How to Use Pinterest to Drive Traffic & Sales!

Pinterest has 175 million active monthly users who are constantly looking for new ideas from your content. If you don’t use Pinterest to drive traffic to your blog or facilitate sales, you are missing out! I’ve been on “team Pinterest” ever since the very beginning of the platform’s existence. I have 36,500 followers and a reach of 1.8 million as of July 1, 2018. Pinterest is my number one traffic source.
 

 
I’m sharing some of my best advice on Pinterest to help you succeed! If you feel inclined, give me a follow on Pinterest. If you are an equestrian blogger feel free to join my Tailwind tribe, All Things Equestrian & Western to increase your pin’s reach and traffic. Next week, I’ll do a blog post on using tribes to your advantage!

How to Use Pinterest

 
• Make sure your url is included in pins from your website, this is so BASIC! I see new accounts upload their photos and add a link in the comments to their website. They should pin directly from their website to avoid becoming a “dead link”. Pinners have the power to change pin descriptions – now you have no credit for you pin and you miss out on website traffic. Below is a pin I shared just a few days ago. It already has 2k impressions and has been saved 12 times. Pinterest isn’t one of those sites where your content needs to go viral immediately, this will continue to grow for years. To access your pin’s stats, just click directly on the pin. You are only able to see statistics from your own pins.
   
  
   

• Do not go on a pinning spree! This means no more then 12 pins in an hour. I generally pin throughout the day and try to pin at least 20 times per day. Pinterest rewards engaged accounts by giving them more followers. I use Tailwind for analytics and scheduling pins. It spaces out my pins so I don’t have to.

• Pin vertical images, they tend to do the best and are most likely to get re-pinned.
• Don’t be a spammer by inserting your blog’s url into someone else’s pin in the comments section. It looks tacky and I’ve seen it done before on several pins of my own.
• Go easy on the fonts and graphics with text – personally I’m not a big fan of these because they can distract from the image. Pin the same image with text and without.
• Use descriptive board titles. Pinterest users can search for pins, boards, and users. Make sure your boards reflect the content of their pins. A board for shoes named “Emily’s Obsession” will never be found if someone is looking for a shoe board. A better name would be “Emily’s Shoe Obsession”.
   
  

Create awesome descriptions to increase your likelihood of being discovered in Pinterest search engines. For example, this pin of an Arabian horse (below) is described with the single word “seaside”. A great description would be Dark grey Arabian horse trotting by the seaside – If anyone types “Arabian horse” into the Pinterest search bar this pin won’t come up because it’s not described as a photo of an Arabian. Recreational pinners are going to use descriptions like “love it” and “gorgeous” but these aren’t helpful in gaining traffic. The better your descriptions are, the better your chances of getting discovered higher in the search results.

Stay true to yourself and your brand. Don’t pin things you don’t like or that don’t fit in with the rest. Have fun! Pinterest is meant to inspire you!

Use these techniques daily to grow your Pinterest account and increase blog traffic! Repetition works, so start pinning and put it on your your to-do list so you don’t forget! Within a few months your account will begin to grow and you’ll see the traffic and/or sales results.