Blog Traffic Tips: 3 Things That Matter For Pinterest Traffic
Since I wrote about how I grew my Pinterest traffic rapidly by cutting out group boards, I’ve received many questions about my Pinterest strategy as a whole.
I find myself saying the same things over and over again, so I wanted to draw up a quick post sharing a general overview of my strategy at this point, and also my 3 top tips for growing your Pinterest blog traffic.
And how YOU can do it too!
My General Pinterest Strategy
I’ve been using Pinterest to pin my own convent since June of 2018.
As I’m writing this in early November 2018, I have 1.5 million monthly viewers, 90k monthly engaged, 60k page views per month, 85 personal boards, 0 group boards and I use a combination of manual and automated pinning through Tailwind.
I’m pinning 90% of my own content, 10% 3rd party content, and hope to phase out 3rd party pinning altogether by Jan 1 (for the most part).
I spend about 10 minutes a day actively on the Pinterest app or website, but I do manually pin every single day to some degree, and I believe this is important.
The rest is Tailwind.
3 Things That Really Matter For Pinterest Traffic
My specific Pinterest strategy would require me to share processes I’ve learned in valuable Pinterest courses, and it would be unfair to share that for free, as those aren’t my ideas.
But even without sharing everything, I can say that there are three things I believe to matter most regardless of your actual strategy.
You can manually pin or use Tailwind.
Pin 80% third party content, 20% your own.
You can use tons of group boards or none at all.
Pin only between 5pm and 9pm or pin all day.
Semi-loop your pins or send them out to all your boards at 3 hour intervals, or 8, or one-per-day.
The truth is I don’t think ANY of this matters at the end of the day.
The three things that DO matter are:
1- You Need Attractive Pin Designs & Engaging Titles
As your pins are nothing more than graphic advertisements, no matter what strategy you use you MUST have attractive designs and enticing titles.
If you aren’t getting the type of traffic you think you should be getting, take an honest look at your competition.
And not just any competition – the very first results you see for your keywords.
Compare your pin designs and your titles.
Can yours compete?
If not, no matter how frequently you pin, whether you spend 2 hours a day pinning by hand or use Tailwind, whether you send that pin to 100 popular group boards or whatever…
If your designs aren’t as good and your titles aren’t as intriguing, you don’t stand a chance.
How To Up Your Pin Design & Title Game
Something I’m always doing is continuing to make better and brighter pin designs with more enticing titles.
Even though I have many pins that perform well, and I see a nice steady stream of traffic to my site, I think there’s always room for improvement.
The key is to practice, practice, practice!
Take a look at the most popular pins in your niche and see what factors they have in common.
Big, bold text?
Super bright colors?
Pretty, feminine looking backgrounds?
Whatever they have, practice making pins that look similar. Not exactly the same. Similar.
Over time you get better and better, and you’ll notice your pins gaining more traction.
Then once you have a template of a design that works for you, it’s really easy and fast to swap out the text to make new pins.
It’s how I’m able to release new pins pretty much every day – by now I have like 10-15 templates to rotate through, so I just pop on some new text, swap out colors and off to the races!
2- Consistently Feed Pinterest NEW Content
Pinterest LOVES new content.
Why wouldn’t they?
Fresh, new content that their consumers will enjoy is what makes Pinterest go ‘round.
So, it naturally follows that business accounts that feed Pinterest new content to impress their customers with will be rewarded handsomely. Right?
So yes, the best new content is new posts.
But new pins for old posts ALSO count as new content for Pinterest.
Make TONS of pins.
All the time.
Test different designs.
All the time.
Sometimes in Facebook groups I see people showing 4 pin designs asking, “which one should I choose”?
The correct answer is ALL OF THEM.
Release one per day.
Then make 4 more for a different post.
And release one per day.
Then once you have a winner based on the one that takes off the most, keep the template for that one at the top of your list for NEW pins.
I either feed Pinterest a new pin or two or a new post every single day (or close to it).
Sometimes I create these pins in batches, most times I do not.
Like I said, having so many successful templates by now, I just make a quick pin in a couple minutes and send it out.
It’s not a time-consuming ordeal and I’m seeing huge returns!
3- Relevant Descriptions & Keywords Everywhere
So, once you have gorgeous pins with titles that make people feel they HAVE to click, the last thing that’s super important is making sure the people you want to find you, can find you!
You do this with good keywords and putting them everywhere.
Where do I find good keywords, you ask?
Join my mailing list and grab my free tutorial on how to find 50+ keywords in less than 3 minutes.
Once you have this list of 50 keywords, put them EVERYWHERE.
In your pin titles, on the pins themselves, in your descriptions.
When you create your personal boards, title your boards with these, put them in your board descriptions.
Put them in your profile.
Put them in your profile NAME if you can.
If you join group boards, make sure the boards you join have them as THEIR titles, in their descriptions, other pins in the group boards have them in THEIR descriptions.
Literally anywhere on Pinterest that you would type words needs to have THOSE KEYWORDS as the words you type.
That is the ONLY way the people who are looking for amazing content just like yours will EVER know how to find it on Pinterest.
Keywords are everything.
Do These Things And You Will See Blog Traffic Growth
So, there you have it.
Pinterest seems hard and it can be if you’re focusing on too much all at once.
In the beginning I was doing the most and Pinterest was eating up so much of my time.
It’s so easy to do!
But you know at the end of the day I really believe the main task of consistently releasing new, eye-catching, descriptive pins to as many keyword-relevant places as possible is all you really need to succeed.
Of course, I could be wrong.
What works for me may not work for you.
But that’s the beauty of business.
You’re free to find what works for you and make tweaks and adjustments as you see fit.
By sharing my viewpoint, I hope to get the wheels in your head turning so you can try some new things, see about letting go of others that aren’t serving you, and ultimately reach your goals in a faster, easier more pleasant way.
Happy blogging!
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