14 Top Tips to Get Pinterest to Rock Your Blog Traffic

This is a guest post by Carolyn, a polygadgetist who has been entranced with personal technology and is a successful technology blogger. She always shares the best tech and this post about Pinterest is certainly going to make your life easier. ~ Admin

Promoting your blog on Pinterest can pay big dividends with minimal effort, if you know what to do.

Whether your blog is about blogging, lifestyle, car repair or anything in between, Pinterest can bring you big traffic.

You may have heard that Pinterest is a huge source of traffic to some blogs, but you don’t know where to start driving traffic to your blog.

These tips can help you get started on Pinterest and help you make the most of the social network that’s quickly becoming a powerful search engine.

According to Ad Week, Pinterest was the fastest growing social network in 2014.

Take advantage of that growth to make the most of Pinterest for your blog.

See What Traffic You’re Already Getting on Pinterest

You may already be more popular on Pinterest than you realize. Your blog can be getting pins from your readers even if you’re not already using Pinterest.

1. Check out your Pinterest Source Page

You may be surprised at how many pins you already have on Pinterest from your readers who have pinned images from your site.

Checking this out is easy, Pinterest shows you who has pinned from any site on their source pages.

Go to:

pinterest.com/source/yoururl

For example, here is the source page for Aha!NOW: Aha!NOW pins on Pinterest

You can see which of your readers have been pinning pins from your site and which images get pinned the most.

Follow people who have been pinning from your website to encourage future pins.

Check out your competition to see which images are most successful on their sites. See what is being pinned for both, content and style of images. What is your competition doing right?

2. Check out Your Pinterest Analytics

Look at your Pinterest Analytics to get more information about pins and repins from your site.

Go to your Pinterest profile page and click the gear icon. Choose Analytics to get information about your most successful pins and most loyal pinners.

Go to Activity from Your Website to see:

• Impressions
• Repins
• Clicks
• Original Pins
• All-time

Make sure to check out both your most popular pins and the most popular boards where your images are being pinned.

Tip: Be sure to follow popular boards where your images are being pinned!

See, my post for more information about using Pinterest analytics.

Use Group Boards

The biggest secret to success on Pinterest is to use Group Boards to magnify your pins’ exposure exponentially.

3. Join Group Boards

Unlike other social media platforms, Pinterest can give you a large audience even if you only have a few followers. The key is to join Group Boards.

A post on my blog about making your pins go viral using group Pinterest boards might be helpful to you.

Group Boards can have thousands of followers who can see your pins even if they don’t follow you.

By joining a Group Board, you can get instant impressions from tens of thousands of people when you pin to that board.

4. Find Group Boards in Your Niche and Pin from Them

Group Boards in your niche can be a source of inspiration and information for future articles.

Share pins from Group Boards to become active in them and follow other members of the board. Join Group Boards about blogging to learn the latest news, tips and tricks for bloggers.

Read this post to know how to join Pinterest group boards.

Make the Most of Pinterest

By putting a little bit of effort into Pinterest, you can reap big rewards.

Organize your boards so they’re easy to find. Actively follow others and repin their pins. Use Pinterest as a source for information to expand your reach on Pinterest.

5. Arrange Your Boards

Make your most important pins easy to find when someone visits your profile page.

Arrange your boards so that pins from your website are the first things that people see. Organize your boards in an intuitive way so visitors can find your boards easily.

Cluster your boards according to subject matter or arrange them alphabetically.  Fill the top row with the boards that are bringing you the most traffic, and then arrange the others alphabetically.

See How to Arrange Your Pinterest Boards in 1 Easy Step! for information on how to arrange your Pinterest boards.

6. Be Active on Pinterest

Start thinking of Pinterest as your “go to” site, both for sharing and for information.

When you visit a blog, go beyond sharing on Twitter and Facebook. Share on Pinterest, so you become an active pinner.

Tip: Follow the Golden Rule of social media — 80% of your pins should be from other sites, 20% from your own site.

You can pin images on any topic without worrying about alienating visitors.

If your blog is about SEO, but you like gardening, you can have an active board about flowers without losing followers of your SEO boards.

Pinterest has changed to Smart Feed now – so Pinterest users now see pins that Pinterest thinks will be of interest, rather than a chronological feed of recent pins.

Active pinners with interesting pins will have more impact than those who pin infrequently.

7. Use Pinterest as a Search Engine for Yourself

Go beyond thinking of Pinterest as another social media site. Think of it as a visual search engine. Search for topics of interest, you’ll find loads of pins on just about any topic.

Create boards to pin your search results to bookmark them and keep them organized.

8. Think Beyond Blogging

Use Pinterest for research beyond your niche.

Planning a party? Create a Pinterest board with ideas for decorating, themes, food, and invitations.

Redecorating your house? Make a Pinterest board with paint colors, furniture, decorating ideas and more.

Planning a garden? Start a gardening board to save pins that give you inspiration.

The followers you get on your non-niche boards may drive traffic to your niche boards and then to your blog.

Someone who searches for a gardening pin may end up following you on Pinterest and visiting your blog.

9. Secret Boards

Use Pinterest to organize your blog.

Create secret boards to help you save the information you find on the Internet and get inspiration for future blog post topics.

Pin articles you can use for research later or ideas for subjects you want to cover at your blog.

Create a secret Blog Images board for featured images you think look good on Pinterest.

If you visit a blog on any topic and find the feature image compelling, pin it to your secret Blog Images board to give you inspiration for creating your feature images.

Look at the design, font, colors, photos, size, etc. of photos you collect on your board to learn what works best for you.

Making the Most of Pins from Your Blog

10. Design Compelling Feature Images

A picture says a thousand words, so spend time creating your feature image for your blog posts. Think of what would look good on Pinterest when you’re creating your image.

Use your secret Blog Images board (see above) to get inspiration.

Be sure to include text on the image that explains what your article is about to drive traffic to your blog.

You don’t need to mirror the title of your article with the text on your image, but be sure that the text is as compelling as the image.

11. Use Design Tools for Your Articles’ Feature Images

You might be the world’s best photographer, but make sure to enhance those photos with design features that will make your images stand out on Pinterest.

Use design tools such as PicMonkey and Canva to add text, lines, stickers, effects backgrounds and other visual enhancements.

Your beautiful landscape photo won’t drive people to your blog if people don’t know the pin is linked to a blog post.

12. Add the Pin It Button to Your Blog

Make pinning from your blog as easy as possible for your readers.

Use a Pin It button both on the images and in your social sharing buttons to get readers to pin your images.

Use the Pin It button on your blog to pin your images. Check to make sure that the button works properly and generates a relevant description.

If the description is image_0578, you won’t be getting much traffic from that pin!

13. Use Metadata Wisely

Save your images with names that relate to the topic of your blog post. Use the metadata field to enter the text you want included with pins from your post.

Too many bloggers skip that step and too few readers will add their own descriptions to a pin.

14. Get Rich Pins

Make the most of Pinterest by getting your blog verified and getting Rich Pins.

Pins from your blog will include the logo, a link, and other relevant data to make sure that your pins stand out.

Check out this example of a Rich Pin from Aha!NOW. Notice the logo, title of the blog and additional information that has been added to the Rich Pin.

To get Rich Pins you have to apply at Pinterest to get your site verified.

You can find out more about Rich Pins and how apply for them at the Pinterest website.

Be sure to check out this Slide Share presentation showing how you can use Pinterest to get traffic to your blog:

I hope you enjoyed the presentation and that it is helpful. Thanks.

[Update: On popular demand to create a Group Board, and a special thanks to Carolyn’s idea and suggestion, the ABC (Aha!NOW Blog Community) board is up! So, an open invitation to all the registered community members to hop over and start pinning on this Group Board.]

Over To You –

Have you checked out your Pinterest source page? How many of these tips do you use on Pinterest? Do you have any tips to drive traffic to your blog from Pinterest? Share your thoughts with us in the comments section below!

Photo Credit: Carolyn Nicander Mohr

(Read the earlier guest post by Carolyn Nicander Mohr on Aha!NOW – Don’t Get on That Train!)

[Know more about Carolyn from her interview on Aha!NOW]