But it was SOOO tiring.
Using Tailwind accelerated that growth and dramatically eased the workload from manual pinning. The biggest change was when I started to use Tailwind’s optimal timeslots feature.
Tailwind knows when your audience is most active and recommends optimal times to pin.
Not only are you scheduling your pins in advance and saving time, you are now pinning smarter. This increases the likelihood of your pins being seen and generates more traffic to your site.
Join Tailwind now and get 100 pins for free!
8. Automate your pinning schedule with Tailwind Smartloop
Imagine your best pins re-circulated on Pinterest on autopilot. Completely hands-off and optimized with analytics.
No more manual pinning to the same boards everyday.
No more guessing when your audience is most engaged.
Too good to be true? Behold, Tailwind’s Smartloop!
You can loop your highest converting pins to group boards and re-circulate them, without needing to schedule at all.
Also, Tailwind’s smartloop feature is optimized for Pinterest’s best practices, so if you “overloop”, Tailwind will warn you that it might be spammy. #Phew.
9. Attract your ideal client or reader by providing value upfront
Users searching on Pinterest are qualified traffic. Meaning that they are people who already know what they’re looking for on the visual search engine, and are ready to engage with the content they find.
This is very different from seeing a post on a news feed or a banner ad that interrupts your browsing experience online.
Pinterest users are coming to YOU to look for answers.
To attract these qualified users, your pin graphic itself needs to communicate a clear benefit upfront.
My best performing pins had these characteristics:
- Specific: included a number such as “10k visits”, “Your first 100 subscribers”
- Color contrasts
- Icon / laptop mockup
- Overlays
When done properly, Pinterest can generate a MASSIVE pipeline of profitable leads for your business.
10. Delete under-performing pins from your boards
Finally, do some housekeeping! From my experience, deleting under-performing pins actually help improve your overall ‘quality score’ on Pinterest’s algorithm.
By removing pins that weren’t getting much traction, you’re actually improving the value of your boards. And the more valuable your boards and pins, the more likely they will appear on Pinterest’s smart feed. #SEO.
You can check the stats of your own pins on Pinterest analytics, and see which pins are performing well and those that aren’t pulling their weight.
78 people reacted on this
Creating eye-catching pin graphics is very important. I gained more traffic from Pinterest because of this.
It’s hard to keep up with the algorithm changes and updates but Pinterest is still one of the best platforms to promote our content. I love your tips here!
It is an amazing post and you explained in a detailed way. Nice to see this here. I will bookmark your blog for more details. Keep sharing the new things like this.
I’ve seen an improvement in my Pinterest following and traffic recently. Maybe because I pinned attractive photos (from my blog posts), and adding the website source link. I know there are still heaps of improvements to do and will work on it. Your guide is very helpful!
Thank for sharing. The best way to get traffic from pinterest is awesome. I use pinterest, easy to use love its featured.
Pinterest is pretty awesome 🙂
Thanks for sharing this informative article about Pinterest. It is really helpful and actionable.
Cheers 🙂
Hey Leanne,
Thanks for this, I think it’s probably the most helpful post I’ve actually read about Pinterest optimisation! Much appreciated 🙂
That just made my day. Cheers!
Hey Leanne,
Thanks for sharing this helpful post and actionable tips!
Thanks a lot!
Cheers 🙂
This is incredibly helpful. I’m trying to grow my Pinterest account and while it is growing, it is really slow. The tips you’ve provided are invaluable 🙂 Thank you. Keywords on pins and boards is my area of focus.
Thats awesome, Rosemary!!
This is so helpful. I just recently changed my account to business account so this is very helpful. Thanks for sharing
No problem, Nene! So happy that you enjoyed the article 🙂
My pinterest referrals have dropped over the last month so I’ll definitely be using these tips.
Oh no! Hope you find these tips helpful – let me know your progress 🙂
I’ve been working on my Pinterest game, so these tips are very helpful! Thank you!
That’s awesome, Heather!
Great tips! I hadn’t considered deleting any underperforming pins before. It makes sense though and seems like a good practice to incorporate. I will try this during this new month and see how that helps! Thanks!
That’s awesome, Samantha! Let me know how it goes 🙂
No. 10 is new for me. I will search about it more. Thank you.
Awesome!
These are really excellent tips! I’m glad I read this article and will try to implement some of these strategies into my Pinterest account for sure!
Cheers!
Once again your vast knowledge of the digital landscape shines through in your writing. Pinterest is a social media platform I have been having a hard time figuring out how to best utilize for traffic to my site. Thanks for the help!
Thank you for your kind words, Dave! Cheers.
Love all this amazing advice thank you for such an awesome post my dear
Thank you Candace!
Excellent post! I really dislike the whole housekeeping portion. I know Tailwind makes this a bit easier to find underperforming pins, but it still feels like a chore. I’d rather vacuum! As a whole for your 10 ways, Tailwind is quite the lifesaver.
Yes!! I can’t imagine what my life would be like without Tailwind!
Wow I didn’t realize how much traffic you could generate (and how quickly) through Pinterest! Thank you for the tips! I will definitely be implementing some of these.
Awesome!
Love ALL of these Pinterest Tips! Thank you so much. I’m off to pin this post to one of my boards. 🙂
That makes me so happy!! Cheers.
This is so helpful! Thank you!
Cheers!
This is amazing information!!! I knew some of it, but most I did not. I have never heard of deleting pins. Thanks as I will focus on a broader approach.
Cheers!
This is such a helpful post! I can’t wait to start trying all your suggestions for my Pinterest page! Thank you for sharing!
That’s awesome, Autumn!
Okay, this post was SO helpful! I had no idea about Smart Loops, and I am Tailwind user so this was really great to learn about. I spent like an hour last night going through and setting things up that you mentioned in this post!
Thank you, Holly! That’s awesome, good for you my dear!
Leanne, this post is the bomb , and your posts are always so helpful! I have been putting too much effort into instagram with little return. I have been focusing more on pinterest as of late. I am still not getting big traffic from it tho..PIN TITLES are a huge challenge. I am going to disect this post and follow it to the T…hoping this changes things..
Out of curiosity….do you think dropping pins in FACEBOOK reciprocation groups does much for your account and driving traffic off pinterest?
THANK YOU!!!
Valerie
Hi Valerie! So glad to hear this post was helpful for you! I do think dropping pins in Facebook groups does help drive more traffic to your pinterest profile and website, but might not be very impactful in terms of directly impacting your Pinterest SEO and ranking higher on smart feeds.
But, traffic is still traffic, no matter where it comes from. And the more activity your pins receive, the better your overall performance on pinterest 😉
All great tips, especially about keywords! I really need to spend more time on Pinterest.
Cheers!
Hi Leanne. I must say, this is one of the best blog posts I’ve read so far on generating social media traffic for your website. I was just wondering if Pinterest is good for generating traffic to a youtube channel? We have a youtube channel and we desperately want to generate organic traffic towards it and wondering if the same strategy applies? or do we need to tweak a thing or two to make it work? Thanks! 🙂
Hi Jasmin! Thank you so much for your kind words. Yes, I believe you can add youtube links on your pins too. And the Pinterest SEO keyword concepts would still apply. But here’s an additional article I found on this, hope it’ll help you: https://problogger.com/how-to-add-your-youtube-videos-to-pinterest/
These are great tips! One of my favorite tools is Tailwind – their tribes are key to gaining great traffic!
Totally agree!
These tips are amazing! I’m going to work on implementing them this week because I feel like I could be getting a lot more traffic from Pinterest with the right strategy, thanks for sharing! xo, Brittany Nicole | http://www.theblistblog.com
Thank you, Brittany! Absolutely, Pinterest is a very powerful traffic growth tool.
SEO or keywords are such a huge aspect! I was glad to see they were number one on your list!
Cheers!
This is so helpful! My Pinterest following tanked a while back and I haven’t done much about it, but I need to!
Oh no! Let me know how these Pinterest strategies have worked for you 🙂
Such a great post! Seriously learned so much!
Thanks, Carolyn!
I’ve only started utilizing Pinterest in the last few months and I agree this with SEO for google is all you need to concentrate on (besides good quality content of course). I love Tailwind it has been a game changer for me!
Me too!!
Such a great post! My Pinterest is finally picking up some traffic, which was been great! I still need to jump on the Tailwind train though because as of right now, I do all my own manual pinning!
-madi xo | http://www.everydaywithmadirae.com
That’s great to hear! Take your time and have fun with manual pinning, I know I did. When your reach on Pinterest increases, Tailwind will be the best companion to accelerate that growth 🙂
Great post. So informative. I spent ages ignoring Pinterest but it really does bring traffic.
Cheers!
I recently joined Tailwind and will have to use this article while I figure out the Pinterest aspect.
That’s awesome, Jessica! Let me know how it goes 🙂
Pinterest drives a LOT of my traffic but I do want more of it. I already use Tailwind and will be implementing more keyword search tools!
Yay!!
I’ve always been at a loss when it comes to getting traffic from Pinterest. Your strategies look quite easy. Would try them!
Awesome, let me know if you have any questions along the way 🙂
I’m rather new to this, but I’m slowly realizing how valuable this platform is to my blog traffic. I love all of your strategies and will implement into my blog!
Pinterest will be a gamechanger for sure. Cheers!
Leanne, I completely agree! The two biggest drivers of traffic to blogs are Google and Pinterest. I love your Pinterest strategies! Thank you so much for sharing your expertise.
Thank you, Denay!
Hi Leanne,
I love your tip about adding a concrete number to your pin titles. It allows the viewer to imagine a specific change in their results, and they’re more likely to click through.
Pinterest is my favorite platform. 🙂 It’s powerful for getting traffic to your site, especially when you’re waiting for your SEO efforts to kick in.
Great post!
-Taylor
I LOVE Pinterest! Absolutely, it’s an incredible source of traffic that isn’t (yet) too difficult to achieve good reach organically. Cheers.