I remember not that long ago getting an invite to join Pinterest, back then it was just getting started. Look at Pinterest now. It’s one of the largest social media sites out there, driving tons of referral traffic who are not just reading your content, but also buying from you. In fact, visitors from Pinterest spend, on average, twice as much as visitors from Facebook. So, you definitely want to be on Pinterest and get as much traffic from it as possible and that’s what I’m going to teach you in this blog post.
Getting Started
First, go and get yourself an account, if you don’t have it already, which you probably have, but still I had to mention it. Next, you need to set up some important things on your profile before you get started.
Go to your account settings and make sure that your search privacy setting is turned off and looks like this:
If you have a website or blog to which you want to drive traffic to, then go and get it attached to your Pinterest account. Click Your Boards and at the top click the pen icon:
Once you click it, a new menu will open with a field to enter the URL of your website, you will also need to verify it by uploading a file to your host.
The last thing in setting up your profile is to write about yourself. Write about your interests and what you are going to pin, try to include relevant keywords.
Creating Boards
Once you have everything set up you need to create boards. A board is like a category page, like a folder for pins about one topic. For example you have a dog training business you could create boards like dog tricks – pinning videos of dogs doing tricks, dog food – pinning images of dogs eating, cute dogs – pinning images of cute dogs of course.
Now, not everything has to be closely related to your business, you could drive traffic by just pinning images of dogs, but you want to categorize them and put them into boards. So, have a board for every category that of pins that you come up with.
When creating boards make sure to add descriptive titles and descriptions and of course put in some keywords so people can find them easily.
Lets Start Pinning
Now, that you have boards you need to start putting pins in them. You can pin images or videos. You can upload them either from your computer or just pin something that you find on the internet. The process is easy and straight forward, but to get the most traffic out of a pin make sure you have all the possible links in place.
When you pin something go and edit it by clicking the pen icon: A menu opens up with a selection of the board you want to put the pin in, a place for a description, again make sure to put in some keywords in it and most importantly a link to a website you want to drive traffic to. The last field is source and again, put a link to a website you want to drive traffic to.
By doing this you will now have 3 links on your pin maximizing the chances of a click.
What Gets Attention?
To get the most traffic from Pinterest you need to pin images that get attention and get repinned. High images get a lot of attention, because they take up a lot of space in the news feed so, they are easy to spot.
Some ideas for long images are to do tutorials and stack the images of all the steps into one big image.
Share related images in one high image.
Infographics are usually really long images and they gather a lot of attention so be sure to share those.
Now, it doesn’t mean that, if it isn’t long it’s not worth sharing. These images just generally attract more eyeballs. Humor is also particularly effective, so if you find something funny in your niche definitely pin it.
Invite Others
Another great way to drive more traffic from Pinterest is to create boards and invite others to pin in them. You can do that by going to your boards, clicking edit and then typing in the names or emails of people you want to invite.
I recommend inviting active pinners in your niche. The benefits of that is that you create a very active board fast that attracts a lot of visitors and by pinning in it you will receive more traffic.
Also, if you get invitations from others to pin on their boards, be sure to accept them so you can leverage the efforts of others. You could go a step further and search for popular pinners in your niche and ask to get invited to pin in their boards. Pinterest doesn’t have a messaging system so you would need to leave them a comment under a pin or try and contact them through their other social media accounts. Also, make sure that they have at least one board with multiple pinners, you can tell that by this symbol on the board.
Just Be Social
General social media rules apply to Pinterest as well. If you pin a lot of images of the leaders in your niche they might notice you and pin your images as well. Also, be active in the comments and follow others in your niche.
As I said, general stuff, but it does work.
Consistency Is Key
And the most important tip that I can give you is to be consistent. Pin something everyday. The traffic won’t come overnight. You will need to put in the work first, but of course don’t overdo it as well. Don’t pin 100 images in a day. Your followers might not appreciate that.
I generally pin all the images that I put in my blog posts. Of course you can do more than that, but just have a plan in mind to pin perhaps 3 images a day and stick to that plan. This will bring you results.
So, there you have it, use these tips and you will definitely increase the traffic that you get from Pinterest.