How To Use Pinterest to Explode Your Blog Traffic

For many bloggers Pinterest is the number one source of blog traffic. 

My parenting blog The Mummy Bubble makes me a full-time income and I owe a large chunk of that success to Pinterest. 

Some experts in blogging and SEO would argue that great traffic from search engines like Google is what you should be aiming for. However I think diversification is key!

After several years in this business my ultimate goal is to never rely on just one platform for my income. Relying on just one puts you at the mercy of changeable algorithms that can halve your traffic overnight.

So you should be aiming to get traffic from a variety of sources – whether that be Google, Pinterest, Instagram, Twitter, your email list, Facebook or something else.

This article will explore how you can harness the power of Pinterest to drive more traffic to your blog.

This post contains affiliate links. This means I get some money for any sales made via the links but it does not cost you a penny more.

How to make money with Pinterest

If you love Pinterest – and let’s face it there’s a lot to love about it – then you may be wondering how some people make money with the platform.

I use Pinterest to drive traffic to my blog, which makes money through advertising and affiliate marketing.

I am partnered with the ad network Mediavine, which places ads on my site and pays me monthly based on my traffic, who viewed my content, for how long, where they live and several other factors. With affiliate marketing I recommend relevant products on my site, and if a reader goes on to make a purchase then I will earn a commission from the sale.

In order to get started with this method you will need:

• A blog – I use WordPress to get started with my blog. You can read up on all my tips for launching a blog here.
• Great content – Pick a niche (the topic you will write about) and create brilliant content that will be useful to your audience.
• A Pinterest account – If you have a personal account it may be wise to start a new one that will be connected to your blog.
• Beautiful pins – Now you’re ready to make gorgeous pins and add them to your Pinterest account, linking back to your blog so people will start to visit!

How I used Pinterest to grow my parenting blog

My strategy on Pinterest is pretty simple and can be boiled down to this straightforward list:

• Create attractive vertical pins (1000 pixels wide by 1500 pixels high) – a mixture of images without text overlay and images with text. Where possible I use original images, or I use stock photos.
• Pin on a regular basis – ideally at least three times per day
• Pin a new pin only once – I do not repin my pins
• Make multiple pins for each article on your site – never pin the same URL multiple times a day, leave around a week’s time before you pin the same URL again
• Write eye-catching pin titles and descriptions that include keywords
• Monitor what is working and repeat

Success on Pinterest does not happen overnight, so you should commit to this strategy for at least six months and then re-evaluate how you are doing.

Not every niche lends itself well to Pinterest – topics such as fashion, DIY, makeup, beauty finances, food and parenting do extremely well. It’s worth looking at the platform first to see who else in your niche is on Pinterest and how well they are doing and how are they doing that.

Before I carry on to the tips, I want to add that much of what I have learned about Pinterest has come from fellow bloggers and courses. 

I haven’t spent a ton on courses, but the best money I spent was on Carly’s Pinteresting Strategies course. It’s brilliant, full of great tips and is regularly updated based on changes to Pinterest. 

When you purchase the course, you get lifetime access. It’s really well worth the investment. 

She will walk you through how to succeed step-by-step, and she is someone with the credentials to do so because she’s making a full-time living from pinning!

Check out Pinteresting Strategies here.

Your Pinterest account 

I’m going to start right at the basics. If you already have a Pinterest account for your blog it’s still worth giving this section a skim to double check you have it set up for success. 

Your account name should be the same as your blog name, or as close as you can get. 

The branding in both the name and your profile photo should match the rest of your blog so that people can easily recognise you. 

With my profile, I have added keywords into my Pinterest account title just to be really clear yo anyone who lands on my profile exactly what I’m about. 

This sends a message to anyone thinking about following me on Pinterest that I deal with the following key topics. 

In the description it’s important to be very clear and concise about what you have to offer people. Explain who you help and the topics you write about. If you offer a great freebie on your blog in exchange for people signing up to your mailing list, mention it in your profile description. 

If you’re setting up your Pinterest account for the first time you will need to claim your website. You can do this in the settings area of your Pinterest account. Follow the instructions from Pinterest on how to do this. It will take 24 hours for Pinterest to confirm your details. 

It’s also a good idea to set your Pinterest account up as a business account. This option can be found under account settings. It means you have access to analytics to follow how your pins are doing. 

Setting up Pinterest boards 

Once your Pinterest account is ready, it’s time to set up your boards for pinning. 

I suggest starting with 10 boards so as not to totally overwhelm yourself. 

Then try adding a couple of new boards a week and aim to have 50  boards in total. Your Pinterest boards won’t be successful because there are loads of them, they will be successful if you pin to them regularly. 

I do have some boards that are sitting forgotten on my Mummy Bubble account. I need to either delete them or start using them again. I don’t think they are hurting my account to be sitting there, so don’t worry too much about having neglected boards on your account. 

Having said that, I’ll reiterate again that the boards you use regularly and pin the most relevant content to, will be the most successful. 

So what should you call your boards?

I suggest having one board that’s a “best of” from your blog. 

Have another that sums up your niche. This might be “fashion favourites”, “baby’s first year” or “crafts for children”. Within your individual boards you can also add sub-categories. This can help you organise your content a little easier.

Now choose other board names that sum up elements of your niche. The idea is to have some boards that cater to specific areas of your blog content, as well as some that offer crossover. 

So for example, I will pin the same pins to both my “baby’s first year” board and my “first-time mama” board. 

By doing this, you can pin the same pin to multiple boards (we’ll talk about how I do this in a bit). 

Once you have set up your board with a name, Pinterest will offer you some ideas for what to add to that new board. Add around 10 pins from this selection (unless it’s your “best of” board for your blog). 

Once you’ve done this, you’ll need to add a board description. This should be written in a way that flows but also contains the relevant keywords for this board. 

Making beautiful pins

The actual quality of your blog content matters most of all. But no one will see that content if you don’t grab their attention and convince them to click on your pins. 

If you have been using the same old pin templates for months and your account is not growing, now is the time to make changes!

Aim to make pins that stand out, with attention-grabbing headlines, and are easy to read. Your pins should be upright, with a 2:3 ratio. I tend to make mine around 1000px wide by 1,500 px high. There are tips over on the Pinterest site for dimensions.

Choose colours that stand out and use large fonts. 

In the early days, I got my images for my pins for free from Pixabay which offers free photos for download. 

These days I use Depositphotos or Shutterstock. Offers often come up for buying photos in bulk on Depositphotos and the quality of the images is brilliant. 

I will use the same image in different pins, but I try to add new images to my collection as often as I can. 

I make my pins in Canva. It’s such an easy site to use featuring thousands of templates that you can grab and edit for free. 

These days I make my own pins from scratch, but I often look at what other bloggers are doing for inspiration. 

It’s important to try different things with pin design as often as you can, because you may be surprised what type of pin suddenly grabs people’s attention. 

When it comes to the text you place on your pin, this needs to be short, to the point and also have the ability to grab the reader. 

Try making it a question, or including a call to action that demands your reader to click the pin to find out more. 

When making new pins, try to use this checklist: 

• Is the photo relevant?
• Is the headline accurate?
• Is the headline engaging? 
• Can the text be read clearly?
• Is the overall aesthetic pleasing to the eye?

If you are struggling with making your own pins then check out these fab pin templates.

My manual pinning method 

So what does a typical pinning session look like for me?

I try to manually pin every day. Of course this doesn’t always work out, because kids!

I pin whenever I get a chance, so this can be at totally random times of day. Some days it surprises when a pin takes off even if I have pinned at a random time like a Sunday afternoon. 

So if you find your pins do well when you pin at a particular time of day, great. But don’t be afraid to break free from that pattern every now and then. 

First of all I will make a brand new pin. This may be for a new post I have just written, or for an old one that I have not created a new pin for in a while. 

Even a post that’s over a year or two old can still bring you amazing traffic with a brand new pin, so don’t neglect your older posts that still have relevant information in them for your audience. 

Once my new pin is ready, I pin it to either a relevant board on my Pinterest profile or my “best of” blog board which actually is one of my best performing boards anyway. 

That’s it – I do not repin any pins. I just pin once and let it go.

I will pin roughly two to 10 new pins a day – it’s typically closer to two as I make all my pins manually in Canva. It’s much easier now I have lost of templates I have created, but I prefer to create my pins myself rather than using a pin generator.

Find good key words

You’ve probably heard a lot about how important keywords are for SEO traffic. They’re also really important for Pinterest.

Finding keywords in Pinterest is incredibly easy, plus you can also use this search technique for coming up with blog post ideas in your niche!

Simple go to the search bar and type in some broad keywords. You may already have a blog post topic in mind. If you’re looking for inspiration, just try a few different keywords in your niche and see what pops up.

Now, once you start typing, Pinterest will offer up some autocomplete options. Have a little browse through these to see if any are useful.

Once you then click into a search term and the results pop up, you will then get a bunch of search words and phrases that can narrow down your search even more.

Check out all those keywords running along above the pins that came up in results. Not only can you look at the pins that came up for inspiration, but check out those rounded boxes for added inspiration.

You can also find amazing keywords in Pinterest Trends. Simply head to trends and then you can select what country you’re interested in targeting keywords for.

Then scroll down to filters and select interests, and select interests in your niche. When you do this trending keywords will appear and you can explore these further.

One more thing about Pinterest

You may have noticed that Pinterest provides a “monthly unique views” statistic on user profiles. 

While this is an indication of how well a profile may be doing, please try not to pay too much attention to this number. It pops up and down like a yo-yo sometimes. 

When mine has been up my traffic has actually been plummeting, then when it’s below 1m monthly unique views it’s actually been really good. 

Mine currently stands at 4.6m and while I am enjoying great traffic, it’s still not going to make me complacent as I know this number doesn’t mean that traffic will be great tomorrow and the next day. 

So what I’m saying is, please try not to measure your worth on Pinterest by this number. 

How to get more followers on Pinterest

The best way to get more followers on Pinterest is to just keep pinning! Create great, engaging content and be consistent on the platform.

The followers will come.

But, don’t get too bogged down about follower numbers. Even when I had less than 10,000 followers on Pinterest my traffic was fantastic – enough to get me into Mediavine and monetise my blog!

You don’t need a ton of followers on Pinterest to be a success!

I hope you’ve found this post useful! Please just drop a comment if you have any questions at all.