How to drive traffic from Pinterest: Blogging Strategies

If you’re in the blogging community or any online business in general, you know how integral it is to drive traffic to your website.

The growth of your business & eventually, the revenue,

Both are closely dependent on how much traffic your site receives.

Pinterest is one of the few ways one can use to do precisely that, drive high-quality traffic!

Pinterest has brought me my largest pie share of traffic out of all traffic (and income) mediums to date, translating to over $200k in profits as of writing this.

Brands have no idea how underrated Pinterest is when it comes to traffic and lead generation,

And it is often overlooked due to the misconception around Pinterest that it is only used when people need recipe ideas or home décor inspiration.

Although those topics do have their significant shares of searchability, other niches, too, have a sufficiently large user base.

This website, for example, has a “Finance & Business” niche; yet it receives over 150k sessions monthly from that so-called “recipe & home décor” platform.

So yeah,

Calling Pinterest dead might be a bit of a reach.

On the other hand, Pinterest doesn’t actually demand much of your time to post, interact and be on the platform to stay “relevant.”

I spend less than 15 minutes a day (most time allotted to create the pins) maintaining my Pinterest account, and it still gets me what I need.

Quick stats:

Social media traffic constitutes around 80% of my overall traffic, and among socials, Pinterest has a staggering 99% share of the total social traffic.

Now that’s a number you can’t ignore!

Most of us know what Pinterest is, yet rarely take the time to learn how to use it and explore the potential it has.

This article might be the only resource you need to know all the basic & intermediate aspects of the platform and how you can leverage it to build an audience.

Kind of like a guide to Pinterest, which I needed when I was starting out…

I know how so many of you who are starting out might be a little clueless about figuring out this platform and leveraging it to generate leads or build a readership.

While the learning curve might seem like the biggest hurdle to understanding “How to Pinterest?”

Maintaining a steady influx of traffic is pretty easy once you know how the platform works.

Over time I’ve garnered a little over 39K followers on this platform.

Roughly over 5 million monthly profile views and over 150k clicks to my website (as of writing this) per month from the same, which currently translates to over $12k that I made from my blog this month (income report coming soon 👀)

June income report has been published.

Pinterest is not like any other social media out there; it is pretty much synonymous with a search engine with a visual aspect.

With over 445 Million monthly active users, it offers a plethora of opportunities for bloggers and business owners to market their content/products on the platform.

Pinterest also has one of the highest quality users who are more inclined to spend money on products and services that are on the platform.

But again, the question remains…

Why?

Out of all social media apps/platforms, why Pinterest?

There are 3 major points that I personally think set Pinterest apart from other social media platforms.

Those are: Intent, Outbound links, and the Shelf-Life of a pin.

Let’s unwrap those for a better understanding:

1. Intent

The reason why people go on certain social media tells a lot about their intent and what they want out of that platform.

While a vast majority of users tap on Instagram or TikTok to get entertained,

Indulging in looped doom scrolling and possibly to see what their close circle or even the ones they despise are up to and judge them.

Pretty much what you’d typically expect from social media 🤷🏻‍♂️

Pinterest users are the ones looking for ideas for their next project, to get inspired, to get acknowledged, to compile thoughts, and so much more.

Pinterest users are far more inclined to buy any product shown on that platform because this is where users come to research their next project.

2. Outbound Links

Almost all pins have a link attached to them, and the users are very much accustomed to tapping on the pins to go to another website that it is linked to.

And yes, tagging links and products is actually more beneficial to the users than simply posting an image.

So that they can see and possibly buy the products that have been shown in the image for home décor ideas (for example, a boho lamp)

And that makes Pinterest users more valuable than most social media platforms.

• High-quality audience
• Intention to spend money
• Accustomed to clicking outbound links
• And overall, spend-ready

Even if you don’t have anything to sell, you can redirect the traffic to your blog and make the best of ad revenue through that traffic and affiliate links (which is mostly the income model of this blog).

3. Shelf Life of a Pinterest pin

On other social platforms, the shelf life of a post is far shorter than what it is on Pinterest.

One Facebook post, or a Twitter post, no matter how viral, can die down within a week or two after its initial surge.

Pinterest offers a steady inflow of long-lasting traffic!

The top pin at the moment for me, which brings me thousands of visitors to my blog every single day,

And guess what,

It was posted back in 2020.

This led me to believe Pinterest pins have a much longer shelf life if the topic of the pin is evergreen.

As much as I hate to admit it, Last year, I was kinda a lazy bum.

I got a bit complacent with my blog/ business and was not at all working towards growing it.

Still, I did not notice a significant drop in reach (though it was there); traffic was flowing, and revenue was being generated due to the cumulative work that was done prior to that.

Pinterest actually brought me consistent traffic for a whole year without much of my interference, and that is something I’m not taking for granted anymore.

There is a common notion around the blogging community that most Pinterest bloggers move on to become SEO bloggers, eventually.

While I wholeheartedly believe that to be able to win big in blogging, SEO is the way to go.

But so is diversifying your traffic sources.

I will go all in when it comes to SEO, but Pinterest has proven much to its credibility and potential NOT to abandon it to chase the bigger fish (SEO in this case).

So yeah, I will be optimizing my content for SEO but will not move on from Pinterest.

Moving on… Let’s get you started.

If you already have a Pinterest account, you can skip to the next step by tapping here.

1. Setting up your Pinterest Account

If you don’t already have a Pinterest account (I’m judging, but OK) or never had one, to begin with, head over to Pinterest.com on your desktop because it’ll be easier to set up your profile on a bigger screen.

And later, we’ll log into the app (installed from the Play Store or App Store) once the profile is ready!

Sign up; choose your profile name, username, etc. You know the drill!

2. Convert to a Business Account

The idea behind converting a classic user account to a business account is to get access to all the analytics tools Pinterest offers with business accounts, where you’ll be able to see all the pin-related metrics with accurate insights.

And yes, converting to a business account is absolutely FREE.

3. Crafting a Winning Profile

Creating a profile might be a cakewalk…

What isn’t, though, is crafting pins and boards that are engagement worthy.

Given below are some of the points you can help you bring out your A-game in your plan to dominate Pinterest:

• Claim Your Website
• Put Up a Good Profile Picture
• Match the Banner
• Create Essential Boards
• Create Similar Boards

Now lets, tick off these to-do list checkpoints one by one:

– Claim Your Website

After converting your profile to a business account, the first thing you should be doing is to claim your website.

This is Pinterest’s version of confirming that the blog you’ll be promoting here on this platform actually belongs to you or your business (conforming ownership).

You can do this by going into your account’s “Settings” page and going to “Claimed accounts.”

Under the Claimed accounts: Go ahead and click “Claim,” then copy the code provided, and paste it before the closing head tag on your website.

Click “Continue” after the above step.

If you have trouble executing the above step, you can copy the code and paste it into the footer section of your website as an HTML widget.

Just go to customize section of your dashboard, and then go to “widgets” to add an HTML element at the footer section, paste the code and save it.

Is the website still not claimed? Mail me at: sayan@prosmartrepreneur.com, and I’ll help you get it done.

– Put Up a Profile Picture

While putting up a profile picture, especially if it is tied to your blog or business, most of us might get flustered as to what we should do because, apparently,

” A good profile picture is like the first impression.”

No, it is not; your content is.

Don’t overthink it,

If you have a business that is closely tied to your personal branding, you have the option to put up your own picture or else the logo of your business/blog.

Plus, you always have the option to change it,

So chill.

– Match the Banner

Again same as the profile picture,

Don’t get caught up in setting up an immaculate image that is supposed to set you apart from the rest of Pinterest; that might be a waste of time.

I know how many hours I have wasted doing just that, which didn’t really matter eventually.

One of the best ideas for what to put in your banner is to make it clear what you offer, what services you provide, and what your blog/business is all about (but again, make it aesthetic as this is Pinterest, all about visuals)

– Create Essential Boards

Now comes the part that actually holds a lot of value.

Boards will allow the grouping of all the pins that you’ll be saving from this point on.

For example, if you have a gardening niche, you can create boards such a

1. Potting mix essentials
2. Veggies
3. Flowering Plants
4. Indoor plants
5. Seasonal flowers & so on

You get the idea!

Create multiple folders (boards) so that you can save relevant pins around a certain topic from this point on.

To create a board,

On your profile page (reference below),

Look at the right side of the page; there will be a “+” sign (here, it is located above the top right side of the “High paying businesses” board). Upon clicking, you’ll be given a choice to create a Pin, a Board, and an Idea Pin.

Choose Board, of course.

There is no set number to how many boards you must make; just create the major subtopics of your blog.

– Create Similar Boards

When you are done creating essential boards, the next step would be to create more boards around those same topics with slight variations. For example:

• Potting mix: Water-holding soil, plastic pot ideas, ceramic pots, etc
• Veggies: Summer veggies, leafy greens, root veggies, etc

And so on…

The idea behind this strategy is when you post a new pin, you should save it to multiple relevant boards as soon as you can.

This signals the algorithm that this pin is receiving a good chunk of engagement right after it has been pinned.

4. Group Boards are Dead ( well…kind of )

Group boards are the kind of boards that has multiple contributors who can pin on them and has the same number of followers as the account creating that particular group board.

Over the years, I’ve witnessed the rise and fall of the hype about joining Group Boards.

Initially, it was all about collaborating and building curated boards revolving around a specific topic that people actually loved.

Now it is just another way to spam the board with your own pin and content.

Right now, there is only one board that brings me most of my engagements,

*Hint: It is not a group board*

It’s my own board where I post all of my new pins (given below as Pro Smartrepreneur).

There is a specific pinning technique I use that makes this board (which has 38k followers yet gets 600k+ impressions) more popular than most of the boards that ima a part of.

I don’t really know how many people out there are aware of this strategy, but it works wonders for me.

And that brings more engagement than a group board (that I am a part of) with more than 500k Followers.

You can get this Pinning strategy directly to your email; enter your email below, and you’re good to go.

See you in the inbox 👋…

Anyways, I am part of quite a few group boards, mostly because I joined them back in 2019 when those were quite relevant.

But if you’re new to the whole Pinterest thing, maybe you should join Pinterest boards (relevant to your niche only), which can get you some boost in reach and followers.

Try everything, then act accordingly; I’ll just say that.

I still pin there from time to time, yet I don’t see much difference. So I pin heavily on my own boards rather than on others.

5. Pin-Making Essentials

To post pins, you NEED to know how to create them.

Or you can outsource then if you can afford it, but anyway…

I prefer doing it on my own mainly because I personally enjoy creating pins, and this allows me to experiment with various formats,

Furthermore, I mostly don’t like what others offer to make.

I’ve had freelancers making offers to create my pin for me, but from what I’ve seen that was on their portfolio, I was not sold.

The pins given below are some of the pin designs that align with my taste: Big text, eye-catching design, and kinda aesthetic.

Crafting a decent click-worthy pin can be challenging for folks who are not familiar with the ideas of simple graphic design.

But I don’t think that’ll be much of an issue because you can craft one on Canva.

Unlike other social media, the post format of Pinterest is slightly different, where a simple phone-clicked picture, text, or a combination of both isn’t quite enough.

To make a good pin, there are a few things you need to keep in mind.

1: To the point, big texts are the way to go.

Your topic should be clear at just one glance; you can emphasize the main keyword if you want, such as I’ve done on: Blog, Home Jobs, Invest, YouTube, etc.

Make it clear, make it legible, and make minimal use of cursive fonts.

2: Use relevant, eye-catching graphics and colours

Canva has a lot of free stuff readily available for everyone; you can easily create good clean, minimal, and good linking pins on Canva.

I personally use their paid version for various features such as background removal, premium graphics, and images.

And I really do think it is worth every dollar.

Feel free to use the free version; it has all you need at the moment.

6. Building a Pinning Routine

Once you understand how to post and save on Pinterest, you have to figure out through trial and error when you should pin to get the maximum reach. It could be morning or evening.

What I did was create two new pins every morning, pin them, and reshare them on every relevant board immediately. Same in the night before going to bed.

Overall, I used to pin 4 fresh pins every single day.

And don’t worry about linking to the same blog post or product over and over for every new pin you make.

You can make new pins with the same links; Pinterest considers new pin images as new posts (even with previously share links)

So the drill is: Pin new pins every day and reshare them on every relevant board right then and there.

AND DO NOT SHARE / SAVE ANY OF YOUR OWN OLD PINS (week old and above)

7. Understanding the Pinterest Algorithm

Pinterest’s algorithm, just like any other social media algorithm, works in the same format depicted below:

• The algorithm shows your pin to a handful of people.
• If there is engagement, it’ll be shown to even more people
• If there is even more engagement in the new audience, it’ll be shown to even more people.
• If, at any point, the engagement of that pin seems to die down, algorithm gods will discontinue giving it more reach.
• On the other hand, if there is a sudden increase in engagement out of the blue, virality will be imminent.

And this makes the number of followers you have almost obsolete, which can be good news for all the beginners out there.

It doesn’t matter how many followers you have; if your pins are “save, click, & share” worthy, you’ll get engagement.

And hence you’ll get traffic.

I have over 39k followers; not every pin I publish gets 38k views, most get around 1k to 2k impressions, and some get up to a million impressions that bring in the actual traffic.

But to get that golden million-views-worthy pin, you must create a lot of good-quality pins consistently.

Getting good traffic from Pinterest is all about exploring different styles, topics, and formats and repeating what works with slight variations on each pin.

This exact strategy is what got me consistent traffic since I started figuring out how Pinterest works.

How I got suspended On Pinterest (What NOT to Do)

When you’re getting a good amount of traction from the pinning schedule that you’ve settled on, you cannot help but wonder,

• What if you pinned more than you usually do?
• Will that change anything?
• Is the amount of traffic proportional to how much I pin?
• If yes, then how much?

Heard the phrase, “curiosity k*lled the cat”?

Well, that happened.

I found out the hard way that pinning too much or pining the same content over and over and even pinning many pins quickly can trigger spam filters embedded into the algorithm.

It can result in temporary suspension or, in extreme cases, a Permanent ban.

In my case, it was just a suspension *phew*

I pinned the same pin over and over to many boards in a short time frame, and minutes later, I got a mail from Pinterest that I had been suspended temporarily due to some spammy activities.

But despite all that, Pinterest won my respect for not blocking the traffic I was getting from my old pins. I was merely stopped from posting new pins.

The traffic that I was getting from pins that were already there wasn’t discontinued at all. This helped me cope with the fact that my account has limited reach now and can be banned permanently for one violation.

Initially, I thought getting flagged once was the end of it all. But to my surprise, my account was reinstated after 7 days.

Meanwhile, I used to email Pinterest support daily to restore my account and got an automated bot reply every day.

So yeah,

After all that, I started to take things slow and NOT spam as much as I used to. Because repetitive offenses can potentially lead to a permanent ban of the account.

And this time, I don’t wanna learn the same the hard way, for obvious reasons!

Wrapping up!

Pinterest might have a learning curve to it than most social media out there. But it is so worth the effort.

Whether you want to Pinterest as your primary traffic source or want to diversify your current sources, Pinterest can offer you so much more than what it is stereotyped as.

These are some of the key takeaways about the general demographics of Pinterest that need to be highlighted before you take off:

1. Not just home decor, recipe-oriented platform
2. High-quality traffic (hence higher RPMs)
3. Consistent influx of traffic
4. Have the intent to spend
5. Are willing to click on your website
6. Longer shelf life of pins

So yeah, give this platform a fair shot, provide good quality aesthetic pins, and witness what the platform has to offer.

And lastly, you can join The Blogging Blueprint newsletter if you want to get content on blogging traffic and monetization by filling out the form below (you’ll be the first ones to get every single update)

Cheers!