Grow Your Traffic with Pinterest
Are you wondering why your pins don’t seem to be working to drive traffic to your website?
I have a few reasons why this might be happening and before I get into how I can help you, let me share with you how I learned what should be doing with your Pinterest account.
When I launched a new business – the Create Your Business subscription box – one of the first things I did to promote my new product was to set up the Create Your Business Pinterest account.
I learned how to start an account from scratch.
I figured out how to learn how to design my branded pins. I developed the content to ensure that I’m adding Fresh Content to Pinterest and after about 6 months, I discovered how to make a couple of my pins go viral.
I did my share of testing and pinning to finally get this visual site to work. And now I’m watching over 70% of my website traffic coming directly from Pinterest.
Let me share the big secret
Before we jump into the 10 strategic steps to grow your traffic with Pinterest, let me share with you the big thing that Pinterest experts know to see results:
Pinterest is a visual search engine and not a social media site. And when you start to use the SEO steps like you use Google, that’s when you’ll to see the referral traffic flowing to your site.
Alrighty then … let’s get into the 10 action steps you should start doing to help you generate all that amazing referral traffic from Pinterest:
1. Optimize Your Profile
When you work from the place that Pinterest is a visual search engine, then it’s important to make sure that people are able to find your Pinterest account. You have 20 characters to use in your profile name so that gives you space to use more than just your personal name or the name of your blog.
Use those characters wisely to include keywords that describe who you are and what you do. Think about the words someone would type into Google to find your business or blog. Make sure that you add in relevant keywords into your Profile Name.
2. Research Keywords
If you’re wondering how to find the best keywords for your Pinterest account { for your profile name, your board names and to use for your pin descriptions – we’ll get into this in a bit! }, you just need to run a search in Pinterest.
Look for the Guided Search tool – it looks like a magnifying glass – and you’ll find it at the top of the site.
The Pinterest Guided Search works by suggesting keywords that pinners are actively searching for on the site. Using the targeted keywords for your Profile Name, Board Names and within your pins with the Headline and the pin descriptions will help your Pinterest account get better results as you’ll be able to show up in more search results.
3. Create a Specialized Account
Make sure that your Pinterest account including your Profile Name, Board Names and the keywords in your pins are all connected.
If your Profile Name says that you’re a food blogger, then your Board Names should be food related like Breakfast, Brunch, Holiday Recipes and Desserts. And the pins that you add to the site should be connected to the cupcake recipes you’re blogging about or the beautiful Thanksgiving table you were highlighting in your Instagram feed.
When a food blogger adds in boards like Website Design or Social Media Strategy, Pinterest’s algorithm gets confused about how to categorize your account. Your activity lets Pinterest know what your account is about so the program can share your pins and boards when a pinner is searching for your type of content.
4. Pin Consistently
There’s nothing that Pinterest loves more than to see us using their site on a regular basis.
I’m not referring to using a scheduling program that adds your pins several times a day. I’m talking about logging into the program several times a week and pinning for the pure sake of pinning.
I’m talking about manually adding in Fresh Pins several times a week. Adding in new relevant on topic boards and then pinning other people’s pins to grow your boards.
There’s nothing wrong with having a scheduler to add in your pins but don’t let that be the only way that you’re sharing your content on Pinterest.
5. Pin Fresh Content
Pinterest recommends that you add new pins to your boards at least once a week.
Remember, Pinterest wants us to pin and use the site consistently so the more often that you can pin to the site, the more your chances are to have your pins show up in a guided search. I suggest that you add 2 – 4 pieces of Fresh Content every week.
Some of you might be wondering ‘what makes content fresh?’ Does it have to be a totally new image or could it be an old image that gets re-pinned?
What falls under the idea of Fresh Content?
- A new Pin for your email opt-in or anything else you want to promote { not Repin }
- A Pin for a new blog post
- A new image for an old blog post
6. Make Multiple Pins
Staying with the concept of Fresh Content, spend some time every week thinking about your best content and how you can create Fresh Content by making a new pin.
You can design as many different pins linking to the same piece of content as you want. You can change the image, the headline or the keywords in your pin descriptions. Do some research using Pinterest’s Guided Search for new keyword phrases and hashtags that you can add to create a new pin that links back to your original blog post.
7. Pay Attention to Pinterest Analytics
The best place to start looking for which pins you should re-purpose as Fresh Content is your Pinterest analytics. Make sure you’ve clicked on your claimed website information in your analytics then scroll down to the Top Pins section.
Impressions are good to look at and seeing your number of repins are totally cool BUT – we want people to come to our website. We want people to read our posts, check out our online programs and download our workbooks.
Go to the drop down and go to the Link Clicks section.
Chances are, you’re going to see duplicate images of the same pin listed in the list — but that’s a good thing! These are the pins that are already resonating with people on Pinterest. Look through the list and you’ll find loads of opportunities of pins that you can re-work with a new image and pin description.
8. A/B Test Your Pins
You can also use your Pinterest Analytics results to determine which of your multiple pins are connecting with more pinners.
Take a look at your multiple pins that you’ve created – which pins are showing up in your Link Clicks list? These are the pins that are connecting with your community, had a clear searchable headline to generate enough interest for someone to click to learn more.
As you’re studying your pins, ask yourself these questions to determine what’s working and what’s not:
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- Was it the topic of your content?
- Is this a new design or one that you’ve used that’s a consistent branded look for your pins?
- Did you add in a compelling headline on those pins?
- What keywords did you use in the pin descriptions?
9. Write Better Headlines
The headline in your pin does two things – it creates interest in the content of your pin AND it gives you another place to add in those important keywords.
Spend some thinking about what would make a pinner want to click on your pin and go to your site. If you’re not sure how to write better headlines, run a search using your keywords and see what comes up. Then ask yourself, which of these pins makes me want to read more about this content?
Understanding WHY someone would click on your pins is one of the biggest steps you can do to help you drive more traffic to your website. And one of the best ways to do this is to go back to the steps in #6 and #8 to create multiple pins with different images, headlines and pin descriptions.
10. Test Different Strategies
There is no ‘one strategy fits all’ template for Pinterest that works for everyone.
The problems that a lifestyle blogger solves are completely different than the what a business development coach does to help her clients. To see results on Pinterest comes with a plan to always be testing and testing until you find the action steps that work.
If you notice that your traffic is dropping, try manually pinning an extra day or two during the week. Or maybe you need to pull back on the number of pins that you have in your scheduler.
Continue to run a search for your keywords and see what long tail keywords come up – did anything change when you ran this search 3 months ago? Create new content with new pin designs and see if this change up makes a difference with your pin’s activity.
And my best piece of advice that I tell all my clients is to keep an eye on your Pinterest analytics. These numbers are directly connected to the Pinterest algorithm will give you the best insights into what’s working and what needs tweaking to grow your site’s traffic.
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