Pinterest is an amazing way to grow your blog traffic organically, it’s simple to use and is by far the easiest way to grow your audience. Before you get started there are some things you will want to learn about Pinterest before you start pinning. These Pinterest tips will help you improve your Pinterest SEO, grow your blog traffic quickly and understand which types of pins work best on Pinterest.
How does Pinterest work?
If you’re going to bring huge traffic to your blog with Pinterest, then you should understand what Pinterest is exactly. Many people mistake Pinterest for a social platform, but it is in fact a search engine with a social element. Therefore, if you use Pinterest correctly, you can attract a huge audience because it acts like a search engine, with a social element.
Think about how you and other people use Pinterest. When I wanted to look up birthday cupcake ideas I turned to Pinterest, just like I would with Google. When I wanted to create a dream board I turned to Pinterest for inspiration. Even when I want to find a new blog to read, I turn to Pinterest.
Want to start a blog? Check out my step-by-step guide to start your blog
Pinterest tips #1
Create a Business Profile
You will want to have a Pinterest business profile, if you already have a personal Pinterest account, you could either turn this into your business account or start a new account. Sign up for a new business account here. If you change from a personal account to a business account, you can make any boards that don’t fit your blog niche into secret boards. To change your personal account to a business account, follow these steps:
- Login to your Pinterest account
- Follow this link
Pinterest tips #2
Make your profile SEO friendly
Now that you have a business account, it’s time to fill in your profile. Because Pinterest acts like a search engine, you want to make your profile SEO (search engine optimisation) friendly. Think about which keywords best describe your blog, then include these keywords in your profile description.
Then we are going to be really SEO smart and type these keywords into the Pinterest search bar to see what else Pinterest suggests, if Pinterest suggests any other words or phrases which are similar then add these to your profile as well.
The point in doing this is so Pinterest understands what your profile is about, so when users type in some of those keywords into the search bar, they are more likely to find your profile. It’s also important that users know what to expect from you, it’s okay if you also want to mention that you’re a fitness addict or a plant mum but make sure you include your keywords.
https://www.pinterest.com/business/create/
Pinterest tips #3
What makes a great pin?
A great pin is one which is eye-catching and with a catchy “must read” title. Here are some tips to make a great pin for Pinterest:
- Pins should be 700 pixels x 1200 pixels, you can make them longer, but this is the standard size. Absolutely no horizontal pins!
- Have a catchy WIIFM title. Which stands for “what’s in it for me?”. Give your post an attention-grabbing title so people can’t resist clicking through. Of course, make sure the title is relevant, as you don’t want to lose peoples trust if your pins don’t match the linked post.
- Make sure people can clearly read the words on your pin. Use a clear font and colour.
- Include your website or logo on your pin. This will help to promote your website and by adding your logo or website name on your pin, it prevents other pinners from re-using your pin for their site.
- Use professional looking images (no blurry images).
What is my pins doesn’t get much attention?
If you run a pin through several boards on Pinterest for over a month and it doesn’t bring much traction to your blog, then consider making a new pin for that post. What do you think it is about that pin that made it unclickable? Try redesigning the pin or changing the blog title.
To give you an idea of what a good pin looks like, here are some of my most popular pins:
Pinterest tips #4
Create Rich Pins
You want your pins to be Rich Pins, because rich pins perform much better than pins which aren’t rich. A Rich Pin is a pin that Pinterest has confirmed is from your website and therefore display additional information and SEO, which is why they tend to perform better.
Rich Pins include a bold headline, in addition to the story description and when someone clicks on the Rich Pin there is a push to follow the rich pinner. Below are two pins from other pinners, one is a rich pin and one is not. Can you see the difference? The one of the left is a Rich Pin and the one of the right is not.
How to make your pins Rich:
- To pin a Rich Pin on your site you must first upload your pin onto your blog post, by clicking add media and selecting your pin.
- Make sure your pin is saved with keywords about your post, instead of ”981253612.PNG”. This will help Pinterest identify what your post is about.
- Copy and paste your blog post title into the Title, Alt Text and Description of the pin image. I don’t add any text to the caption as this appears on my blog post. Whereas the text in the other three boxes Title, Alt Text and Description are hidden.
- Insert your pin image into your blog post and then pin your image to Pinterest using the Pin it button.
Pinterest tips #5
Include SEO on your Pins and blog posts
SEO for Pinterest is really important as it helps search engines identify what your content is about and helps users find your content. To make sure your pins have SEO, make sure that when you upload a pin, either from your pin it button on your blog or by uploading the pin to Pinterest, you do the following to give it the best possible chance:
Keywords: Save your pin images with keywords. If you save your pin image as ”981253612” instead of “books to inspire happiness and positivity” then Pinterest is going to have a harder time trying to understand what your pin is about it. Make it easy for Pinterest to put your pin in front of your target audience.
Alt Tags: Fill in your alt tags on your pins. You can either do this when you upload the image to your media library (on WordPress) or you can fill in the alt tags once the photo is in the post.
Pinterest tips #6
Group Boards
Group boards are boards which are started by one pinner and other pinners can contribute to. If the pinner who owns that group board has 5k followers and you pin a good pin to this board, then there is a chance that 5k people will see your pin.
Large/generic groups boards
There are lots of large group boards with a generic focus which allow you to post a pin on any topic. They have a high chance of being seen in front of a wide audience, but big boards generally do not have any keywords and as the pin is full of random topics, Pinterest gets very confused about what the board is about.
Smaller / specific group boards
Smaller specific group boards tend to have focused keywords which will help Pinterest understand what your pin is about and therefore show it in the search results.
However lately Pinterest has not been prioritising group boards because they weren’t being used properly and a lot of them were quite spammy. I still think it’s worth being part of group boards, but it’s probably best to find smaller more niched group boards. Once you have joined group boards you can see which ones are the best performing by looking at your Pinterest Analytics.
Pinterest tips #7
Invest in Tailwind
Tailwind is a scheduler for Pinterest, it works directly with Pinterest to schedule your pins for the best times of day that are optimised for your audience. Tailwind will analyse your pins and how people engage with them, providing you with analytics about which boards are performing best and which pins your audience is engaging with more.
This means that you can set time aside to schedule pins through Tailwind, and then while you are busy or sleeping, you will still have pins being pinned to Pinterest. This also means that you are more likely to reach an audience from a different time zone.
Using Tailwind also helps you be more consistent with your pinning, as Pinterest prefers it when its users pin consistently throughout the week rather than just pinning loads in one go.
Pinterest tips #8
Teach Pinterest about your pins
You can’t just rely on Pinterest to understand what your Pin is about. That’s why we give each pin good SEO and keywords to help Pinterest understand, but sometimes Pinterest doesn’t quite get it right.
A good way to check whether Pinterest understands what your pin is about is by clicking on one of your pins and scrolling down. By scrolling down Pinterest will show you similar pins with a subheading called “more like this”. If Pinterest shows pins which are of a similar topic to yours then this pin is likely to do well!
If your great keyworded pin isn’t being understood by Pinterest, then a good first step is to pin your pin to relevant topic boards with great keywords. If you continue pinning this pin to large generic group boards, then your keyworded pin might not be enough for Pinterest to understand its context.
You might also enjoy these blog posts:
How to make money from your blog
Happy Pinning!
Laura x
Great tips! Some that I didn’t know – I am gonna check out my profile and update it to be a bit more SEO friendly 🙂