Pinterest for Bloggers: How To Create a Content Archive and Drive Traffic to a Blog

Last Updated: April 17, 2026

I discovered Pinterest for bloggers when I started a blog back in 2016. I wanted to bring my writing online, and I can tell you firsthand that if you write it, they will not come.

Because of Pinterest, I grew that blog’s traffic to over 100k sessions per month, and it was earning affiliate and ad revenue.

I also began offering to help other blogger’s with their strategy, and that’s how my boutique Pinterest management agency was born in 2018.

(PS. I sold my blog for five figures, and Pinterest was my highest traffic driver)

I work with numerous bloggers as a Pinterest strategist, seeing firsthand what it takes to drive traffic from Pinterest to a blog.

Because let’s be honest, Pinterest isn’t sending the passive traffic it once did, circa 2016.

(Don’t panic, there’s still plenty of blog traffic to be had!)

In this post, I’m going to show you how to use Pinterest as a blogger looking to increase blog traffic.

Let’s get started, shall we?

Check out my expert Pinterest marketing and management services.

Table of Contents

Why Bloggers Should Use Pinterest for Discovery and Traffic

The first reason to use Pinterest is obviously the traffic potential, but as we move forward with the rise of AI and constant Google updates, it’s becoming more important to use the platform in other ways to help you build topical authority in your blogging niche.

I think of Pinterest like a library that helps you build a content archive.

The fact that it’s a long-term results platform should be reason enough, but what does that even mean?

The average shelf life of an organic pin is around six months, which means the ROI of your efforts on Pinterest is pretty amazing.

Plus, you can build traffic organically, so you don’t have to spend money on ads to discover your blog.

Every blogger’s results will vary, but what I can say is that it works.

Pinterest truly levels the playing field for bloggers and creators – 96% of searches are unbranded, which means that Pinterest users are not searching for big brands. (source)

With over 5 billion searches every month, it’s time to learn how to get in on some of the action as a blogger using Pinterest to drive traffic. (source)

Want to learn how to DIY your own Pinterest Strategy? Here’s the only course I recommend taking. You can find out more here.

What is Pinterest for Bloggers?

At its core, Pinterest is a visual search engine where users go to solve a problem, get inspired, learn something new, or plan a big moment in life.

Pinners search on the platform or browse the home feed, connect with visual content (pins), and save them to their boards so that they can return to the idea later.

The goal of using Pinterest for blogging is to create content that answers the search, design, and create pins that make users want to click, and then deliver the answer within the blog post.

For bloggers, increasing traffic from Pinterest allows you to earn affiliate and ad revenue, but it’s also a good idea to have a way to get some of your blog traffic into your ecosystem:

Have them sign up for your email list
Join your online community
Purchase a service or product
Follow you on other platforms

It’s in those areas that Pinterest is so powerful for bloggers.

But first, let’s address the elephant in the room…

Is Pinterest Still Good for Bloggers?

Over the years, Pinterest has changed a lot, and many of those changes haven’t really appealed to bloggers (cough, idea pins, cough).

The good news is that Pinterest has returned to its roots as an inspiration platform where people show up to take action.

So, expand your blog marketing plan to include Pinterest, friend, because you’ve only got traffic to gain!

Related Read: Pinterest Search and Discovery Explained

How Long Until You See Blog Traffic from Pinterest

The elephant in the room that every single blogger wants to know: How long will it be until you start seeing results on Pinterest?

During discovery calls about my Pinterest management services, I tell clients that the window for growth on Pinterest is about 6 to 9 months.

Gasp! Before you worry about the time, let me reassure you that it will be worth it.

(Check out some of my clients’ results to see just how worth it it is, okay?)

You are building a solid online marketing channel that will send traffic to your owned digital online real estate, aka your blog – and that takes time, like most things in life.

Want a Pinterest expert to grow your blog traffic? Check out the expert Pinterest marketing and management services.

How To Set Up Pinterest for Blog Traffic

Alright blogging friends, it’s time to set up your Pinterest account for blog traffic!

Set Up a Pinterest for Business Account

First, set up a Pinterest for business account. This way, you can access account analytics to track performance.

If you have a personal account, switch it to business and clean up any boards that are not relevant to your blog.

If you have irrelevant boards, make them secret by “editing the board” and selecting “secret.”

Claim Your Website

Now that you’ve created your Pinterest business account, it’s time to claim your blog domain so that Pinterest can track what happens to the pins you upload.

Under account settings, select “claimed accounts.”

Follow the steps as prompted – it will look different for every blogger, depending on what blog platform you’ve chosen to use.

A quick Google search will help if you need to troubleshoot.

Make Sure Rich Pins Are Installed

Rich pins pull the metadata from your blog, website, or online shop.

There are three main types of rich pins

Article pins
Product pins
Recipe pins

Once upon a time, you had to set up and validate your rich pins, but now Pinterest automatically does so for you as long as you’re using Open Graph or Schema.

If you’re using one of the big blogging platforms, ah-hem, WordPress, you should be good.

Here’s what pins look like when your rich pin metadata is being pulled correctly:

You can see the title of my blog post – it matches what you’ll find on my blog.

Keyword Research on Pinterest for Bloggers

Keywords are the lifeline to your Pinterest marketing strategy.

Seriously, you CANNOT skip researching keywords, no matter how tedious it sounds.

I have a blog post dedicated to Pinterest keyword research, so make sure to check that out.

Here are the best places to find keywords on Pinterest:

The search bar – those words you just brainstormed? Enter them into the search bar, and note all relevant keywords in the drop-down. Hit enter and record any keywords that make sense from the bubbles at the top of the search results.
Perform the alphabet method: take your keyword phrase and add “a, b, c…” after it to see what Pinterest suggests. Record any that are RELEVANT to your content.
Scroll down in the search results until you find “related searches.”
Use the ads manager: navigate to “set up an ad” until you reach the “interest and keywords” section. Type in your keywords. Bonus—you get to see search volumes!
After you search, note the keywords used in top-ranking pins. Also, look at the pin description to see what you can find.

The most important step in your keyword research journey is starting what I like to call a keyword bank, which is essentially a spreadsheet that stores all the search terms for easy reference.

Have no clue what to even research?

Sit down with a piece of paper and write down all of the words and phrases you would use to describe your blog content.

Take those ideas and hit the search bar to get started.

Optimize Your Account and Content with Pinterest SEO

Now that you’ve found some keywords and created your Pinterest keyword bank, let’s optimize the account so that your content gets found by those searching for it.

Your Account Name + Description

Your account name is your blog name plus a general keyword that describes your blog.

Your account description includes the same keyword, along with secondary, related keywords, to explain what your blog is about.

Here’s what it looks like:

Create Boards for Your Blog on Pinterest

Your Pinterest boards are where your blog content will live.

For each blog content category, I recommend creating 3-5 boards as a starting point.

Here’s how to choose keywords as board names:

General boards, ex Chicken Recipes (all of your chicken recipes can live here)
Specific boards, ex Gluten Free Chicken Recipes (a smaller collection of posts can live here)
Seasonal boards, ex Holiday Recipes (very targeted posts can live here)

Once you lay out your Pinterest boards, use the secondary keywords in your board description.

How To Use Pinterest for Blog Traffic and Growth

Let’s look at how to use Pinterest as a blogger to increase blog traffic and, ultimately, revenue.

The Importance of Fresh Content for Bloggers

When I first started using Pinterest as a blogger, a key part of the strategy was to repin pins saved by regular users to relevant boards, to get more “juice” out of the image.

Pinterest then decided it wanted fresh content and started penalizing accounts that repinned too much.

Today, fresh content rules, but how do you know what fresh content is?

In short, fresh content is a pin image that Pinterest has never seen before.

There are two levels of fresh content for bloggers:

New pin image leading to a newly published blog post.
New pin image leading to an old blog post.

The first is the ultimate situation for fresh content, but please do not think you need to publish numerous blog posts to keep up with what Pinterest wants.

It’s perfectly okay to create new pins that link to an already published (older) blog post.

This leads me to…

Pin Multiple Pins for Each Blog Post

A common question bloggers ask is how many pins they should create for a single piece of content.

You can and should create multiple pins for the same blog post – there is no number to worry about.

Just make sure the content stays up to date and relevant.

Also, don’t pin new pins to the same blog URL too close together – I usually wait a day or two in between pins.

How To Optimize Pins as a Blogger

We covered how to optimize your business account; now it’s time to optimize your pins so Pinterest knows who to show them to.

You must add your target keywords to your pin description and title.

Here’s what it looks like:

Notice how I use my target keyword and then sprinkle in related keywords.

I also use similar keywords, but slightly different words that mean the same thing.

Now that my pin is optimized, I’ll save it to the most relevant board on my account—in my case, ‘Pin Design.’

Do this process for every single pin you add to Pinterest for your blog.

You optimize a video pin in the same way, plus you can add tags to help with distribution even more.

Add Pin Images to Your Blog

One area where many new bloggers fail is not adding at least one optimized pin to their blog posts.

When someone lands on your blog and saves an image, it signals to Pinterest that the content is high-quality.

Yes, adding pins to your account will bring traffic, but a “regular” Pinterest user saving an image directly from your blog is even more powerful.

Think about it: How much more social proof do you need that content is good if someone saves and shares it directly from the blog or website?

Check Your Pinterest Analytics

Checking your Pinterest analytics is essential, and I do it once a month for my blogging clients.

There is no need to check your numbers daily, since Pinterest growth can be slow, and you might drive yourself crazy.

After the first month of consistent pinning, peek at your analytics.

Pay attention to these Pinterest metrics:

1. 1. Impressions: Make sure your pins are seen.
  2. Saves: One of the most powerful Pinterest metrics, saves mean people resonate with your content.
  3. Outbound clicks: Because we bloggers all want traffic, right?
  4. Engagement: We want pins that people engage with.

Create a spreadsheet to track your metrics month-over-month.

Take note of your top-performing content and create more of what is working to drive better growth.

How To Design Click-Worthy Pins for Blog Traffic

Pin Design Tips for Bloggers

The goal for bloggers using Pinterest is to stop the scroll, so you need to learn how to create eye-catching pins.

Here’s what a good pin design includes:

➝ Easy to read and aligned fonts.
➝ Good use of white space to get the user’s eye to move around your design.
➝ Quality photos relevant to the blog content on the other side of the click.
➝ Templates for consistency and to avoid staring at a blank screen.
➝ Call to actions that entice a click.

Pro Tip: Cut through pin design overwhelm and grab a Canva template to customize. It’ll give you a starting point so you aren’t staring at a blank screen.

Don’t want to design your pins? Check out the expert pin design services.

How To Create a Pinterest Marketing Strategy as a Blogger

How To Promote Your Blog On Pinterest

We’ve covered a lot about using Pinterest for bloggers.

Here’s a recap of how to promote your blog on Pinterest:

Set up a Pinterest for Business account or convert a personal account to a business account.
Audit and clean up your account.
Spend time finding Pinterest keywords relevant to your niche.
Take those keywords and optimize your account title and description.
Use your keyword list to create 10-15 boards relevant to your blog topic.
Add keywords to your board titles and descriptions.
Create fresh pins that Pinterest hasn’t seen before.
Add keywords to your pin titles, descriptions, and text overlays.
Find your consistency – use a scheduler like Tailwind to make this easier.
Review your analytics and do more of what is working.

Find Your Pinning Consistency As A Blogger

Your consistency in pinning as a blogger will look different from that of the next blogger.

The important thing to remember is to keep an eye on your blog – how many blog posts do you create a month?

How much blog content are you starting with?

I aim to pin at least one fresh pin each day for my blogging clients.

My more advanced blogging clients are pinning 3-5 fresh pins daily.

Finding your consistency means leaning into your content and how much time you have.

Being consistent will bring results – a good rule of thumb is to publish QUALITY over QUANTITY.

I’ve reduced the number of daily pins on some bloggers’ accounts and seen growth. This is because of keyword and interest targeting, which are more important than the number of daily pins.

Pinterest Pin Text Overlay Tips for Bloggers

Pin text overlay tip #1

You may have noticed that you should add keywords to your pin text overlays.

I also like using qualifiers that let users know that the pin is for them. I’ll share more in just a sec.

Here is an example:

In the example, I’m targeting Pinterest SEO.

I also include secondary keywords:

Beginner’s Guide to Pinterest SEO
What is Pinterest SEO
How to use Pinterest SEO

Pin text overlay tip #2

Using qualifiers is a great way to let pinners know the content is for them.

Here’s an example pin text overlay:

Home Organization Tips for Moms Who Want a Clean House

Now, let’s add some qualifiers:

The Best Home Organization Tips for Overwhelmed Moms Who Want a Clean House

With the qualifiers, we now know that these are the best tips for moms who want a clean house and are overwhelmed by the mess.

How To Increase Your Blog Revenue Using Pinterest

Want to increase your blog revenue?

Here are some of the top monetization methods for bloggers:

Display ads – you’ll earn more as traffic to your blog grows.
Affiliate links – recommending products and resources to help your audience is a great way to earn money. Use affiliate offers where it makes sense, and disclose when a link will earn you a commission.
Your products—If you notice a common problem within your blog niche, consider creating digital products that help. These can be templates, ebooks, and more.
Services—This won’t be for every blogger, but you may be able to offer services that support your blog.
Grow an email list—Having your list of email subscribers is a powerful way to increase blog revenue because you can share offers directly with interested people.
Guest posting – not only can writing a guest blog post increase your blog awareness, but it can also add a revenue stream to your blog.
An online course – package your blog niche knowledge into a course to help teach others.
Offer a paid membership or subscription. This will depend on your blogging niche, but having a membership can help increase your blog revenue.
Sponsored posts – if you generate enough blog traffic and followers, you can work with brands who will pay you to write a blog post promoting their product or service.

Pinterest Marketing Resources That Support Bloggers

I wanted to share my best Pinterest marketing resources for bloggers who wish to take the platform seriously.

Pinterest education resources:

Amy Leblanc’s Scheduling Shortcuts is a must for any blogger who truly wants to understand how the Pinterest algorithm works and translate that knowledge into a Pinterest strategy for their blog.
Anything from Amy’s digital product store.
Carly Campbell’s Pinteresting Strategies is another longtime expert who deep-dives into how Pinterest works and how to get results for bloggers.

Pinterest Schedulers for Consistency

The best-known and trusted Pinterest-approved scheduler is Tailwind.

Tools that support a blogger’s Pinterest strategy

Canva is a must-have for any blogger.
Affiliate Marketing Deep Dive is offered by Carly from Pinteresting Strategies.
PixiStock – for beautiful stock images and resources.

That Wraps Up The Pinterest for Bloggers Guide

You now have the best tips and advice for using Pinterest as a blogger.

Remember to use a business account, identify target keywords, and optimize your profile and content for search.

Like any platform, you must be consistent on Pinterest to see results.

Don’t let the time it takes deter you—when you put in the work, you’ll build a sustainable traffic source for your owned online digital assets.

Don’t want to do the work to grow your Pinterest blogging account? Check out my Pinterest management and strategy services, and let me do it for you!

About Elaine Timms

Elaine Timms is a Pinterest strategist, and founder of Elaine Timms Creative, a boutique Pinterest marketing agency established in 2018. She has over a decade of hands-on Pinterest strategy experience and has helped bloggers, small businesses, and e-commerce brands build sustainable, search-driven marketing, visibility, and growth through her Always in Circulation framework — a Pinterest strategy designed to keep your content continuously circulating, growing, and converting. Elaine believes every business should be growing their owned online assets (think email list, blogs, podcasts, online shops, etc.) and knows Pinterest is one of the most powerful platforms to do so. Her results speak for themselves: she built her own blog to over 100,000 monthly sessions through Pinterest before successfully selling it, and still runs a niche website generating consistent revenue from content created years ago — proof that a smart Pinterest strategy has serious staying power. Her clients don't just grow, they build Pinterest presences that withstand algorithm changes, recover from platform shifts, and compound over time. Elaine offers monthly Pinterest account management, the Pinterest Circulation Blueprint, her signature account build and optimization service, and trainings and workshops to those who want to DIY Pinterest.

Elaine Timms

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