How to Drive Colossal Traffic Using Pinterest Manually

 

Pinterest is my number one source of blog referral traffic, sending me thousands of blog views per month. Not only do I get great blog traffic from Pinterest, pinners tend to be engaging when they click through. Even if a pinner doesn’t click through, if they save/re-pin a pin, everyone that follows them sees that image in their feed. The snowball effect is huge!

 

Confession: I’m kind of a Pinterest junkie. I don’t use any Pinterest scheduling tools. I do all of it manually because I enjoy it. Although there’s nothing wrong with using a scheduling tool, this post is focused on manual, gradual growth.

 

Keep reading. I’m going to teach you here how to drive traffic using Pinterest. Not puny traffic either. If you keep consistent on the points below, you will see steady growth every single day.

 

To start with:

Learn to love the platform. For some users, love of Pinterest is instant, while for others, it takes some time. If you’re going to spend a lot of time doing it, might as well enjoy it!

 

Pin every day, all day. In this day and age, it’s really not that hard. Make sure you have the Pinterest app installed on your phone and make it a point to pin something from your feed at least every hour or so. Pinterest favors those who are consistently active.

 

Don’t bother with hashtags. It just makes you look silly and does nothing on Pinterest.

 

Keep your profile and boards organized!

Make sure your profile is complete. It must include a profile photo or logo, location, blog URL, and other social accounts. You should also list your tagline or a description of your blog, as well as a call to action. Your call to action can be as simple as “Visit theartofbetter.com now!” or “Visit theartofbetter.com now to learn how to drive colossal traffic using Pinterest!”

 

Have a board strictly for your original content and make sure it’s first on your profile. Mine is The Art of Better Originals for both of my blogs and it is my personal board with the highest click-through and repin rates.

 

Don’t restrict your boards to only your blog topics. Pinterest is a social network that loves personality so, to be successful, you’ve got to show it off! Sure, I have boards for gratitude, positive consciousness, kids, relationships, etc… but I also have boards on shoes, side hustles, humor and stained glass.

 

Your boards should be organized in a way that makes sense. Some people swear by alphabetical order but it’s not a hard and fast rule. Personally, I have my originals board first, followed by boards that are similar to my blog topics, my other boards and then group boards last. For the love of God, please put your group boards last on your profile. I can’t stand checking out someone’s boards only to see twenty group boards at the top. That tells me nothing about you!

 

Name your boards something that makes sense. Pinterest is constantly suggesting boards to users, make your board easy for the algorithms to figure out.

 

Produce killer content with Pinterest-friendly images!

Pinterest users are most often in search of answers, recipes or ‘hacks’. If your content falls into one of those categories, you get a leg up automatically. Don’t bother pinning journal-type posts unless it is about a powerful story or lesson.

 

Create at least one bold, gorgeous Pinterest-ready image for every post. Since Pinterest is a visual network, eye-catching images are a MUST. There is no way around it. Your image should be large. Although 735px X 1102px is typically the size recommended, anything taller than wider works just fine. The goal is long and skinny, it takes up more space on the feed.

 

Your post title should be highly visible and easy to read on your image. Go bigger than you think you need; remember that images are seen at 50% or less of their original size in the Pinterest feed. Zoom out to 50% to check if you can clearly read the wording. Here’s the Pinterest image for this post so you can see what I mean:

Be consistent in your imagery. Find a way to make all of your original images cohesive. This can be done through similar images, watermark/text styles, overlays, etc… A few great examples are pins by Dale Partridge, Regina Anaejionu and Ruth Soukup.

 

Remember to use the ALT field when you insert your image into your blog post. Whatever you type in the ALT box will be the default description when a reader pins it from your site. Use it to your advantage! Include a post summary, call to action, question or teaser to lure readers in.

 

Get your original content out there!

Join some high quality group boards. I belong to a group board with only 500 contributors but an extremely high amount of engagement. This means that many of the pins saved to that board get re-pinned several times. This board also has a high number of followers which is ideal. I pin my original content to high quality group boards one or two times per day per board.

 

Look for a few group boards with a high number of contributors and followers. I am a contributor on one group board specifically that has over 2400 other contributors and over 13,800 followers. I can pin my content to this board several times a day without coming off as ‘spammy’ because the feed moves so quickly.

Grab my Pinterest Group Board Tracker free!

I also run a group board for bloggers called Whatcha Bloggin About? that helps me grow my bloggy community. When I find a blogger that I enjoy, I invite them to the board. Good blogger karma is a real thing kiddos! You can request to be added to the group board by following me on Pinterest first and then emailing me or using the contact form at the end of this post to request collaborator privileges.

 

Timing is important. Don’t pin an original pin to every single possible board you can one after the other. Spread it out. Pin it to one or two boards and then save a few things off your feed before repeating.

 

Get familiar with your Pinterest Analytics so you know what board your highest impressions, repins and clicks are coming from.

 

Be social!

It’s not all about your stats. The number of followers is largely a vanity metric. Engagement is far more important

 

Keep a close eye on your alerts. Pinterest notifies me each time a user likes, saves/repins or comments on one of the pins I have saved, even if it’s not one of my original content pins. I go through my alerts multiple times a day and click on the profile of every user that interacts with something I’ve pinned or follows me. Every. Single. Person. I glance at their ratio of pins to follows to ensure it’s not a spam user before following them.

 

Don’t get offended if someone doesn’t follow you back. I hate the follow/unfollow game on other social media networks and it doesn’t work on Pinterest.

 

Support others by pinning their original content, liking and commenting when appropriate. They will return the favor!

 

Fill in this form and hit ‘send’ if you would like to be added to my group board, Whatcha Bloggin About?

What would you add? What’s your struggle with Pinterest? Let me know in the comments!