Pinterest is one of the best ways to bring traffic to your blog and e-commerce site. In fact, it is such a great traffic source, that some bloggers are getting hundreds of thousands of visitors to their blog from Pinterest.
With nearly 500 million monthly active users on Pinterest, bloggers can’t afford not to use the visual search engine as a complimentary traffic source to their Google traffic.
Many bloggers suffered a traffic loss after the big Google updates in 2023 and 2024. But, those who also used Pinterest regularly did not see a hit to their traffic or did not experience the same degree of traffic loss as bloggers who don’t use Pinterest. Are you ready to diversify and get more traffic from Pinterest?
Whether you’re frustrated from not getting enough traffic from your Pinterest account, or you just aren’t quite sure what you need to be doing to succeed, these tips and tricks will help you to improve your Pinterest strategy and gain more organic traffic.
Why Pinterest is a Great Way to Increase Your Blog Traffic
Google SEO is the best way to bring in traffic to your blog, but it is often a difficult task that requires a lot of learning. And, with Google SEO, you are often at the mercy of big blogging competitors, Google updates (these can be pretty scary!), and every other factor that involves having good SEO.
So, to avoid these hassles, using Pinterest’s best practices, you can start bringing in significant traffic to your blog for free. No fancy tools are required to succeed at Pinterest. You don’t even need a Tailwind subscription!
I only recommend products I have personally tested, believe in, or have thoroughly researched. All opinions are my own. This post may contain affiliate links, which means I’ll receive a commission if you purchase through my links, at no cost to you. Please read the full disclosure for more information.
1. Come up with a Pinterest Strategy
Any kind of marketing tactic needs a strategy. Online marketing is no different, and neither should your Pinterest strategy.
I highly recommend taking Carly Campbells Pinteresting Stategies course as it contains everything you need to know from pin design, to understanding user intent (which is key), figuring out how to write for Pinterest SEO, and more.
Essentially, the course covers everything you need to know to build an effective Pinterest strategy. I thought I understood Pinterest before, but after taking her course I was floored by how oblivious about some things I had been.
Many bloggers I follow have recommended her course, and after finally deciding to jump in, I only wished I had start using her strategy from the beginning. Because I had missed out on so much traffic potential by waiting.
So, maybe don’t wait like I did. I found her course to be very affordable for as much content as she has packed in.
If you’re not quite sure about her course yet, take a look at my Honest Review of Pinteresting Strategies by Carly – 2024.
Creating Pins
You will need to decide what types of pins you will create, how many you will post each day or week, and how many pins you will create for each of your blog posts. This is all part of your strategy.
Consistency is key. Publishing pins regularly is the best way to get steady traffic and be in good standing with the Pinterest algorithm.
More pins = More views
More views = More traffic potential
2. Always Maintain a Consistent Pinning Schedule
This is probably one of the biggest factors impacting your success on Pinterest. Regardless of the platform you are on, whether it is YouTube, Instagram, Facebook, or just Google indexing your blog posts, publishing regular content is key to growing your traffic and views.
For most bloggers, writing 1-2 posts every week is about all they have time for. How many blog posts do you publish each week?
To see success from Pinterest, not only do you need to create new pins, but you also need to link back to new content. And this means you need to write new blog posts.
Sticking with one post per week may be the optimal frequency for the busy part-time blogger.
But, how many pins should you be publishing per day?
This is a question many pinners and bloggers ask. And the answer is simply, whatever you can sustain. But, at least 1 pin per day is the ideal minimum.
If you can pin up to 20 per day, this is great too. But you don’t want to have a wild schedule of pins from day to day. Stick with what you can maintain, sustainability is key.
3. Switch from a personal account to a Pinterest business account
When you switch from a personal account to a business account, this allows you to create rich pins. This is important in that it allows you to connect your site and add metadata to the pin.
A Pinterest business profile is also how you are going to be able to monitor your analytics. This lets you see how well your pins are doing, which are the most popular pins, and what style of pins will work best for your niche and audience.
If you want to learn more about rich pins, you can visit the Pinterest Business Center.
4. Understand your target audience
This is probably one of the most important factors of any successful marketing strategy. The same goes for Pinterest.
Because there are so many things to find online, internet users are only interested in what they are searching for.
Quick example – if you are searching “summer sandals for toddlers”, you don’t want to be directed to a site that offers discounted lawn chairs. This isn’t relevant to your search, and it’s pretty annoying to have to search again. Right?
But, here’s the kicker. Say your website offers summer clothes for kids, and lawn furniture because they are both related to summer. Seems more relevant right?
Not really. While they are both related to the same season, they have no relation to each other by their main category, or niche. Furniture and clothing are not similar enough to be included together.
Your audience is no different.
Pinterest User Intent
Pinterest users want to find the most relevant, and trustworthy content so they are happy and come back to Pinterest. And you want them to come back to Pinterest to find more of your pins.
And, ideally, sign up for your email list.
So, when you create the right type of content for the right audience, everyone is happy. This not only means traffic but also more money from ads and affiliate income.
Understand what type of audience you are writing for, and what they actually want. Do a little market research if you need.
- Ask Facebook groups
- View your Google analytics to see who is coming to your site
- Check your social media and Pinterest analytics to see your audience demographics
If you are unfamiliar with trying to figure out user intent, I highly recommend joining Pinteresting Strategies. It is the best course I have ever taken and is worth every penny.
The Pinteresting Strategies course covers everything from the basics of setting up an account, creating different boards, designing clickable pins, understanding user intent, understanding Pinterest SEO, and so much more.
This course is for you if you are new, or experienced with Pinterest but still need guidance with gaining traffic. It is also for you if you want, or need, to increase your blog traffic.
And, it is definitely the right course for you if you have no idea what you are doing with Pinterest, or have been throwing spaghetti at the wall hoping something will stick.
If you want to know more about this course you can take a look at the Pinteresting Strategies course overview, or read my review of Carly’s Pinterest course.
5. Use the right keywords, target the most relevant keywords
Every blogger knows, the right keywords help to improve traffic, right? Whether it is Google SEO, YouTube SEO, or some other search algorithm, keywords are…key.
So, how do you find keywords on Pinterest, and how do you know which ones are the best? The same way you do with other search engines. By using the search bar, and any trends tools.
Google Analytics is a great place to start. But for Pinterest, you can use the search bar, and you can also use the Pinterest Trends tool. You can even compare the search volume of different keywords.
Essentially, keywords help figure out user intent.
Relevant Post: 8 Simple Ways to Save Time and Money Creating Pinterest Pins on Canva
6. Use the Pinterest search bar to find the best keyword phrases
Other than Pinterest Trends, the best place to do keyword research is on the platform itself. Simply using the Pinterest search bar, you will notice that when you type something in, a list of suggested results will pop up.
These suggested searches are something you can include in your keywords. And they are usually long-tail keywords of your main keyword, which can help you find a more niche audience.
It really is as simple as that.
However, if you notice that there aren’t very many relevant pins within the blog niches that you are searching for, chances are, those niches won’t see much success on Pinterest.
7. Use more text overlay
Text overlay is a great way to tell Pinterest users what they can expect to find when they click on a pin. Different types of pins get different results.
An infographic may get a lot of saves, and even downloads of the image itself. But, it has a very poor click-through rate.
Instead, you will want to use more text on your pins and use words that make them want to read your post.
Now, not all niches will require a pin with a ton of text. Sometimes travel, home decor, DIY, fashion, and a few other niches benefit more from a pin that is almost exclusively just an image.
Do a little research on Pinterest.
- Are other bloggers in your niche using a particular style of pin?
- Which type of pins show up at the top?
- What can you change about your pin design to match and compete with the top pins?
Other posts you might be interested in
- 8 Simple Ways to Save Time and Money Creating Pinterest Pins on Canva
- Social Media Marketing In Business: Growth And Revenue
- What Skills Does a Digital Copywriter Need in 2023?
- The Only Legal Templates You Will Ever Need For Your Website and Business
- RankIQ Review: The Best SEO AI Tool For Bloggers To Rank (2023)
8. Use Paid Stock photos, or your own photos vs. free stock photos
The unique thing about Pinterest is that it is a visual search engine, not a social media platform. This means that every image that is on Pinterest can be seen by the algorithm.
So, if you stop and think about all those free stock photo sites, it probably means that hundreds of other content creators have used the same stock photos for their pins.
Pinterest likes to see new pins and new content. This is why you get rewarded with more impressions when you have unique and new images, blog post URLs, and more.
I use Deposit Photos to find my paid stock photos. I find it is very affordable, and they often have really good deals on Black Friday. I recently bought an image pack, so I can download images anytime I want over the next year. The photos are beautiful, and look great on my site and on my pins.
Deposit Photos was a huge upgrade from the free stock photos I used. And, I know that with paid stock photos I avoid any potential copyright problems. The last thing any blogger needs is a legal battle. If you are concerned about whether or not you are protected, you may want to look at my post for legal bundle templates and read about why legal templates are a great option for online entrepreneurs.
Paid stock photos are well worth the price. You can use these stock photos dozens of times in all areas of your blog, on any landing pages you create, and obviously, on your own pins.
However, not all stock photos are always created equal, so make sure you check the licenses you are given as some may limit what you use them with, and how many times.
The power of Pinterest as compared to other search engines, is that it is a visual platform. Pinterest will analyze your images, the text on the images, your title, description, and any other aspect of the pin itself. So, play it safe and use a unique paid stock photo, or better yet, take your own if you can. Your phone camera is usually sufficient in most cases.
9. Improve your pin descriptions
Pin descriptions are a great place to put some keywords. It’s important to know that not a lot of people will read a pin description, but some will. So it’s important to place keywords anywhere that Pinterest users or the Pinterest algorithm can see.
If you put minimal effort into your pin descriptions, consider taking a little extra time to find some relevant keywords and adding them to your descriptions from now on. Remember that you can find keywords in the Pinterest search bar, Pinterest trends, and Pinterest suggestions.
10. A/B test your pin design (what are people actually clicking on?)
A/B testing is such a great way to check in with your audience to see what they prefer. This is an excellent way to also improve your open rates with your email marketing.
And if you are interested in improving your email marketing, I recommend taking a look at Heather Ritchies email marketing e-courses. Her courses are very detailed and offer tons of great insight from her own experience with her blog and business.
She is a writer, so she is familiar with writing great copy, knowing what converts and how to improve every part of an email. In her email conversion course, she goes over how to improve open rates with A/B split testing, which you can also be used with pins.
You can A/B test your pins by creating the same exact design and changing just one thing about it. This can be a different color overlay, a change in font color, font style or size, font effects, background images, and anything else that you may add in your pin design.
You can even A/B test pin descriptions, pin titles, and pin tags.
The most important thing about A/B testing though, is that you keep everything exactly the same, except the one thing you are testing for. Once you’ve determined what seems to be working better between the two tests, (test A vs test B), you can start using the more effective method. This can be as simple as using pink font versus blue font.
You can see below that I did something very similar to A/B testing. Had I kept the images the same, this would be proper A/B testing. However, at the time I was just experimenting mostly with the images.
If you want to read the post to the pins below, here it is.
8 Simple Ways to Save Time and Money Creating Pinterest Pins on Canva
11. Pin relevant content to the most relevant boards
The Pinterest board you pin your new pins to is very important. You want to choose the most relevant board that your pin
12. Only create pins with recommended or standard pin sizes
The standard sizes for pins may change over time. But, as of right now, the suggested size is 1500 x 1000 px or a 3:2 aspect ratio. You can also create long pins 1000 x 2100 px, which is also a 3:2 aspect ratio.
If you ever need to change the size of your pin, you can either use the resizing option in Canva pro, or you can open a new project and copy everything over to the correct size pin in the regular version of Canva.
The size of your pin does matter. Other sizes may cut off information, reduce the quality of your image, and may affect your impression rate. But, it’s important to experiment with the two recommended sizes, long pin vs. standard pin, to see which get more clicks, impressions, saves, etc.
Typically, it’s expected that longer pins will get longer engagement time, as they are on users’ screen for a longer period.
13. Monitor your Pinterest analytics
As any online entrepreneur knows, analytics is the key to scaling, understanding your audience, and refining your strategy.
Go to your Pinterest analytics and your Google analytics and see what is doing well. What about your success is working, and why is it working so well?
Is it a trendy topic? Is it low competition and high traffic? Is the design absolutely killer?
Whatever it may be, figuring this out is important to really digging in to the best strategy for your Pinterest success.
I will disclose a difficult truth though. With Pinterest, because it is a search engine, it does take time for it to detect new pins. This means that you may not start seeing the majority of your traffic for a pin for up to 8 months.
However, some pins may go viral much sooner. And, you can still view your analytics to see what is and isn’t working.
14. Create new pins for old and new blog content
While you’ve probably been creating pins for your newest content, it’s important to go back and create new pins for your old content.
This gives you a chance to create even more real estate for your most popular posts, or posts that need a bit of a traffic boost. I recommend creating a few fresh pins for your old blog posts every 6 months or so.
And, if you have a lot of seasonal blog posts, I would suggest making a few fresh pins for each seasonal post around 3 months prior to that season or holiday. This gives the Pinterest algorithm time to recognize your new pins.
One other thing of mention, that involved monitoring your analytics, is to examine what your most popular pin styles and designs are. Every once in a while you will want to evaluate which of your pins are the most popular, and re-use those designs, colors, tags, keywords and whatever else made those pins so popular. Just make sure everything is relevant to your blog post.
