Pinterest is an amazing social networking platform that many have used to increase their blog traffic by thousands! If you are not sure how to get more readers on your blog through Pinterest, read our guide to help you understand the basics and get growing!
In this guide you will read:
- An intro to Pinterest
- What are pins?
- What are boards?
- How to create Pins
- Scheduling Pins
An intro to Pinterest
Pinterest is a social network that is focused on image sharing and discovery. Whilst being a social network in the sense that you can follow, comment and engage with individuals and brands, it is also very much a search engine.
Looking for holiday inspiration? Simply search “holiday inspo” and see what others are sharing from their travels. Already booked a holiday to the Netherlands? Search for the country and you’ll be presented with beautiful and useful content on what to do, where to go (and where not to!). Holidaymakers and travel lovers love Pinterest and it isn’t hard to see why!
There is much more to Pinterest than travel though. Popular searches focus around cooking, health & fitness, motivation, interior design and fashion. On my personal Pinterest I have saved searches for travel, home interior inspiration, Christmas wrapping styles, nail polishes and other different things. Whatever your interest, there are results for you! You can follow your favourite bloggers on Pinterest too, like Pleasure Principle blog.
I always like to see Pinterest as a sort of moodboard you used to have physically in your home. As a teenager I had an old school cork notice board with pictures of my favourite bands, quotes, etc. stuck to it with push pins. Pinterest is basically the same; but on the internet!
What are pins?
Pins are what Pinterest is all about! A pin is basically an image or video that you can create, share and save. You can view these pins with a small description and their source (so a link to the article/post/original image). If you want to, you can save pins on your board (we’ll get to this next), to your phone/computer and share them with others.
For example, if you want explore things to do in the Netherlands, you can search for ‘Netherlands’ or ‘things to do in the Netherlands’ and the most relevant pins will come up. Below I’ve added a pin that I made for Pinterest. It is an image of a Dutch landscape with the post title that people can click out to. If you are a fellow blogger I would recommend always adding your blog name in the image itself, so that when it gets repinned everone sees your name! It also prevents others from stealing your image without crediting you. When you click on the pin, people can read the description of the pin. This contains what the article is about. You can also add a link for people to click out to: this would be the link to the relevant blogpost on your site.
You can create pins for everything: recipes, Halloween decorations, wedding invitations, clothing, hair styles and so much more.
What are boards?
Now that we know the basics of Pinterest and what Pins are, we can easily explain boards. If you see Pinterest as that physical cork notice board, a ‘Pinterest board’ is basically one of these. You can create boards for every different topic imaginable: wedding inspiration, vegan recipes, cleaning tips, Christmas gift wrapping and so on. A Pinterest board is a sort of album and you can be as meticulous as you want with this: my sister has her boards colour coordinated!
You can add anyone’s pins to your board, it doesn’t just have to be your own pins. I for example love the Pleasure Principle Pinterest ‘health care’ board and can save their pins to my own board. You can start a board simply by ‘pinning‘ an image/video (a pin), Pinterest will ask you which board you want to pin this to. You can use an existing one you have created already, or create a new board with a new title. If you wish, you can add pins to different boards. I’ve added a screenshot of my existing boards below. The pin I used earlier about ‘things to do in The Netherlands’ I have pinned to my board ‘European city guides’, but I could have also added it to ‘blog’, ‘Dutch travel inspiration’.
Want to create a customised cover for your Pinterest board?
- Create your cover as a new pin (more about this below) and pin this to the relevant board
- Go in to your Pinterest profile
- Click on ‘boards” and hover over the relevant board. A pencil will show, if you click on this you can edit your board.
- You can choose any cover from the images that are pinned to this board
How to create Pins
Creating pins is without a doubt my favourite part of Pinterest! Let the creativity flow and make something you would pin yourself if you came across it online. I usually create my pins through Canva. This is a website that allows you to upload images and add text, shapes, lines and lots more. I recommend using an image with a high resolution, other than that I would say: just experiment! Sometimes the pins that you love don’t do very well and the ones you are not very proud of are really popular: just try out what you tuink would work and learn as you go.
If you can, use your own images. Writing about christmas decorations? Snap a pic of your own Christmas tree! This is better for so many reasons: originality, more engagement, personable and you don’t have to worry about copyright. If you can’t use your own image for a pin, use websites like Unsplash or others that allow you to use the images for free.
Scheduling Pins
If you are a blogger who wants to get more traffic via Pinterest, you are probably a bit apprehensive that Pinterest might take up a lot of your time. If you do everything manually it can do! But luckily there are some great tools out there, like Tailwind, that give you a helping hand. With Tailwind you can schedule pins to go live when you want them. You can also schedule Instagram posts. I usually create, prepare and schedule my Pinterest and Instagram content in a set couple hours a week and then Tailwind takes care of the rest! This regular engagement with Pinterest (even though you don’t have to do anything outside of your scheduled hours) can really boost your traffic.
Do you have any other tips to boost your traffic with Pinterest? Let us know in the comments!
