Pinterest for Bloggers: A Beginner’s Guide

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A lot of bloggers and businesses have the misconception that Pinterest is only a platform for women to find recipes, dresses, and DIY projects.

However, there are several big brands like Airbnb, Whole Foods Market, Etsy, and even Chick-Fil-A using Pinterest in their marketing strategy.

There are also several guy-focused brands like Harley-Davidson, Lowe’s, Art of Manliness, and Dollar Shave Club driving great traffic from it.

In fact, I started using Pinterest to drive traffic to my fitness site back in 2019.

7Sigma Physiques Pinterest
7Sigma Physiques Pinterest

Now, most of the traffic to my fitness site comes from Pinterest.

Percentage of traffic from Pinterest
Percentage of sessions from Pinterest

Here’s everything we’ll cover in this Pinterest for bloggers guide:

Contents

  1. What makes Pinterest great for bloggers?
  2. Pinterest basics
  3. How to set up Pinterest for bloggers
  4. Pin design for bloggers
  5. Pinterest SEO for bloggers
  6. How to get traffic from Pinterest
  7. Pinterest best practices recap
  8. Pinterest for bloggers FAQs

Disclosure: You should always assume that pretty much every link on this site is an affiliate link, and if you click it and buy something you like, I’ll earn some money to help me buy a DeLorean, build a time machine, and travel back to the 90s so I can watch Hey Arnold! and eat Dunkaroos again.

What Makes Pinterest Great for Bloggers?

“Okay, Christian! But what makes Pinterest so good for my business?”

Glad you asked, my friend!

Here are the top 4 reasons why you should use Pinterest for your business:

1. It’s a Search Engine

What makes Pinterest so great for bloggers is the fact that it’s actually a search engine like Google, not a social media platform like many believe.

This means that your content will stay on the platform for longer. In fact, my oldest Pins are the ones bringing me the most traffic.

The problem with social media platforms like Instagram and Facebook is that your content is only shown to a handful of people and then disappears.

Even if you publish something that goes viral, it’ll eventually die down.

Plus, their goal is to keep people on their platform. So not many people leave Instagram or Facebook to visit a blog post.

For example, I have over 8,000 followers on Instagram, get a lot of comments and likes on my photos, but when I post a link to my posts, I only get between 10-20 visits.

The only other way of getting good traffic from something like Facebook is paying for ads, which might be out of the budget for some people.

Pinterest is great and free organic traffic, just like Google.

2. Easier to Rank

Even though Pinterest and Google are both search engines, it’s easier and faster to rank for popular keywords on Pinterest than it is on Google.

This is because Pinterest ranking factors are based more on engagement metrics than backlinks and technical search engine optimization (SEO).

Plus, there’s less competition since most businesses are busy fighting each other to get on the first page of Google.

Don’t worry, we’ll talk more about Pinterest SEO in the “Pinterest SEO” section of this beginner’s guide.

3. High-Income Users

Another great thing about Pinterest for businesses is that its users have a high annual household income and are ready to spend it.

For example, 27% of adults who use Pinterest earn $30,000 – $74,999 per year, and 41% earn more than $75,000 per year, according to data gathered by Statista.

Another set of data gathered by Statista also shows that 47% of Pinterest users make purchase decisions on Pinterest, which is way more than Facebook at 15% and Instagram at 11%.

Social media activities by users
Social media activities by users (data: Statista)

What’s even more interesting is that 97% of searches are unbranded.

This means that users are open-minded and looking beyond brands they already know.

4. Can Be Automated

Lastly, I love using Pinterest for my business because the process can be automated with scheduling tools.

For example, I typically spend a couple of weeks creating and scheduling Pins and then let my scheduler publish them automatically.

This allows me to completely disconnect from Pinterest and focus on other tasks.

We’ll take a more in-depth look at this in the “How to Grow Your Pinterest Traffic” section of this Pinterest for bloggers guide.

Pinterest Has Changed

I want to point out, though, that while Pinterest is a great source of traffic and might be faster and easier than getting traffic from Google, it’s not as easy as it used to be.

A lot of bloggers will show off their large number of followers, monthly Pinterest views, and how fast they grew their Pinterest traffic to get you to buy their courses.

However, most of these bloggers got big around 2016 when it was easier, and Pinterest had not gone public.

It’s as if someone who got rich during the 1848 Gold Rush came today and made you pay him to tell you where he dug to find gold.

Again, Pinterest is still great, but it requires some work.

Pinterest Basics

Before I teach you how to set up your account and use it to drive traffic, I want to go over some basic Pinterest terms so you’re not left wondering what I’m talking about later in this Pinterest for bloggers guide.

1. What is Pinterest?

Pinterest is a visual discovery engine for finding ideas like recipes, workouts, money-saving, home decor, and more.

Have you ever seen those bulletin boards where people pin things like concert flyers, announcements, and items for sale?

Bulletin board
Bulletin board

Well, Pinterest is supposed to be a digital version of those boards.

2. What is a Pinterest Pin?

A Pin is a visual bookmark that users can save on a Pinterest board for later use.

Each Pin is comprised of an image, a title, a description, and a link back to the source, which is typically a blog post or product.

Here’s an example of some Pinterest Pins:

Pinterest Pins
Pinterest Pins

Once you click on a Pin the first time (called a “closeup”), you’ll see more info about it, such as the website it links back to and a description, as well as the options to save it to one of your boards.

Pin closeup
Pin closeup

Clicking the Pin a second time will then take you to the blog post, page, or product the Pin is linking to.

To save a Pin to one of your boards, all you have to do is click the down arrow located in the upper-right corner and select the board.

Save Pin
Save Pin

You can also save a Pin straight from the Pinterest feed without having to first click the Pin.

All you have to do is hover over the Pin, and a similar drop-down menu will show up.

3. What Are Pinterest Boards?

Pinterest boards are the place where you save your Pins and keep them organized.

For example, you could create a board titled “Paleo Recipes” and another titled “Weight Loss.”

So every time you publish a new recipe and create a Pin for it, you can save it in the “Paleo Recipes” board.

Here’s a look at some of the boards on my fitness account:

Pinterest boards
Pinterest boards

By default, you’ll be the only one allowed to save Pins to your boards.

If you’d like other people to contribute to a specific board, you can send them an invitation to collaborate. This will turn your board into what’s called a group board.

You can also send requests to join group boards created by others.

I’ll walk you through the steps of creating boards and joining group boards later in this Pinterest for bloggers guide.

How to Set up Pinterest for Bloggers

Now that you’re familiar with some of Pinterest’s basic terms, it’s time to learn how to set up an account.

STEP 1: Create Your Pinterest Business Account

Here’s why we’ll be creating a Pinterest business account instead of a personal one:

  • Pinterest Analytics – business accounts get access to Pinterest Analytics. This will help you see how your Pins are performing so you can adjust your strategies accordingly.
  • Claim Your Website – a business account will let you claim your website. This will make your profile picture show up next to any Pins that come from your site as well as a “Follow” button for your Pinterest account.
  • Pinterest ToS – it’s actually on Pinterest’s Terms of Service that users utilizing Pinterest for commercial purposes must create a business account.

There are three ways to create a Pinterest business account:

  1. Create a new business account
  2. Add a business profile to your Pinterest account
  3. Convert a personal account to a business account

The advantage of converting a personal account is that you might have some followers already; however, these followers won’t necessarily be interested in the new content you’ll be publishing.

Plus, Pinterest followers don’t matter as much as they did a few years ago.

As I mentioned earlier, Pinterest is a search engine, and every algorithm update shows that they’re becoming more like Google by focusing on quality content instead of followers.

It’s really up to you which option you want to choose.

Personally, I like keeping my business and personal stuff separate.

Here are the steps to create a new Pinterest business account:

1. Go to Pinterest.com
2. Click “Sign up” in the upper-right corner of the screen
3. Click “Create Business Account” at the bottom of the login pop-up

Pinterest Sign up
Sign up

4. Enter your details
5. Click “Create account”

Create Pinterest account
Create account

That’s it! You should now have a brand new Pinterest account for your business.

STEP 2: Claim Your Website

As I mentioned earlier, claiming your website will allow you to:

  • Access analytics for the Pins you publish from your site
  • Access analytics on Pins other people create from your site
  • Let people know where to find more of your content

Your profile pictures will show up next to any Pins that come from your site as well as a “Follow” button for your Pinterest account.

Here’s how to claim your website:

1. Login to your Pinterest account
2. Click the down arrow located in the upper-right corner of the screen
3. Click “Settings”

Pinterest settings
Settings

4. Click “Claim” on the left column
5. Click the “Claim” button next to “Websites”

Claim website
Claim website

6. Copy the HTML tag

Claim method
Claim method (HTML tag)

Now, there are several ways you can add the HTML tag into the <head> section of your website, such as:

  • Your header.php theme file
  • The Insert Header and Footer plugin
  • Yoast SEO plugin
  • Your WordPress theme

Not everyone reading this guide uses those plugins or has a WordPress theme that allows them to hook things in the <head> section of their sites, but everyone has access to their header.php.

So that’s the method I’ll walk you through in this Pinterest for bloggers guide.

Here’s how to add the HTML tag into the <head> section of your site through your header.php:

7. Login to your WordPress dashboard
8. On your left admin bar, go to “Appearance”
9. Click on “Theme Editor”

WordPress dashboard
WordPress dashboard

10. On the “Theme Files” column on the right, scroll until you find a file titled “Theme Header (header.php)” and click it
11. Find the closing </head> tag. You can use cmd+f (Mac) or ctrl+f (Windows) to find it
12. Paste the Pinterest HTML tag right above the </head> tag
13. Click the “Update File” button at the bottom

Header.php
Header.php

Be careful not to change or delete any code you see inside your header.php.

Now, you might be aware that any changes made to the theme core files get deleted once you update your theme (unless you’re using a child theme).

However, once your website has been claimed, it doesn’t matter if you have the tag or not.

In fact, once your site has been claimed, you can come back to the header.php file and delete the tag if you’d like.

Just to make sure, I contacted Pinterest and ask them about it. Here’s what they said:

Hi Christian,

Thanks for writing in.

I would like to inform you that once the website is claimed then you can remove the HTML tag and it will still be claimed.

14. Go back to your Pinterest account and click “Continue”

Continue

15. Enter your website
16. Click “Verify”

Verify tag
Verify

That’s it! Pinterest will check your site for the meta tag and send you an email once you’re all set.?

STEP 3: Complete Your Profile

Next thing we’ll do is to complete your Pinterest business profile.

To do this, login to your Pinterest account > click the down arrow in the upper-right corner > Settings > Edit profile.

Complete business profile
Edit profile

Let’s look at each one of the options individually.

1. Profile Photo

Logo or headshot?

This is a common question entrepreneurs have when choosing a brand profile pic for their business.

A logo might make sense if you have a business with more than 5 employees.

However, if you’re flying Han style (solo) or have less than 5 employees, you can use a photo of yourself if you’d like.

Nowadays, people are more drawn to authenticity, so using your face might help build a more personal and trustworthy connection with your audience.

But it’s really up to you.

Regardless of which one you choose, though, make sure it looks good on different sizes and that you use it across all of the platforms.

The profile photo you upload to Pinterest should be at least 165 x 165 pixels.

2. Display Name

Your display name is one of the first things users will see when visiting your profile.

It should include the name of your business and a few keywords to help visitors know what your business is about and your Pinterest search engine optimization (SEO).

For example, if you owned a bed and breakfast in PA called Schrute Farms, you could write something like:

Schrute Farms | Best Bed & Breakfast in PA

If you had a business called Rent-A-Swag that focused on renting high-end clothes to teenagers, you could write something like:

Rent-A-Swag | High-End Teen Clothing Rental Service

3. Username

Your username will be added at the end of Pinterest’s domain to create your profile’s web address.

www.pinterest.com/Username

For example, this website has the username “Blogstalgia” and can be found at www.pinterest.com/Blogstalgia.

Just like your display name, your username should be the same as the name of your business. This will make it easier for people to find.

Ideally, you’d also want to use the same username across all your social platforms like Instagram and Facebook.

Your username can’t have any spaces, symbols, or punctuation.

Therefore, if you have a business name with multiple words, you’ll have to put them together into one word.

For example, my fitness business is called 7Sigma Physiques and my Pinterest username is 7sigmaphysiques.

4. About Your Profile

Just like the about page on your website, this section isn’t really about you, but about what you can do for your audience.

Use your bio to tell visitors what problem you can help them solve. Tell them why they need you and your business.

For example, we could write something like this for our Rent-A-Swag business example from earlier:

Stop wasting money buying nice tuxes and ties your teenager will outgrow in a few months. Instead, save your hard-earned cash by renting all the high-end clothes you need right here at Rent-A-Swag.

Also, don’t forget to use keywords here as well!

5. Email Address

While you can add any email address you want, using one with your domain name will make your business look more professional.

For example, an email address like dwight@schrutefarms.com would look better than schrutefarms@gmail.com.

If you don’t have a custom business email yet, you could use something like Google Workspace (formerly G-Suite) for $6/month to create one.

However, it’s always a good idea to keep your email and hosting separate, and here’s why:

  • Low deliverability – If you’re on a cheap shared hosting server, there’s a high chance that someone else on that server is sending out spam. If the IP address you’re sending emails from has a low reputation, your emails will end up in your recipients’ spam box.
  • Low reliability – if your server goes down, both your website and email will stop working. This means your customers or potential clients won’t be able to reach you.
  • Website performance – all the emails and attachments you send and receive will take up disk space that could be used by your website.

6. Location

It’s really up to you if you want to fill this information or not.

If you have a business with a physical location, then you can go ahead and add the address.

If not, then you can select the country you’re doing business from and leave everything else blank.

STEP 4: Create Pinterest Boards

Here are some things you must keep in mind when creating Pinterest boards:

  • Create 5-10 boards – it used to be that creating more boards was beneficial, however, it’s now better to have just a few high-level boards.
  • Make them relevant – boards should reflect each topic you cover on your website. For example, if you had a fitness blog, you could have a workouts board, a nutrition board, a weight loss board, and a muscle building board.
  • Add keywords – remember that Pinterest is a search engine, so you have to keep SEO in mind. Add keywords your audience is searching for to your board titles.
  • Be specific – if you have a very specific target audience, be sure to let them know in your board titles. For example, if you had a fitness blog that focused on helping women lose weight, you could create a weight loss for women board, a workouts for women board, and a diet for women board.
  • “Best of” boards? – a lot of bloggers will tell you to create a “blog board” or “best of” board where you only save the best Pins from your website. This isn’t really necessary.

Here’s how to create Pinterest boards:

1. Login to your Pinterest business account
2. Click the “+” icon in the bottom-right corner
3. Click “Board”

Create Pinterest board
Create board

4. Add your board name
5. Click “Create”

STEP 5: Edit Your Pinterest Board

For some weird reason, Pinterest doesn’t give the option to add a description and cover image when creating a board.

Instead, you have to go back to your list of boards > click the pencil icon > and then add them.

Edit Pinterest board
Edit board
  • Board cover – once you’ve added some Pins to your board, you’ll see the option to make one of them the board cover. If you haven’t uploaded any Pins, you won’t see this option yet.
  • Description – just like your titles, your board descriptions should also include keywords your audience is searching for.
  • Category? – as I was writing this beginner’s guide to Pinterest, I realized there isn’t a “Category” option anymore. Not sure if this is only affecting my account, but if you see the option to choose a category, then select whichever one reflects your topic the most.

Don’t worry if you still haven’t done keyword research, you can always come back later and edit your boards.

STEP 6: Add Pins to Your Boards

Once you’ve got your boards set up, you can start adding a few Pins from other users to populate them.

Saving popular Pins will help your boards start getting some impressions and engagement.

To find Pins, you can simply go to your home feed (Business > Home feed) or use the search bar (magnifier icon).

Pin search
Pin search

Here are a few things you must keep in mind while looking for Pins to save:

  • Relevancy – only save Pins that are relevant to your board and that you believe your audience will benefit from. This will help Pinterest understand what your board is about and show it to the right people.
  • Check the link – you don’t want to save Pins that lead to spam or blocked websites, as this can damage your account’s reputation. So click the link and make sure it leads to the right page before saving it.
  • Infographics are good – infographics tend to get tons of closeups and saves, so aim to save a few of these to your boards to bring their engagement up.
  • Clear text – save Pins that have readable fonts and get your attention.

To save a Pin, simply hover over it > click the down arrow > select the board you want to save it to, just like we did earlier.

STEP 7: Follow Other Bloggers in Your Niche

Not only will this help Pinterest better understand your profile but also let you see what kind of content your competitors are pinning.

Now, you don’t want to go ahead and follow a bunch of people at once, as this could make Pinterest think you’re a bot/spammer and block your account.

So just follow like 10 popular accounts and you should be okay.

When searching for bloggers to follow, make sure that you check all the boards on their accounts.

A lot of them have boards on other topics in there, so if you just follow their account, you’ll automatically follow all of those boards.

Once you visit someone’s account, you can select which boards you want to follow.

If all of their boards are relevant to your niche, then you can go ahead and follow all of them.

To search for other bloggers in your niche, simply click the magnifying glass > drop-down menu > People > type in your term > hit enter.

People search
People search

STEP 8: Apply for Rich Pins

Next thing we’ll cover in this Pinterest for bloggers guide is applying for Rich Pins.

Rich Pis are Pins that automatically pull metadata from your website to your Pins so users can see useful information before visiting your site.

Rich Pin example
Rich Pin

There are four types of Rich Pins:

  • Product Rich Pins – they show the price, availability, and product information right on your Pin.
  • Recipe Rich Pins – show things like serving size, cook time, ratings, ingredients, and more.
  • Article Rich Pins – show the title, description, and the author of the article from your site.
  • App Rich Pins – show an install button so users can download your app without leaving Pinterest.

Rich Pins also update themselves automatically to reflect any changes you’ve made to your articles, recipes, or products.

How to Enable Rich Pins

While it’s possible to add the required metadata manually, it can be a somewhat complex process, so it’s better to just use a plugin.

Trust me, if I could avoid using a plugin, I would.

1. Enable Open Graph

If you’re using an SEO plugin, you’ll have to see if they have the option to enable Open Graph.

If you’re not using an SEO plugin, you can install a plugin like Open Graph and Twitter Card Tags. (this is what I use)

You don’t have to do anything besides enabling Open Graph or installing and activating the plugin.

No settings to mess with, nothing.

To enable Open Graph on Yoast SEO, just go to your WordPress Dashboard > SEO > Social > click the “Facebook” Tab > make sure that “Add Open Graph meta data” is “Enabled” > Save changes.

After enabling Open Graph with either method, make sure that you clear your cache if you’re using a caching plugin.

2. Run the Rich Pins Validator

Go to Pinterest’s Rich Pin Validator > copy the URL of any of the blog posts on your site > paste it inside the “Enter a valid URL” box > click validate.

Rich Pin Validator
Rich Pin Validator

You should then get this message if Pinterest was able to find your metadata:

Approved Rich Pins
Approved Rich Pins

Pin Design for Bloggers

As you’ve probably noticed, Pinterest is an extremely visual platform.

Lucky for you, Pin design is the next thing we’ll cover in this Pinterest for bloggers guide.?

We’ll go over some design basics to get people to notice your Pins, best Pin dimensions, some design tools, and how many Pins to create.

Pin Design Basics

When designing your Pins, you want to choose colors, images, and texts that stand out.

1. Colors

Almost every Pinterest “expert” will tell you to use colorful images to stand out; however, if everyone’s using colorful images, you’ll just get lost in the mix.

To truly stand out, you have to see what other Pins in your niche look like and make your Pins look the opposite.

Let’s do a quick test.

Look at the image below and tell me which Pin gets your attention.

Contrasting Pin
Contrasting Pin

Probably the intermittent fasting one with the black background, right?

Obviously, you’d want to design something a little better-looking, but you get the idea.

If everyone in your niche is using earth tones when designing their Pins, you could use vivid colors instead.

And if they’re using vivid colors, you could use something more calm.

2. Images

When choosing images for your Pins, you want to use ones that are related to your content/blog post.

You can find free stock photos here:

You do not want to use any random image you find on Google, as you do not own the copyright to them and could get in trouble.

Someone can report you on Pinterest and get your account blocked (it happens more than you’d think), or you could get sued.

3. Text

Please, don’t overuse script fonts.

In fact, I would avoid them completely as they’re extremely difficult to read, but whatever floats your boat.

Use a regular serif or sans-serif font for the majority of your text, and then you could use some other crazy font for any specific word you want to make stand out.

Also, don’t use more than 2 different fonts.

4. Logo or Website

Add either your logo or website somewhere inside your Pin image.

Pin Dimensions

Everything on Pinterest is vertical, so you want to use a 2:3 aspect ratio for all of your Pins.

A 2:3 aspect ratio is just a fancy way of saying that the width of your image should be 2/3 its height.

For example, you could create a Pin that’s 600 x 900 px or 1,000 x 1,500 px.

If your image falls outside this ratio, it could get cut off in people’s feeds, and they wouldn’t see your full Pin.

For infographics, you could go 1:3.

Here’s a handy list for you:

  • Standard Pins: 1,000 x 1,500 px (2:3 aspect ratio)
  • Long Pins: 1,000 x 2,100 px (1:2.1 aspect ratio)
  • Square Pins: 1,000 x 1,000 px (1:1 aspect ratio) don’t use square Pins, though.
  • Infographic: 1,000 x 3,000 px (1:3 aspect ratio)

The same aspect ratios apply to video Pins.

Pin dimensions
Pin dimensions

Design Tools

You can make Pins with any design app you want. But here are some of my favorite ones:

1. Canva

Canva is my favorite free tool for beginner bloggers who don’t feel like spending too much time learning how to use more robust tools like Photoshop.

I’ve used it to create not only Pins, but flyers, article images, infographics, Instagram stories, eBook covers, and more.

Canva Home
Canva Home

Canva comes with pre-made templates that make designing beautiful graphics super easy.

You can also add shapes, frames, stickers, charts, grids, text, and upload your own photos.

Canva features
Canva features

Another cool thing about it is that you can browse free stock photos right from the sidebar.

This saves you from having to visit a different site, download the image, and then upload it to Canva.

Canva also has a Pro version for $12.95/month that unlocks even more features and premium photos.

The main reason I upgraded to the Pro version when using Canva was because of the premium photos.

Canva photos
Premium photos

The thing about using free stock sites like Unsplash and Pixabay is that everyone is using the same images.

And the downside of other paid stock sites is that they’re super expensive.

For example, Adobe Stock plans start at $29.99/month and you can only download 10 assets per month?

That’s a hard pass from me.

So upgrading to the Pro version might be worth it if you’re making a ton of Pins and aren’t taking your own photos.

Either way, I think everyone should register for a free Canva account.

2. Affinity Products

Affinity products are what I use the most right now, which include:

  • Affinity Photo
  • Affinity Publisher
  • Affinity Designer

They’re supposed to be the equivalent of Adobe Photoshop, InDesign, and Illustrator.

I find them easier to use and almost as good as Adobe products.

But the best part? Each one of their products has a one-time purchase price of $50. So no monthly payments like Adobe products.

The one I use to create Pins is Affinity Publisher.

Affinity Publisher
Affinity Publisher

With it, you can search Unsplash, Pexels, and Pixabay for images right from the app, kind of like Canva.

Even though Affinity Publisher is easier to use than Photoshop, it’s still not as intuitive as Canva.

So if you’re a beginner blogger, I’d still recommend you go with Canva instead.

How Many Pins to Create

I can’t tell you exactly how many Pins to create, as this will depend on how many blog posts you have and your pinning strategy.

For example, someone who has a ton of articles can get away with creating fewer Pins.

On the other hand, someone who doesn’t have much content would benefit from more Pins.

My recommendation is that if you’re just starting out and have less than 20 articles, create 5-8 Pins for each article.

If you have more than 20 articles, you can create between 3-5 Pins for each one.

Again, this really depends on your strategy, so take these numbers as loose guidelines.

Pinterest SEO for Bloggers

Search engine optimization (SEO) is optimizing aspects of your website to make your blog posts rank high in search engine result pages (SERPs).

For example, adding popular keywords in a blog post’s body and headings will help search engines better understand it and increase its chances of being shown to more people in SERPs.

When talking SEO, most people connect it to Google; however, as mentioned earlier, Pinterest is also a search engine and has its own algorithm.

Unlike Google, Pinterest ranking factors focus more on engagement metrics and social shares than backlinks and technical SEO.

This makes it way easier to rank for popular keywords.

In this section of the Pinterest for bloggers guide, we’ll go over how to find popular keywords in your niche and optimize your Pinterest business account to show up in searches.

1. Pinterest Keyword Research

The first technique we’ll use to find keywords is simply by using Pinterest’s search bar.

Pinterest keyword research
Search bar

Once you type any search term relevant to your topic, Pinterest will automatically suggest other common and related keywords people are searching for.

From the image above, you can see the following keywords suggested when searching for “workouts”:

  • Workout “videos”
  • “Leg” workouts
  • “Ab” workouts
  • Workouts “to lose belly fat fast”

You want to use the keywords you find here to optimize the title and descriptions of your Pinterest account, Pins, and boards.

This is important because users can search specifically for Pins, people, boards, and videos.

Search options
Search options

The second technique is going to pinterest.com/ideas/ and exploring popular content in your topic.

Explore Pinterest
Explore Pinterest

Once you click on your topic, you’ll see featured articles, trending searches, and popular ideas.

Use this not only to analyze what’s popping, but also to see which keywords your competitors are targeting.

2. Pinterest Profile SEO

Once you’ve got a few keywords, you want to go ahead and add them to your profile name and description.

Now, you don’t want to just load your profile with keywords (known as keyword stuffing).

Only add the most relevant keywords and make your message clear.

Profile optimization
Profile optimization

3. Pinterest Boards SEO

When adding keywords to your boards, make sure that you add the most important one in the board title and other relevant ones in your description.

Pinterest boards SEO
Boards optimization

4. Pinterest Pins SEO

When it comes to optimizing Pins, you want to include your main keyword not only on the title and description of your Pin but also on the image itself as Pinterest can read that text.

You should also add some relevant keywords in your description and between 2-5 relevant hashtags at the end.

Pin optimization
Pin optimization

Another important thing here is to pin each Pin to its most relevant board.

This helps Pinterest better understand your Pin and serve it to more relevant users, which will increase your click-through rate.

5. Optimizing Your Articles for Pinterest

Pinterest also scans your blog post to see how much it relates to the Pin that’s linking to it.

This is what Pinterest engineers call “Pin cohesion.”

Basically, they like seeing that “a Pin’s web page match its semantics.”

So make sure to include your target keyword in your article’s title, headings, and body.

How to Get Traffic From Pinterest

You might be wondering how in the world you’re going to find time to pin images every day to promote your content and get traffic to your blog fast.

Don’t worry, that’s when one of my favorite tools come into play.

Tailwind

Tailwind is, by far, one of the fastest and easiest ways of getting traffic from Pinterest.

In fact, I have two separate accounts, one for my fitness blog and one for this one.

Here are some of Tailwind’s features:

  • Scheduler – schedule Pins weeks, months, and even years in advance
  • Analytics – track analytics, such as Pin and board performance, follower growth, and engagement
  • Tailwind Communities – collaborate with other bloggers in your niche and share each other’s Pins to grow faster
  • Tailwind Create (new) – automatically create professional-looking Pins

Let’s take a more in-depth look at how these features can help you grow faster and make your process more time-efficient.

If you want a more in-depth look, you can explore my full Tailwind review.

1. Tailwind Scheduler

You have no idea how much of a time-saver this is.

Could you imagine having to manually pin images all day, every day?

Ehh… pass!

With Tailwind, you can just schedule your Pins and they’ll be published automatically.

This is the main feature I use Tailwind for.

I typically spend 2 weeks creating and scheduling 4 months worth of Pins.

Then I can completely disconnect from Pinterest and focus on other aspects of my business.

I know 2 weeks creating and scheduling Pins might sound like a lot of time, but I have over 100 articles on my fitness blog.

Now, not only does Tailwind allow you to schedule Pins, but it automatically creates optimal time slots for you based on the times your audience is the most active.

Pretty sweet, right?

Drag-and-drop scheduler
Drag-and-drop scheduler

Lol, I just realized I’ve got to make my next batch of Pins; my scheduler is empty. (I just added those Pins to show you an example)

2. Tailwind Analytics

Another cool thing about Tailwind is that you can see how your profile, boards, and Pins are performing as well as your follower growth.

Profile performance
Profile performance

This will help you measure how well your strategy is working and adjust accordingly.

For example, if you visit the Pin Inspector and see that a certain Pin design or topic is getting more engagement, you could create more Pins with a similar design or content around that topic.

3. Tailwind Communities

Communities (formerly Tribes) are one of the most powerful Tailwind features.

A community is basically a group of bloggers in a specific niche you connect with to share each other’s Pins.

This is especially beneficial if you’re a beginner blogger without an audience yet, as you get to have other bigger bloggers re-share your content with their audience.

Tailwind Communities
Tailwind Communities

They have Communities in plenty of niches, such as gardening, wedding, travel, parenting, fashion, fitness, graphic design, home design and DIY, education, recipes, finance, and more.

You also have the option to create your own Community and invite other bloggers to join.

If you want to take Tailwind for a spin, you can sign up for their free trial.

The trial allows you to try all their features for free and schedule up to 100 Pins on Pinterest.

There’s no time limit or credit card needed to start your trial.

4. Tailwind Create

Tailwind Create is Tailwind’s newest feature.

If you don’t know how to design Pins or want to spend time doing so, Tailwind Create will do it for you in one click.

Tailwind Create
Tailwind Create

All you need to do is upload the images you want to use and add a title.

The app will then generate dozens of professional-looking Pins for you automatically.

You can also upload your logo and add your brand’s colors.

Pinterest Group Boards

The only difference between group boards and regular boards is that the owners can invite others to pin on their boards.

The reason these boards can bring you good traffic is because the Pins you share are shown to the board owner’s followers and collaborators.

Unfortunately, since Pinterest ranking factors now focus more on engagement metrics, group boards are not as beneficial as they once were.

This is because most group boards tend to be filled with a ton of random Pins and collaborators that rarely look and repin other members’ Pins.

This lack of engagement makes Pinterest believe that the Pins are low-quality and doesn’t show them in searches or the smart feed.

In fact, Pinterest group boards were never intended to be used for marketing purposes.

They were added so friends and coworkers could collaborate on events.

This doesn’t mean that group boards are useless. But you have to find high-quality and engaged ones.

Personally, I don’t use group boards.

But you’re more than welcome to test them out and see if they work for you.

Here are some important things to consider when joining group boards:

  • Niche – don’t join group boards that allow any type of topic to be shared; you’ll get terrible engagement. Instead, look for ones in your niche.
  • Number of contributors – larger groups tend to be difficult to moderate, so they’re often filled with low-quality Pins. Look for boards with less than 50 contributors.
  • Number of followers – join boards that have a good number of followers. This really depends on how many followers you have, but a good rule of thumb is to join ones that have more followers than you.
  • Board performance – to check a board’s scores and engagement as well as how many repins you’re getting, you’ll have to use your Tailwind account.
  • Join only a few – it’s better to join a few high-quality boards than a bunch of crappy ones. Aim for 2-5.

How to Find Group Boards

One of the easiest ways to find group boards is by using a tool like PinGroupie.

Once you’re on the site, simply enter your niche or keyword to look for relevant boards.

I recommend ordering by “Collaborators” and looking for ones with less than 50.

How to Join Group Boards

Before you start sending requests to join group boards, make sure that your profile looks organized and has quality Pins.

Serious board owners will look at your profile before accepting your request to make sure that you’re not a spammer and pin high-quality content.

Once your profile is looking sharp, go ahead and:

  • Follow the boards you’re requesting to join.
  • Look for the owner’s email address in the board description or their website.
  • Send them an email telling them why they should add you and share a link to your blog and Pinterest profile.

That’s it!

Pinterest Best Practices Recap

I know, I know… we’ve covered A LOT of information in this Pinterest for bloggers guide.

So let’s do a quick recap:

Setting up Pinterest

  1. Create a business account – gives you access to advanced analytics
  2. Claim your website – gives you access to Pin analytics and let people know where they can find more of your content
  3. Create 5-10 boards – they should reflect the main topics covered on your site
  4. Enable Rich Pins – shows useful metadata on the Pin itself, which can increase engagement

Designing Your Pins

  1. Colors – use colors that contrast with the colors most people in your niche use. For example, if everyone uses earth colors, you could use vivid ones instead.
  2. Images – use images relevant to your topic. Find free stock photos on Unsplash, Pexels, Pixabay, and Gratistography.
  3. Font – don’t use more than 2 different fonts and choose ones that are easy to read. Be careful with script fonts.
  4. Logo – add your logo or website somewhere inside your Pin image.
  5. Pin dimensions – use 1,000 x 1,500 px for regular Pins and 1,000 x 3,000 px for infographics.
  6. Design tools – use Canva if you’re a beginner, Affinity Publisher if you want a cheaper Photoshop alternative, and Tailwind Create if you want to have your Pins designed automatically with a click.
  7. Number of Pins – create 5-8 Pins for each article if you have more than 20 articles and 3-5 if you have more. This will depend on your pinning strategy as well, so only take these numbers as loose guidelines.

Optimizing Your Business Account

  1. Profile – add your main keyword and some relevant ones in your name and description.
  2. Boards – add the main keyword in the board title and other related ones in the description.
  3. Pins – add the main keyword in the Pin image itself, title, and description. Add other related keywords in the description and 2-5 hashtags at the end.
  4. Blog posts – Pinterest scans your articles, so include your keywords in the title and throughout the posts.

Increasing Pinterest Traffic

  1. Tailwind scheduler – use it to schedule your Pins months in advance and have them automatically published.
  2. Tailwind Communities – use Tailwind Communities to collaborate with other bloggers in your niche and reshare each other’s Pins.
  3. Group boards – may or may not work for you. Really depends on the boards. I don’t use them, but you can give them a shot if you’d like.

Pinterest for Bloggers FAQs

In this section of the Pinterest for bloggers guide, we’ll go over some of the most common questions about the platform.

1. Can You Blog on Pinterest?

No, Pinterest is a search engine that can help you bring lots of traffic to your blog, but you cannot host your blog on Pinterest itself.

For that, you’d have to use a content management platform like WordPress.

2. How do Bloggers Make Money From Pinterest?

Bloggers use Pinterest to drive high-converting and targeted traffic to their courses, eBooks, and/or affiliate products.

You can learn more about how to make money blogging here.

Some bloggers also monetize their websites with ads and use Pinterest to bring in lots of traffic.

The more traffic they bring, the more money they make.

3. How Do I Get Noticed on Pinterest?

One of the best ways to get noticed on Pinterest fast is by using Tailwind Communities.

A Tailwind Tribe is a group of bloggers in a specific niche you connect with to share each other’s Pins.

This is great not only because your content will be shown to their followers, but also because increasing your engagement on Pinterest will help your other Pins rank.

Final Thoughts on Pinterest for Bloggers: A Beginner’s Guide

As you’re able to see, Pinterest is a great and powerful search engine to bring traffic to your business.

While it isn’t as easy as it was before, it is still faster than Google and way easier to rank for popular keywords.

With tools like Tailwind, you can have an almost fully automated process so you can grow your Pinterest traffic while focusing on other aspects of your business.

To me, Pinterest is definitely worth it.

Chris

Christian Coulson

Christian is an industrial engineer who's used his knowledge and experience to grow 7Sigma Physiques—his fitness coaching business and blog with thousands of monthly readers.

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