I’ve been reaching out to Pinterest marketers asking for their #1 tip for using Pinterest to drive lots of traffic, and have got some fantastic comments in return. Several of these have come from people with hundreds of thousands of followers and millions of views on Pinterest. I strongly recommend having a read through these if you’re doing anything on Pinterest!
Here’s a summary of what’s been suggested so far, along with a link to the full comment:
- Don’t limit yourself to 1 pin per piece of content! You can create multiple different pins for 1 single blog post, each with different keywords and images (link)
- Focus on your pin descriptions as much as the actual pin content (link)
- Make video pins (link)
- Look at the “Popular on Pinterest” feature and see if you can target those topics (link, link)
- Do not just post your own content; find influencers & people from your niche and interact with them (link). Don’t forget Pinterest is primarily a social media platform, so be active and comment on other people’s pins too (link)
- Similarly, add up to 5 people in your niche to each of your top boards (link)
- Use a mosaic (multiple images combined into one) (link)
- You may want to limit promotional content to only 20% of your boards and pins (link)
- Consider ways you can showcase your product or skill in a non-promotional way (link)
- Type a basic keyword phrase into Pinterest, and see what it suggests (like Google auto-suggest) – use this to come up with new keywords (link)
- Use a scheduler like Tailwind to consistently post content (link) (EDITORS NOTE: several people recommended Tailwind, so I’m assuming it’s definitely worth looking at)
- Also check out PINGROUPIE (pingroupie.com) and PinSprout (pinsprout.com) to find the right group boards to join (link)
- Consider paid ads. Pinterest advertising is a bit different to advertising on GoogleAds and Facebook Ads since Pinterest users may have a more exploratory and open mind, so they may be more inclined to interact with ads (link). And regardless of whether you’re advertising on Pinterest or not, always keep in mind that Pinterest users are looking for ideas and inspiration, so try to cater to that (link)
- If you advertise on Pinterest, one reported trick is that you can set the bid lower than the recommended minimum in some markets and still get traffic (link)
- Make sure your titles, descriptions, and images are all aligned and connected (link)
- Put some effort into your Pinterest board covers, again making sure that the design and background is consistent (link)
- Always use clear and catchy images with plenty of contrast that’ll capture people’s attention when they scroll through their Pinterest feed (link)
- Pay attention to the ratio of your Pinterest images – the best is “2:3 or 1:3.5 with a minimum width of 600 pixels” (link)
- Don’t forget to use hashtags (link)
- Try to make your pins evergreen so that they’ll be relevant months or years later (link)
- Speaking of evergreen content, if you have old blog posts and old pins, consider creating fresh pins for them (link)
- Use “candy pins” (pins that have the information directly on the pin which gets them more saves, comments and engagement) (link)
- Use Ahrefs to find keywords in your niche that have tons of Pinterest shares, then create a similar pin but make it better (link)
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While Pinterest has social media features, going viral only creates spikes in traffic but not long-term steady traffic. As soon as you stop chasing and jumping on the latest trends your traffic will go back to zero. You should make long term steady traffic to be the goal of your Pinterest marketing efforts. To achieve this you need to understand that Pinterest is a search engine. All search engines work by matching search queries with results. Much of the traffic on Pinterest is driven by users using the search bar. A text-based engine like Google automatically creates results automatically by scanning your website. Just by scanning 1 page of your website Google has the ability to create 1000’s of different results that match different search queries. But Pinterest doesn’t do that. If you want to rank for a search term on Pinterest you need to create the results yourself. And that means creating pins… lots of them! Let’s suppose you have a blog post “Things To Do In Florida”. On Google, that page might attract traffic from 500 different keyword searches. Most people would make 1 pin and use a pin title like “Things To Do In Florida”. That’s great and maybe people will search on Pinterest and see your pin, but they will only see it when they search “things to do in Florida”. My top tip is to take that one piece of blog content and make lots of different pins each targeting a different keyword. For example, you could make new pins with different images for:
All of these pins would link to the same blog post. By creating multiple pins for each blog post you increase the chances that you will rank on Pinterest. Also, make sure you use relevant keywords in your Pinterest descriptions. You can get ideas for related keywords using the Pinterest search improvements bar. These are the word bubbles that show at the top of your search result page. When you click them they are appended to your original search. And another great way to get ideas is just to look at the pins that already rank when you search for your main keyword. The more pins you can make the more chances you have to rank. Experiment with different pin designs and keep track of the styles that are more successful. --Emilia Lewis, PursueToday PERMALINK: https://outwittrade.com/how-to-use-pinterest-for-business#emilia |
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One tip which has always worked well for me for most of the projects I handle for Pinterest marketing is writing compelling & well-related pin descriptions, I feel most people neglect the importance of this & only focus on creating pin-worthy content as a sole way to get noticed. If the descriptions are compelling, it can double up your marketing efforts and content creation or curation efforts on Pinterest. --Jiten Thakkar, Marketing Digital Marketing PERMALINK: https://outwittrade.com/how-to-use-pinterest-for-business#jiten |
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Make video pins, even if your content does not lend itself to video! By adding a movement part to a pin, such as a colour changing CTA, an animated arrow or a moving underline, are all easy ways to turn any standard pin into a video pin. I've tripled my impressions in the last 30 days with this simple trick. --Tahryn, With Tahryn PERMALINK: https://outwittrade.com/how-to-use-pinterest-for-business#tahryn |
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One of the most overlooked traffic hacks on Pinterest is the Popular on Pinterest feature. Even bloggers that leverage Pinterest for website traffic often ignores it (or don't know about it). This is how it works. Step 1 Log in to your Pinterest dashboard, Click on the search button, and scroll down a little. You would sight a section with heading Popular on Pinterest. Those topics are what Pinterest users are currently showing love to; they are receiving more clicks and engagements. Since Pinterest already understood what type of content you engage with, they will likely include topics related to your engagements. Step 2 Jot down those topics and check if you have content related to them. If you don't have, you need to write unique articles on those topics. There is no need to rush, Pinterest has a long life span for pins, So those topics will continue to enjoy engagement for a very long time. You don't need to create mediocre content just to beat the time. Once you have up to three posts ready, move to the next step. Step 3 Create three attractive pins for each topic. Make sure to include killer words that could trigger clicks to your pins. Now, Upload your pins with quality description. You need to include the target keyword in your description. You should also use each topic to generate hashtags for your pins. This Pinterest Strategy is super effective and can lead to viral pins. --Folajomi Ballo, Career in Blogging PERMALINK: https://outwittrade.com/how-to-use-pinterest-for-business#folajomi |
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The base rule which I follow is to shortlist the influencers & people from the niche which I am promoting & follow them. Spend time on Pinterest, repin their content into our board & interact with them. This helps a lot to get visibility of our boards & then publish our website related pins on that board. Don't spam it just 1 or 2 pins per day. Follow the basics of relevant keyword & description for the board & focus on spending time on it. --Pranay Anumula, Keka PERMALINK: https://outwittrade.com/how-to-use-pinterest-for-business#pranay |
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I drive nearly all my website traffic via my Pinterest profile (https://www.pinterest.com/pursuetoday) and one thing that has really worked for me has been adding up to five good (and active) bloggers to each of my top boards. What this does is ensures that each of my new pins automatically has a chance of going viral. When I send a new pin I of course want clicks from my true followers, but I also want re-pins from those big bloggers on my group boards to help amplify the pin's reach. --Emilia Lewis, PursueToday PERMALINK: https://outwittrade.com/how-to-use-pinterest-for-business#emilia |
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Use a Mosaic! A rare tip to boost on your Pinterest marketing is by using a Mosaic image instead of a single photo. You can perform a quick check right now and see that the best-performing Pins use mosaics. You are aware that Pinterest is all about seeing and then following links later. Again, the quality of the image used in a post in terms of clarity, size and relevance also matter. As such, when you use multiple images that combine to form a single photo (mosaic), it is highly likely that a user will get attracted and impressed by at least one of the used photos as compared to when only one photo is in use. Then they will click on your post and follow the lead. In the end, you will have more traffic, more conversions. --James Jason, Mitrade PERMALINK: https://outwittrade.com/how-to-use-pinterest-for-business#james |
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Follow the 40-40-20 Principle. - 40 percent of your boards and pins containing motivational, aspirational and fun content - 40 percent containing helpful, instructional and educational content, and - 20 percent containing content about your products and services --Maksym Babych, SpdLoad PERMALINK: https://outwittrade.com/how-to-use-pinterest-for-business#maksym |
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Pinterest makes up about 68% of my monthly traffic which is around 70,000 monthly page views. So that's roughly 48,000 monthly page views coming exclusively from Pinterest. There are a lot of tips and strategies I use, but one of the best ones is to use what is called the alphabet soup method when I'm trying to decide what keywords to include in my title and description. This works both for new pins but also when you are creating new pin images and descriptions for older pins. I type a basic keyword phrase into the Pinterest search bar and then hit the space bar. It will auto-populate with similar or additional phrases people also search for. Then you can hit the letter a after the space and see what it suggests, and do the same thing for every letter in the alphabet. If I am re-doing an older pin, I'll hit enter for each one to see the search results. If my original pin doesn't come up (which it should), then I know I need to add that phrase to the new pin's description. --Jeff Campbell, Middle Class Dad PERMALINK: https://outwittrade.com/how-to-use-pinterest-for-business#jeff |
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The Pinterest trick that has worked for me in getting maximum exposure and driving quality, steady traffic to my blogs involve using a scheduler (I use Tailwind) to set pins for peak hours. Pinterest Analytics revealed my engagement metrics so that's how I got to know my optimal time. If it helps to mention, a business account (highly recommended, it's also possible to upgrade) is required to use the Pinterest Analytics. --Kas Andz, Kas Andz Marketing Group PERMALINK: https://outwittrade.com/how-to-use-pinterest-for-business#kas |
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The number 1 tip I would recommend for Pinterest is to make use of paid ads. It might not be the first thing most people think of when discussing Pinterest; from our point of view, organic reach was always the primary focus until 2020. However, the toolkit of ad options which have been added in recent years are really valuable and straightforward for digital marketers across multiple industries. In comparison to channels like Facebook Ads and Google Ads, the great thing about Pinterest is that users are consistently approaching the platform with an open mind, to seek inspiration and explore, so are often more willing to engage with ads. What's more, the costs for Promoted Pins and Shopping catalog ads for ecommerce are comparatively low at the moment, so it's a cost-effective way for digital marketers to drive traffic. Set up is easy if your familiar with other ad platforms, and trialling different formats (video pins, buyable pins) is encouraged to find out what works best for you in driving traffic. --Ben Culpin, WakeupData PERMALINK: https://outwittrade.com/how-to-use-pinterest-for-business#ben |
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The one thing that I have done and recommend to my clients and do myself to get traffic and conversions is consider causation. I make sure everything I do is connected. That means I carefully word the title and connect that to the description. That also ties to the text that is on the image I have created. Then, the words in the image, description and text also all connect back to the board where it is pinned. The more you can do to teach Pinterest what your pin is about, the more it will know how to properly index and show it to the people who are searching for the content. --Tracie Fobes, traciefobes.com PERMALINK: https://outwittrade.com/how-to-use-pinterest-for-business#tracie |
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Creating boards dedicated to only showcasing your product or skill in a non-advertising way can drive traffic to your pinterest and site without feeling gimmicky. For example: As a tech repair company, sometimes we will just post pictures of cool devices or phone cases, things that are already trending. The company I work for has 4 boards: 2 for original content (one broad and one more company centered) and 2 for repinning industry-related content. --Caitlin Crosby, iResQ PERMALINK: https://outwittrade.com/how-to-use-pinterest-for-business#caitlin |
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To drive quality traffic to a new blog, I usually spend the first few weeks populating my profile with quality contents. Thereafter, I'll request to join a few relevant group boards. Group boards work for me because anytime I save to a group board, the content is exposed to the followers on that other person’s board (even if they aren’t following me). The first step I follow to join a group board begins with PinGroupie or PinSprout (two tools that have helped in my search for group boards to join). Next, I use Tailwind to check engagement levels (followers, likes, pins). If the board is worth it based on data from Tailwind, I'll then proceed to sending a request to the owner of the board. An email address in the board description usually does it for me. Alternatively, I can reach out if a website is linked. --Lee Vickers, Skein PERMALINK: https://outwittrade.com/how-to-use-pinterest-for-business#lee |
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My #1 tip for driving traffic through Pinterest is to focus on using incredibly clear and catchy images. Pinterest has been progressively improving how they understand what is in your images, and the more clear you make the image, the better Pinterest understands what it is about. - Make sure the image has lots of contrast so that it jumps off the page as users scroll through their Pinterest feed - Don't have a distracting background. Pinterest uses OCR technology to interpret what the image is about, and a cluttered background makes it hard for them to understand the image --Jared Bauman, 201 Creative PERMALINK: https://outwittrade.com/how-to-use-pinterest-for-business#jared |
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My number one tip to drive traffic on Pinterest is to utilize hashtags, especially on your most popular content. For entrepreneurs, solopreneurs, and small teams, the best way to do this without using a copious amount of time is to regularly check your Pinterest analytics to find the most popular pins, then edit those you identify and add relevant, popular hashtags. Adding a branded hashtag (for example, #MariaGraceLLC) will allow users who find your content to surf through all related posts from your page, and using keyword-researched hashtags that are relevant to your image and material will increase your reach among your target audience. --Maria Grace, Maria Grace LLC PERMALINK: https://outwittrade.com/how-to-use-pinterest-for-business#maria |
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The best ratio for Pinterest images is 2:3 or 1:3.5 with a minimum width of 600 pixels. If they are vertically oriented, pins perform better. Pins appearing to be taller do well on Pinterest. When the ratio is greater than 2:3 or 1:3.5, pins would be often cut off in feeds so make sure the picture is not too tall. A picture that is 600px wide, for example, would be about 900px and 2100px tall. Although pins with stretched measurements like a 1.2:8 ratio may be built, pins which exceed the full height do not work quite as well. Make sure you have the right-sized images so you can have better pins and enagagements. --Carolyn Cairns, Creation Business Consultants PERMALINK: https://outwittrade.com/how-to-use-pinterest-for-business#carolyn |
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Putting time and effort into optimizing my Pinterest board covers like I would a regular pin, is a unique way I have found to increase traffic directly back to my website from Pinterest. To me, optimizing my Pinterest board cover includes having a consistent design or background among all boards, URL in design, written Pinterest description, and link to the website. This provides organic traffic to your site from Pinterest while making your entire profile look cohesive and professional. --Rachel Watson, webtek.cc PERMALINK: https://outwittrade.com/how-to-use-pinterest-for-business#rachel |
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Do your best to make your pins as evergreen as possible. By this we mean that you should try to make your pins something that will likely be shared for many months and years as opposed to something which is trendy or exclusive to a particular time of year. For example, if you make a pin for a great recipe, try to avoid making your pin relevant for only the summer months, as that way it is less likely to come up in searches and be shared during the winter months. Use language and photographs which are more inclusive of all times of year. By making your pins evergreen, you can dramatically increase their visibility and make them a great traffic source for years to come. --Jessica Rose, Copper H2O PERMALINK: https://outwittrade.com/how-to-use-pinterest-for-business#jessica |
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Most people don't realize that they can set their bid to be lower than the recommended minimum when advertising on Pinterest. While this may not work for B2B products and services it can be an effective strategy for B2C products with very large markets. I was able to get traffic for as low as $0.07 per click on my previous B2C business I had since sold. --Lilia Tovbin, BigMailer.io PERMALINK: https://outwittrade.com/how-to-use-pinterest-for-business#lilia |
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Pinterest is one of my highest referral for traffic to my mom blog. The biggest factor is getting clicks to your pins is creating alternate pins for old blog posts that did well on Pinterest. For example, old blog posts that I wrote years ago did well when I promoted them on Pinterest. But over time, I made new pins and wrote new blog posts and failed to promote my old content. Recently I have been creating fresh new pins for old popular posts and seeing great click through rates. --Elna Cain, Twins Mommy PERMALINK: https://outwittrade.com/how-to-use-pinterest-for-business#elna |
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I’ve been active on Pinterest since its inception and I now have over 450,000 followers (https://www.pinterest.com/theforkedspoon) and receive over 10 million views monthly. I have used many strategies over the years to maximize engagement on Pinterest. One timely tip I have is that Pinterest recently rolled out the new Trends dashboard. This is for Pinterest Business Accounts in the Analytics menu at the top. Since it rolled out, I have been using this new Trends section strategically to help me make informed decisions on what content I should be producing next. Being able to effectively time a rising tide in searches on a trending topic in Pinterest and pairing it with strategic content can greatly enable traffic to websites and stores. --Jessica Randhawa, The Forked Spoon PERMALINK: https://outwittrade.com/how-to-use-pinterest-for-business#jessicar |
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I’d say the #1 tip when using Pinterest to drive traffic is thinking about what your audience is looking for! Although Pinterest is a visual search engine, users don’t use it the way they use Google. When they’re using Google, they’re looking for answers or solutions. When they’re using Pinterest, they’re looking for ideas and inspiration. So when you’re designing your pins for Pinterest, think about what the audience is looking for. By giving them fresh ideas and creativity, they’ll click on your pin to your page! --Roger Senpai, The Senpai Blog PERMALINK: https://outwittrade.com/how-to-use-pinterest-for-business#roger |
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One tip that I would recommend a Pinterest marketer use: We call them candy pins. Every niche has them. You research your niche and make a pin that has the information directly on the pin which makes the pin get tons of saves, comments, and engagement. Candy pins don't get a ton of clicks or traffic, but the point is to get that Pinterest favor so that Pinterest pushes the rest of your traffic pins to reach more people. --Jeremy Yeager, howtodothewritething.com PERMALINK: https://outwittrade.com/how-to-use-pinterest-for-business#jeremy |
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Most Pinterest users tend to worry only about pinning, with a view to growing their accounts by attrition. Of course this is important but they're missing a trick. The received wisdom is that Pinterest is more like a search engine than a social media platform. However, this doesn't mean you should neglect the social side of what Pinterest offers. You like someone's pin designs? Tell them so in a comment on the pin. You enjoyed their post? Write a comment to let them know. Most Pinterest users don't leave comments on pins, but to do so makes you stand out. More often than not, leaving a considered pin comment will win you a new follower. --Paul Franklin, SideGains.com PERMALINK: https://outwittrade.com/how-to-use-pinterest-for-business#paul |
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First, go to Ahrefs's Content Explorer and enter a broad keyword from your niche. Second, filter the results by social shares, and tell Ahrefs to show you only results with huge number of Pinterest repins, for example 10 000+. Third, find that wining pin on Pinterest. Fourth, now that you know what's working, use it to your advantage. Create a very similar pin, but make it even better. This tactic works because you're creating pins that are almost guaranteed to work. You're not shooting in the dark but are approaching Pinterest marketing with a good strategy. --Nikola Roza, nikolaroza.com PERMALINK: https://outwittrade.com/how-to-use-pinterest-for-business#nikola |