If you haven’t yet harnessed the power of Pinterest, it’s time you jumped on the bandwagon. I’ve doubled my website traffic, it’s helped me make sales for my digital products, and it’s pushed people over to my Youtube Channel, Instagram and email list.
It doesn’t matter if you’re product or service based, Pinterest WILL work for you if you’re ready to invest the time into it and experiment. In this blog post, I want to give you 13 into my Pinterest strategy, how I’ve experimented, and what’s working so that it might help you get a kick start too!
I’m going to talk about how I’ve increased my Instagram my Instagram followers, Youtube and email subscribers, made sales for my digital products, and overall doubled my website traffic. I’m going DEEP so make you might want to grab a pen and paper to take some notes!
Let’s go!
This article may contain affiliate links.
#1 Get Yourself Set Up With The Basics!
Let’s just get these out of the road for you first so we can get to the good stuff!
- Set up a business account
- This will give you access to important features such a rich pins, promoted pins and the all important Pinterest Analytics, & enable you to verify your site which credits you as a trustworthy source in the eyes of Pinterest
- Optimise your profile to convert
- Tell people in your bio EXACTLY what you do and what’s on offer. For example, I’ve got in my bio a link to my email sign up telling my audience they will receive 4 free stock photos every month
- Add a ‘Pin-It’ button to your website allowing readers to pin directly from your site and to their Pinterest boards
- Enable Rich Pins
- When you enable ‘Article Pins’, it means when you go to pin your article, it will show you as the author and a snippet of the pin description. Kind of like the metadata that shoes up when you google something
Ok, now that those things are out of the way….
#2 Create 10-15 Pinterest Boards on Your Profile
The first board I created was ‘WWW.AMANDACAMPEANU.COM | Instagram tips, Photography Tips, social media and marketing advice’. This is where I pin all of my own articles. Then, create at least another 10 boards that reflect who you are and what you think your readers want to know about.
For example, I’m all about content creation so some of my boards are named the following:
- Photography Poses
- Instagram Growth | Book Clients on Instagram, Gain Followers on Instagram
- Email Marketing
- Photography Tips
- Social Media Marketing Tips
- Girlboss Quotes (quotes actually do VERY well on Pinterest)
- Product Photography Inspiration
- Flatlay Inspiration
- Branding Tips
- Interior Design Inspiration
Find out what your audience is interested in and create boards accordingly as part of your Pinterest strategy. Just remember, it doesn’t ALL have to be about your business. For example I love looking at beautiful interiors, and so might my audience. So by pinning this kind of non-business related content to my boards, I’m still attracting my target audience.
****PINTEREST IS A SEARCH ENGINE! So we have to always keep SEO at the forefront of our minds when setting up our boards, writing our pin descriptions, etc. If you want to see how I’ve described my Pinterest boards, just click here for an example.
#3 Follow People Within Your Niche
You want to ensure you pin quality pins for your audience and pins that are going to offer value. One of the best places to find those pins is to follow influencers within your niche, as they will show up in your Pinterest feed.
These pins will often have a high re-pin rate, marking them as quality pins. The Pinterest algorithm is complex, but by pinning higher quality pins, it can help Pinterest identify you as a quality pinner/website.
As soon as I started my account, I immediately followed those I look up to in the industry, and those who have a big influence.
#4 Join Group Boards
Group boards can sometimes be hard to find but they are out there! I tried to join about 15 groups boards when I got started as part of my Pinterest strategy. If you’re wondering how to join, there’s usually an email you can send a request to. Don’t worry if you never hear back though! This can happen often.
After each new post is published, I set it up in my scheduler to be pinned to those group boards for maximum exposure. But I wouldn’t stop there! Depending on the group board rules, I also try to pin older pins back onto the boards. Just ensure you’re also pinning other people’s content from the group boards as a courtesy!
To help you find group boards, you can go to other people’s profiles and find out what group board they’re a part of and reach out to the owner.
#5 Tailwind Is A Game Changer!
I wouldn’t have the traffic I do without Tailwind. I experimented with manual pinning for a while but as soon as I invested in Tailwind I started to see a lot more traction. If you truly want to do Pinterest properly, this tool is going to be your BEST resource.
You can sign up for a free trial here to see how you like it! I definitely know I wouldn’t be where I am without my Tailwind account.
My Pinning Strategy
Ok, to the good stuff! This is the process I currently go through when it comes to my Pinterest account:
#6 I have my Tailwind setup for about 15 pins per day.
At one point I was trying to 30 pins and it was taking quite a bit of time. So I thought, would I get the same results if I halved the amount of times I pinned each day? The answer is Yes! I also manually pin for about 5 minutes a day as well just so I organically get onto the platform and use it.
#7 When I release a blog post I create 4-5 different pins for it.
I have about 4-5 pin template designs sitting in my Canva account I just switch out the text and pictures to when I’m ready to launch a new blog post. Using different pins designs helps me to see what kind of design does better on Pinterest and what design grabs people’s eyes. It also means I can post the same blog post to a group board more often using the different pin designs and not look spammy.
#8 I research my keywords
When I’m writing my pin description, I will research popular keywords and include them in my pin description. Pinterest is a search engine so the more keywords you can include that people are looking for, the better chance people have of finding your pin.
#9 I pin to OTHER platforms other than my blog
You don’t just have to create pins for blog posts. Got a youtube channel? Create a pin for each video you release. Push people over to your email list landing page. Push people over to your digital products. The possibilities are unlimited, so work out what you want to promote and create eye catching pins for those pieces of content.
#10 OPTIMISE your blog posts
I use my blog posts as sort of a gateway into my business. When I write a blog post I think about what I want my reader to do. What action do I want them to take? For example on my blog post ‘The Instagram Story Strategy You Need For 2019’, I’ve got a banner in there for my Instagram Engagement Formula Ebook. And I’ve had some sales come from this!
Each blog post you write should have a call to action. It should have a purpose to lead people to the NEXT step in your business journey.
#11 Jump onto trending topics
When 2019 started I knew that people would be going crazy for Instagram stories. So I write a blog post on ‘The Instagram Story Strategy You Need For 2019’. This helped my skyrocket my website traffic because this is what people were searching for.
I also know that Instagram is a REALLY popular topic on Pinterest (and so is Pinterest haha), so I try to write helpful blog posts about these trending topics where I can.
#12 I spend an hour on Pinterest a week scheduling out my content.
I pin a week in advance. This way I can keep on top of the content I’m bringing out. I’ll look at what products I have launching, what youtube videos are coming out in the next week, what blog posts I want people to revisit, and I’ll always pin my own NEW pins first.
What I mean by NEW pins is uploading new pins to Pinterest, as opposed to re-pinning my older pins. These NEW pins I pin to all my group boards and Tailwind Tribes are set at a specific interval. For example, I might schedule one pin to go out to every group board over the span of 7 days. Meaning each day my pin will be re-pinning to ONE group board. This avoids me spamming my audience all at once with the same pin.
I then go through my Pinterest home feed, group boards and my older pins to fill up my schedule. I try to pin to all my different boards during the week to help keep up the virality of the boards.
#13 I Revisit My Analytics Weekly
Pinterest is mostly strategy and it’s all about experimenting. I will look at my analytics on a monthly basis both on Pinterest as well as Tailwind. A few little dot points I take note of:
- What timezone my audience is in – this will help determine what times I should be pinning
- What my audience is interested in –
- I look at what types of boards people have repinned my pins to, usually a few topics are more popular than others
- I look at the boards with the most clicked pins (the idea is to find out the most popular topics amongst your audience)
- I look at impressions on my own pins and clicks to my website
Tailwind have incredible analytics which also show you what group boards are performing well and which ones aren’t. You want to ensure you’re pinning to active group boards and boards that don’t contain spam.
Your Takeaway
Overall, Pinterest takes TIME and PATIENCE. But when done well, it can really help to boost your traffic and push people over to your other platforms. Make sure you invest in Tailwind to take the stress out of Pinterest and actually RESULTS! If you want to know more about Tailwind, just click here.
Don’t be disheartened if you don’t see page view straight away. Pinterest takes time but I PROMISE the effort is worth it!
When it comes to your Pinterest strategy, experiment with different things, invest in Tailwind, and don’t neglect your analytics!
Let me know if you’ve found this helpful or if you want to chat Pinterest strategies!
Talk soon,
Amanda xx
