If you’re a blogger or entrepreneur who isn’t on Pinterest to grow your traffic and ultimately your sales, you’re seriously missing out.
As bloggers and business owners, one of the biggest goals is getting as many eyeballs on our amazing content or products as possible, am I right?
I haven’t met one blogger who wants to wait months to start bringing in traffic while working hard at crafting great content.
I also haven’t met any bloggers who don’t want to increase their traffic to get more email opt-ins, affiliate sales, product sales, and ad revenue.
So, how can we bloggers and business owners increase traffic quickly?
Pinterest.
Pinterest is a traffic powerhouse when you use it properly and that’s what we’re going to look at today.
Here are 8 things I did to increase my blog traffic quickly using Pinterest.
Leveraging Traffic from Pinterest
When I look at my traffic results for my little blog MomBlogLife.com I’m thrilled at how quickly traffic has grown (and continues to grow!) over the last few months.
Here’s traffic to Mom Blog Life from Pinterest in June 2018:
Those traffic numbers didn’t represent the vision I had for my blog!
I started my Mom Blog Life so I could monetize it and work from home.
So, I tweaked my strategy in a big way.
Here’s what traffic to Mom Blog Life from Pinterest looks like now (January 2019):
That’s an 800% Pinterest traffic increase over a very short period of time and it keeps on growing. 🙂
What has this traffic meant to my blogging business?
✔I’ve been able to grow an email list.
✔I’ve monetized the blog with ads through a reputable ad agency.
✔My affiliate commissions have grown.
✔I’ve discovered an audience who wants to consume my content (it’s a good feeling!)
I’ve realized that if I’m even more aggressive with my strategy my Pinterest traffic will grow exponentially during 2019 (as it has already done a month in).
Need help with Pinterest? I love it so much I want to help you succeed! Get in touch here.
Check out my Pinterest Management packages here. (By the way, I do custom work too 🙂 )
So, what steps did I take to increase my traffic from Pinterest?
1) LOOKED AT WHAT MY AUDIENCE WANTED
And then gave them content around exactly what they want.
When I first began Mom Blog Life, the audience I had in mind was pretty broad.
I didn’t get much traction on Pinterest because I was busy trying to cater to that big audience and as a result, I spun my wheels for a few months.
I started paying attention to which pins on Pinterest were getting the most impressions, repins and clicks – through that research, a smaller, more defined niche emerged.
In other words – my audience spoke and I listened.
(How many times have you heard THAT advice?!)
Once you know exactly what brings Pinterest traffic, it’s easy to craft more content and pins to attract even more 🙂
2) BECAME SMARTER ABOUT WHAT I PINNED
There is all sorts of advice about how much of your own and other people’s content you should be pinning on your account.
Truthfully, figuring out a good balance can take some time.
It depends on what stage your account is at – newer accounts will need more 3rd party pins than a seasoned one.
The advice I don’t see a lot of bloggers (or Pinterest experts) offer up is how important it is to pin high-quality third-party content that your audience will love.
Starting out, I pinned some lower quality pins that ultimately did more harm to my account than good.
Pinterest loves engagement.
And that engagement is not just on your own pins.
They also appreciate how strong your Pinterest account is and I truly believe that strength can affect how often your pins are shown in the feed or search.
Think about it – if no one is repinning the content you pin then you must not be a very good pinner – or so thinks Pinterest.
When I started paying attention to WHAT I pinned from 3rd parties, I started performing better on Pinterest which has ultimately lead to more traffic.
Yes, I do believe Pinterest trusts me more because of how much engagement my profile has.
Now, some will argue that Pinterest reach is nothing more than a vanity metric but I’m willing to bet that most making this argument have strong Pinterest profiles.
Anywho, this topic can be a whole other blog post (so stay tuned!) – the point is once I really paid attention to what I was pinning my results got better.
(Note: yes you need to have a good Pinterest profile but you need to couple that with good content that your audience wants. Do that and you have a winning recipe for Pinterest success!)
3) IMPROVED MY PIN DESIGNS
Well, this is going to get a little bit embarrassing but OKAY.
I’ll bite the bullet.
When I started designing pins…I wasn’t that great at it.
How do I know that?
My traffic told me, haha!
Here are a few of my early pin designs:
So, how did I improve my pin design?
I took note of pins that caught my eye in my own Pinterest feed.
Then I wrote down what I liked about them.
No, I didn’t mimic the designs but I did pull the qualities I liked into my new pins.
Here is a sampling of my new pin designs and I think you will agree they are much better!
How do I know people like my pins better?
My impressions, saves and clicks skyrocketed once my pin designs were, what I like to call, “prettier”.
That proved that pin design is an important part of your success driving traffic on Pinterest.
Now, I will admit, I’ve had some “uglier” pins do well – it just doesn’t happen as often.
Don’t want the hassle of Pinterest? Let’s chat – reach out here.
4) PUT MORE THOUGHT INTO MY CLICKABLE HEADLINES
Good pin design brings me to clickable headlines because the two pair well together.
If you have a great looking pin with a headline that makes people want to know more then you have a winning recipe for traffic.
When I first started, I was stuck on only using my post title as the text overlay on my pins – wrong move if you want to entice readers to click through to your website.
While some of my post titles are really interesting others are a bit more boring.
So, I started coming up with different variations of titles that kept with the theme of the post.
I tell you, most people who click through don’t really care if the text overlay doesn’t match exactly with what your post title is.
5) STARTED USING PINTEREST SEO
I’ll admit when I first got on Pinterest, I didn’t know there was something called Pinterest SEO.
SEO refers to search engine optimization so why would it matter for Pinterest?
Oh, it matters.
You see, Pinterest is actually a visual search engine.
When you first pin something on Pinterest, it has no idea what that image is about so the algorithm takes the first few interactions with the pin to figure out its topic.
That’s why Pinterest SEO is so important – you need to do everything to let Pinterest know what your pin is about.
So, how do you go about that?
✔Using keyword rich descriptions for pins.
✔Pinning the pins to boards with on topic names that are keyworded themselves.
Taking the time to use Pinterest SEO has been a real game changer.
It’s helped me get my pins in front of people who are looking for them.
Don’t have time for Pinterest? I can help you! Check out my Pinterest Services here.
6) USE TAILWIND ALONG WITH MANUAL PINNING
Starting out, I used to pin everything manually and did see some success.
The problem with manual pinning is that it’s a huge time suck and really hard to track where and when you’ve pinned your content.
I no longer wanted to guess and hope for the best.
I wanted to pin strategically so investing in Tailwind has been a huge game changer for me.
I have access to analytics I didn’t have before and I can ‘set and forget’ a pin schedule that works for me.
What more could anyone using Pinterest to drive traffic want? 🙂
The benefits of using Tailwind deserve their own post so stay tuned for my full review!
7) I THINK FOR MYSELF
What the heck does thinking for yourself have to do with growing Pinterest traffic?
A whole lot if you peel the onion back.
There are many Facebook blogging groups (and other sources) with numerous opinions on how to increase traffic from Pinterest.
It’s so darn easy to get caught up in all of it to the point where you lose sight and forget to think for yourself.
I’ve seen it time and again – one person posts impressive results, there’s a huge wave of questions on how they did it, then people jump ship to do what the other person did but their results aren’t the same.
Why?
Because Pinterest is not a one shoe fits all kind of platform.
A strategy might work for one niche but tank for another.
Now looking at advice isn’t all bad.
The key is to think about HOW and WHY it might work for your blog (or business).
I don’t jump into any strategies – I do the thinking and I’ve surprised myself at how many times I’ve passed advice by.
I’m telling you – thinking for yourself is a game changer for your Pinterest success!
Want to free yourself from all the work Pinterest entails?
Check out my Pinterest Management services here.
8) CONTINUALLY STAYING ON TOP OF PINTEREST
While I do like thinking for myself, I also pay attention to what bloggers do who have more success on Pinterest than I do.
If they have a course and I trust them I’ll invest and learn.
I then translate what I learn to help my Pinterest success.
I also stay on top of everything Pinterest by reading their blog.
Hey, if you want success then you need to keep learning and evolving with the platform. 🙂
There you have it – 8 things I did to increase my Pinterest traffic quickly.
Going forward, I will continue to design awesome pins, use Pinterest SEO and think for myself.
My traffic from Pinterest has already increased further since writing this post!
Yes, I’m a self-professed Pinterest nerd – there’s something so fascinating about the platform.
Tell me, what do you do for success on Pinterest?
Don’t have time for Pinterest?
I do.
Get in touch and let’s chat about what you need.
Interested in my Pinterest services?
