From DIY’s to homecrafts and marketing strategies to makeup, Pinterest is the number one place businesses and people go to. Being the fastest growing and moreover, one of the most successful social media applications, Pinterest has taken over like a storm.
As we all know, social media is one of the key essentials to running most businesses especially online businesses.
Pinterest, founded in 2010, is one of the fastest growing apps to date. Being the worlds’ most visual social network, it’s no surprise that businesses have taken a liking to this app. With 150 million pinners, Pinterest can help you reach in-demand audiences all across the world in no time.
There is a lot of power in using pinterest to drive traffic to your blog, most of these are so simple it’s often overlooked. In this article we’ll take a look at some of the most effective ways to drive traffic to your blog.
Here are some of the most effective ways to drive traffic to your blog using Pinterest.
Sign up for a business account
First things first, having a business account on any social media account is the first step one should take when starting an online business.
Signing up for a Pinterest business account is free and will really impact your pinning efforts. When you sign up, Pinterest will review your site and let you know once it’s been approved. After, you’ll have access to the business analytics; this is a way to track the behavior of your pins once you verify your website. Tracking the amount of people who have visited or clicked on your pin, how many times your pin was seen and how many took action.
An slight in depth view of what Business Analytics is.
As said above, this is a way to track the behavior of your pins. By clicking on analytics, you will be able to view all the statistics of your account. You can see who views your pins, what your most popular pins are which in turn will tell you what your audience likes most. You can also find out where most of your followers are located, this gives you an advantage to knowing when to share any of your Pins.
There are 3 options you’ll see. This is where you’ll be able to view all of your accounts engagements.
Overview – with this option you will be able to see all of your Pinterest engagement. You’ll be able to see all the people you reach and what your top pin impressions were.
Profile -this option allows you to see when your followers are viewing the profile, the impression like clicks, saves and all time impressions of each individual pin.
People you reach – this option will allow you to see your audience’s demographics and interests. This will allow you to be able to pin the correct time and date to post on Pinterest.
If you would like to take it a step further you can also apply for Rich Pins. These pins have more information than your standard pin. There are 5 different types – product, app, movie, article, place and recipe – each with their own pin upgrades. This includes the link to your website and real-time pricing.
Below are some additional features that can help your pinning.
Pinterest guides – these help you get started with pinning, your analytics and optimizing your boards/group boards.
Marketing blog – you’ll be able to stay up to date with the latest news updates regarding Pinterest and be ready for any new changes and features.
Video library -these are step by step videos on how to create click-worthy pins for your profile.
Tools – one of the best things to use is a promotion, this will help you reach more people in less time and allow more people to find you.
Optimize your bio description
It only takes a few seconds to make a first impression, not only on person but social media as well. In these few seconds a pinner will decide whether or not you’re a person they would like follow and engage with.
Pinterest allows you to write up to 160 characters for your bio. It’s important to write something simple and sweet but catchy at the same time. Unlike Twitter and Instagram which uses hashtags to stay relevant, Pinterest uses keywords that allows users to find you and allows you to be found all by the keywords you use in your bio description, boards and pins.
One of the best ways to do this is to use keywords related to your blog and niche. Keywords are an essential part to your Pinterest. It will allow more people to find you based on the specific keywords used in you bio description.
For example, if you have a blog about finances and you blog about saving money, investments and banking interest tips.
Some of the most effective keywords would be:
- Money saving tips
- Investments tips
- Banking interest tips
Pin at the right time.
Every single day there are hundreds if not thousands of pins every single hour of the day. Getting your pin to stand out and getting many repins might seem like a mission at first glance.
The most successful strategy is finding the best time and day to pin. This can be achieved by checking your business analytics. As mentioned above this is where you can check what time and day your followers are most active. You can take it a step further by checking where most of your followers are from and based on their time zone you’ll be able to gage the correct time of day to create or post new pins. This will definitely help you to reach your target audience more effectively.
Though pinning at the right time and date is effective, the most effective thing is to be consistent. Consistency is one of the key things needed to have a successful Pinterest and driving more traffic to your blog. By pinning regularly you’re giving people a reason to continue following you as for the latter, not pinning as regularly as you should.
Create pin-worthy images.
Images are the first thing that’s catches any persons eye. An attractive, engaging image will capture the attention of your followers and potential followers.
The most important ways in creating a pinnable images :
It has to be the right size
Let’s be honest, your success on Pinterest has a lot to do with how you look, moreover, how your pins look that is.
Users won’t take a second look at your pin if you use low quality images that are not visually attention grabbing. One major tip to remember is that horizontal picture will be passed off and overlooked by most Pinterest users.
Since around 80% of Pinterest users view the feed off of their mobile phones. Pinterest favors vertical images most. The best ratio for your Pinterest images would be 2:3 or 4:5, however, for the best pin the longer the image is the better. That is because the longer the image, the harder it is to pass.
The image is pleasing to the eye.
The image used for your blog post should be amazing. It should coincide with your blog post and niche. The best way to create a perfect image is to..
Keep you branding and your logo at a minimum.
Use high quality, professional looking images for your blog post with high resolution and good graphics. The app Canva can help with this.
Keep it simple. Too many colors and random objects will be overwhelming and seem to messy to the followers. Following an assorted theme throughout is the best thing to do.
Include text in your image
Adding text to your pin is a great way to drive traffic to your blog, it catches the eye.
Texts will make your pin look more professional and the pinner will have an idea about what the pin is about. There are many ways and apps that can assist you in adding texts to your pins, the best by personal experience would be Canva and Adobe photoshop.
Also, a simple yet overlooked trick is using some humor in your pins every now and again. This can be effective when it comes to using puns in your pins.
By increasing the chances of your pins getting clicked, include a call to action in the pin description. By telling your followers to click the image, this will result in more clicks as a result and send more people to your blog.
Join a Pinterest group board.
If you’re new to Pinterest, you’ll most likely only know of the regular boards that only you can pin to. Navigating your way around group boards might seem tricky at the beginning but it’s far more easier than most realise.
A Pinterest group board is small(or large) community where pinners can pin along with the creator of the group board. They also give you more exposure and can generate more traction for your blog. It’s an effective way to increase your following base. If you pin regularly, more people that follow the board will be able to see your pins, thus increasing your chance of gaining more followers.
The easiest way to find a group board is to search on PinGroupie.
There are a few ways to join a group board.
Some groups have invite instructions, such as emailing the creator. One important thing to remember is explain why you would like to join and to be quite polite. .
You could get invited by a group member as well. Some groups allow this to be done.
You could also create your own group board.
Create a board as you usually would, the only difference is that you won’t be skipping “collaborators”, here you can add other pinners by their names or email addresses.
You can invite other pinners and bloggers to your board. You could also create a board out of an existing board.
Be strategic when arranging your group boards. Having a random boards all over the place can be quite confusing and make you lose some of your following. If your goal is to sell then placing the boards with your pins relating to products and services first is most effective.
The advantages of using group boards are great. Not only will you gain more followers but traffic to your blog as well. You’ll get more exposure and visibility on Pinterest.
When this is done, your number of repins will also increase, driving even more traffic to your blog. The more followers you have, the more likely their followers will be able to see your content and the more repins you’ll get.
If things go well enough when it comes to pinning and repinning your content, you’re pinning could virtually be on autopilot. People will be creating content for you.
People will be more engaged in your content, commenting, liking and repinning. Creating brand ambassadors for your group board will keep many engaged even more, thus increasing your traffic and follower count to your blog and Pinterest.
One thing to remember is that it’s important for Pinterest to know what your profile is about from the words your use on your boards. Optimize your board by using keywords like, Dinner Ideas, DIY home tutorials, Candle Making etc. Think about what the pinners will type into the search bar, you can use those board names as ideas.
Another important thing to remember is how to use Pinterest as a business or pinner is to give your boards a relevant name based on your blog niche.
Allow your audience to pin from your blog.
It’s only natural for people to want to engage and feel like a “relevant” part of your blog because they are. Allowing them to share directly from your blog not only satisfies this want but it also drives more traffic to your blog.
When developing your website, make sure to use social media share plugin, this will allow you to add the Pinterest button to all your images. You could also add a Pinterest follow button to your blog, this will help you generate more followers. It could take one follower with thousands of followers to share your pin and create and chain reaction.
Also, by linking your website and Pinterest you’ll be able to have a clickable website button in your bio. This will redirect pinners directly to your website, which will increase your website views and traction. The importance of linking the two also builds trust and you’ll be able to build better business and personal relationships with your pinners, viewers and your niche.
Use Pinterest Ads
The advantages of having a Pinterest Business account is that Pinterest has a social advertising program that allows you create ads. In turn, this allows you to reach more potential followers, allowing more people to view your pins and gaining more traffic to your blog.
There are many reasons to go down this route and we’ll have a look at a few of them
Considering that 35% of Americans use pinterest daily, equating to around 65 million people. This is a lot exposure one could get especially since there are way more regular international users.
Over 90% of Pinterest users are ready to make a purchase. Depending on the relevance of your product and service there’s a really good chance that when someone comes across your page they’re ready to make a purchase. This is something you can use to your advantage when writing your content.
Building a business ad campaign through Pinterest really does work if you consider the odds that almost 50% of the viewers have already made a purchase.
While the campaign is running you can check the statistics to see how well its doing and make changes to the ad campaign throughout the process. You can also run multiple campaigns with specific pins to attract more traffic.
The advantages of having a Pinterest business account is being able to check your profiles analytics to see how well your pins are doing and who your main following is.
Schedule your pins.
As you create a new board make sure that you are sharing all of the featured blog images in your content to this Pinterest board.
There are three apps that’s you could use that make it easy to schedule your pins.
The Buffer App is one of them. This is a great social media tool that allows you to schedule your posts for all of your social media accounts, including Pinterest.
It’s easy to set up a schedule with Buffer that posts your images on a regular basis on Pinterest; every day, every week or even every month. The key to driving more people to your blog is to include your website link to all of your articles in every single image that you share on Pinterest.
The second one is ViralWoot; ViralWoot makes it easy to schedule your pins in advanced and provides you with multiple features for more efficient and effective scheduling. There’s features include:
Google image search – this feature makes it easy for you to search and get images from Google and to schedule them. It skips the unnecessary step of uploading a Google image and then uploading it to ViralWoot, making it easier for you to share.
After choosing an image, you will be redirected to the ViralWoot dashboard where you’ll be able to schedule your pins. The final step is choosing a date and time that the pin will be published and then clicking “Schedule Now.”
ViralWoot allows you to schedule one hundred pins every month for free, if you’d like to schedule more you’ll have to pay.
Free bookmarklet – you can go to any website and click on this free bookmarklet. You get to choose which images you would like to put in a pin. When these images are clicked on, the image will lead the people to the website you were on when you used the Pin Schedule bookmarklet. Not taking away any credit.
Upload files – You could either upload files from your computer or facebook. If you have a unique image that you would like to use it on Pinterest then this feature makes it possible for you.
The third one is Tailwind. The most effective strategy to use on Tailwind is to use board lists and interval pinning. There’s a new function called Smartloops that allows you to have pins loop to the same board at an interval time. You can also schedule your first 100 pins for free on Tailwind.
Audit your Pinterest boards.
Just like any other physical business needs auditing, so do online businesses. Every month or every few months (3 -6 months). Go into Pinterest and check on your Pinterest boards and group boards to see what’s going on.
It’s always a good idea to look into Pinterest and see what’s going on. This way you can check on your progression and check if you’re spamming and boards or group boards.
Though it can be hard to find certain pins on a regular, you can create Pinterest sections for some of your boards. You can make also make secret boards or even consolidate a board.
One of the best ways is to act as the pinner and use Pinterest the way your followers would. This way you’ll be able to gage the experience they’d be getting when they get with your pins and to see how drawn you are to checking out your blog.
Conclusion
By covering these basics you’ll be well on your way to creating a successful blog and generating lots of traffic in the process. Pinterest is the number one source for social traction for many blogs and businesses, especially online businesses
Final thing to say is that Pinterest is the perfect platform for bloggers to test out their image and marketing skills. Being one of the fastest growing social networks to date, it is also the best way to promote and bring traffic to your blog.
To see the the most clicks out of your Pinterest profile and get the most out of your blog, just follow these tips:
- Sign up for a business account
- Create an interesting bio
- Pin at the right time
- Create amazing images
- Join group boards
- Allow your followers to pin from your blog
- Use Pinterest ads
- Schedule your pins
- Audit your Pinterest boards
0 Comments