Pinterest can be a blogger's best friend, especially for those new to the game who might be having trouble getting reach through typical internet search engines. This visual search engine is the perfect platform to showcase your content, reach a wider audience, and grow your blog.

If you are looking for ways to drive traffic to your website and increase your online presence then it's time you use Pinterest. As with anything, don't put all of your eggs in one basket but even a little bit of effort may make the impact your blog has been needing.

We use Pinterest as our go-to social media for our blog and we have had a lot of success over the years. It is easy to post your content and once you get it set up you can continue to get traffic from it for years to come.

Our ultimate goal is for site views to come passively through search engines but the SEO game can be discouraging. Pinterest is a great way to add some view counts in a way where we can see the direct results of our efforts.

To be fair, some of the pins getting us clicks to the site have been around for a while but we always have a spike in traffic when we're more active on Pinterest. If you go all in, or even just make a few pins here and there, your site will thank you.

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Set Up Your Pinterest Account

It's a no-brainer but to get started on Pinterest, you need an account. The first step when setting up your account is to choose a username that reflects your brand or blog name.

Make sure it's easy to remember, unique, and consistent with your other social media profiles. You want people to easily find you when searching for content related to your niche.

Next, optimize your profile picture by using a high-quality image that represents your brand or blog. It should be clear, relevant, and eye-catching. This will help potential followers recognize you quickly among the millions of other profiles on Pinterest.

To take advantage of all the features that Pinterest offers, verify your website by adding a meta tag or uploading an HTML file provided by Pinterest. This will allow you to access analytics data and enable rich pins, which provide more information about the content on your website and make it easier for users to save and share it.

Enabling rich pins can increase engagement and drive traffic back to your website. To do this, simply add metadata to specific pages on your site such as product pages or blog posts. Rich pins enhance the user experience by showing additional details such as pricing information, recipe ingredients, or article headlines directly in the pin itself.

Create Eye-Catching Pins

To really make your content stand out on this visual platform, it's important to put your best foot forward and create pins that catch the eye. Use high-quality images and clear fonts for easy readability.

In the past, we may have had a little too much fun with creating attention-grabbing pins. Looking back through old pins that do well, going for a more simple and clean look typically works best.

Images should be relevant to the content they are promoting and should reflect the overall aesthetic of your brand. Choosing colors is another crucial aspect of creating eye-catching pins.

Bold, bright colors tend to perform better than muted or neutral tones. However, it's important to choose colors that are consistent with your brand identity and message.

Consider using color schemes that evoke emotion or align with the theme of your content. In addition to designing graphics and choosing colors, optimizing pin descriptions for SEO can help increase visibility on Pinterest.

Pin descriptions should include relevant keywords and phrases that accurately describe the content being promoted. Use natural language when writing descriptions, but be sure to incorporate search terms users might use when looking for similar content.

The most important thing to remember when creating your pins is to stay true to your brand. You will gain far more traffic and followers by making sure everything you present is accurate and a legitimate reflection of what you are trying to show people.

Currently, we mostly pin pictures from our trips since traveling is one of the main aspects of our brand but we make sure to include the occasional pin with words. We also don't write as much for descriptions as it seemed to take more time than we wanted to spend and we still have decent reach leaving it blank.

Build Your Boards

You'll want to start building your boards by organizing them into categories that align with the interests of your target audience. This makes it easier for users to navigate and find relevant content on your Pinterest page.

For example, if you're a fashion blogger, you may want to create boards for specific types of clothing, such as "Summer Dresses" or "Athleisure". Board organization is key in making sure your pins are easily discoverable.

Make sure each board has a clear and concise title that accurately represents the content within it. You can also add subcategories within each board to further organize your pins. This not only helps with searchability but also improves user experience by providing a more intuitive browsing experience.

For our board, we have the title, and then under the board's description, we have a lot of keywords that fit the board's theme. So for our "Destination Guides" board, we have a quick sentence on what the board is then a bunch of keywords like "travel inspiration" and "travel itinerary".

Another important aspect of building your boards is creating pin descriptions. Pin descriptions should be descriptive and include relevant keywords so that they show up in search results when users are looking for content related to those keywords. Be sure to include any pertinent information about the pin, such as where readers can find more information or purchase the product featured.

Lastly, don't forget to regularly update and maintain your boards. This means adding new pins regularly and removing outdated ones that no longer fit with the overall aesthetic of your brand or blog. Kelsey just did a Pinterest cleanout a few months ago and we found that we had a lot more traffic and engagement following the cleanout.

Engage with Other Users

Social media at its base is all about engaging with people and letting them into your life. That way you keep them coming back so they can find out more information about you and your brand or blog.

We have found a few ways that work best for us to engage with other people because it turns out we are not as social as we initially thought. Think of it as doing the bare minimum.

Follow Other Relevant Pinners

By following other relevant pinners, we can gain valuable inspiration and insights that will help take your blog to the next level. Collaborating with competitors is a great way to build relationships in your niche and learn from others who are succeeding in similar areas.

By actively engaging with their content and commenting on their pins, you can foster a sense of community within your industry and even attract new readers to your blog. If you're like us and don't enjoy commenting, focus on emulating more successful bloggers and how they are sharing their content through pins.

That's why we decided to simply post pins with travel pictures. We used to think every pin needed words but saw other travel bloggers sharing travel photos that link to the destination without words and still getting a lot of views on Pinterest.

Re-pin and Comment on Pins

When browsing through Pinterest, it's important to actively engage with content. You can do this by re-pinning and/or leaving comments that show your enthusiasm and appreciation for the ideas presented.

Re-pinning is one of the best practices for using Pinterest for blogging because it allows you to curate a collection of pins that align with your brand or niche. By re-pinning relevant content, you can provide value to your followers while also establishing yourself as an authority in your field.

However, it's important to avoid some common mistakes when re-pinning on Pinterest. For example, don't just blindly re-pin everything you see without considering whether it fits with your brand or provides value to your audience.

Instead, take the time to evaluate each pin before adding it to one of your boards. Additionally, be sure to give credit where credit is due by including proper attribution for any images or ideas you share on your own boards.

We mostly pin our own content but will re-pin the occasional pin when we think it's something we or our viewers can use in the future. It's very helpful for certain destinations we may never travel to, but still want our viewers to have some information or inspiration for.

Join Group Boards

You can supercharge your Pinterest strategy by joining group boards where you'll have access to a wider audience and gain more exposure for your content. Group boards are created by other users who invite others to join, or they may be open for anyone to request an invitation.

Now the idea of group boards can be a bit controversial with some stating it's a make or break for success on Pinterest and others saying it's a waste of energy.  For us, we started with a HEAVY focus on group boards and it paid off.

• Collaboration opportunities: Group boards allow you to collaborate with other bloggers, influencers, and brands in your niche. This opens up opportunities for guest blogging, sponsored posts, and cross-promotion.
• Increased reach: By joining a group board with thousands of followers, you'll have the chance to get your pins seen by a much larger audience than if you were just pinning on your own account.
• More engagement: When you're part of a group board, other members will re-pin and comment on your content which can lead to increased engagement on all of your Pinterest activity.
• Discover new ideas: Being part of group boards can also help inspire new ideas for content creation as well as staying up-to-date with trends in your niche.
• Group board etiquette: It's important to follow the rules set by the creator or moderator of the group board. Be sure to read the description before requesting an invitation.

Joining relevant and active group boards can be a game changer for growing traffic from Pinterest. However, it's also important to remember that creating value and being respectful is key when collaborating with others online.

If you decide participating in group boards is the best use of your time, it's important to still put out your best content. You'll want to foster positive relationships within the community while increasing visibility for yourself and others within your niche.

• Share high-quality content regularly
• Stay on-topic and avoid spamming
• Engage with other members by liking and commenting on their pins
• Follow any rules set out by the creator/moderator
• Be patient - it takes time to see results from collaboration efforts

At this time we are no longer part of any group board but it made a big impact when we started out. It increased our reach significantly and we found the boards with more rules and guidelines served us best.

Use Analytics to Track Your Success

Using analytics is a simple and effective way to track your progress and success with Pinterest for blogging. Measuring impact is essential if you want to know what works and what doesn't work for your blog on Pinterest.

It'll help you understand which pins are driving the most traffic to your site, how many people are engaging with them, and which boards are performing well. We've gone as far as to make pins with a similar look to pins that are already performing well.

Pinterest analytics provides a range of data that can help you identify trends in your content. You can see which topics are popular among your followers, what type of images they like, where they live, and more.

This information can be used to create more targeted content that resonates with your audience. One of the most important metrics to look at when using Pinterest analytics is engagement rate.

Engagement rate measures how much people interact with your pins by liking, commenting, or re-pinning them. A high engagement rate means that people find value in your content and are likely to share it with others.

Tracking your success on Pinterest through analytics allows you to make data-driven decisions about future content creation strategies. By analyzing the performance of past pins, you can determine what types of images, titles, descriptions, etc., resonate best with your audience.

This will ultimately lead to increased traffic and conversions on your blog. We mostly focus on analytics for pins that get the most "clicks" instead of "reach" since getting traffic to our site is the main goal.

Promote Your Pinterest Account

Obviously, everyone wants to just start pinning and then people come to check it out without any promotion. But that is not the way it usually goes so you have to have a plan for how to promote your Pinterest account.

Share Your Pins on Other Social Media Platforms

One effective strategy, which we discussed above, is to join Pinterest group boards related to your niche and share your pins there. This not only increases the visibility of your content but also helps you connect with like-minded individuals who may be interested in collaborating with you.

Additionally, cross-promoting on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and other social media sites can help drive traffic back to your blog and increase engagement with your followers. Remember to tailor each post for the specific platform and audience you're targeting, ensuring they are optimized for each platform's unique features.

Embed Pins on Your Blog

Embedding pins on your website is like planting seeds of inspiration, allowing your readers to explore related content and engage with your brand in a visually appealing way. Pinterest offers a variety of options for embedding pins on your blog or website, such as the Save Button, which allows users to save images directly from your site onto their own Pinterest boards.

Designing graphics and optimizing images are important factors to consider when embedding pins on your website. High-quality visuals are essential for catching the eye of potential readers and encouraging them to explore further.

Make sure that each pin design fits seamlessly into the overall aesthetic of your blog or website, while also being visually striking enough to stand out. Additionally, optimize image sizes for faster loading times and better user experience.

We initially had two to three "pinnable images" for each post. One at the beginning and one at the end with a hidden one occasionally mixed in.

For us, the work of putting pins in each post wasn't worth it so now we just make sure to have a nice image or two that can be pinned, even if there are no words.

How We Use Pinterest

We have used all of the above strategies throughout our time with this blog. We have joined group boards, collaborated with others, and re-pinned non-stop (well Kelsey has, not Phil).

At this point in our journey, we usually create up to 5 pins a day based on our content and often times a travel picture. We will also re-pin some other stuff that fits our vibe but not too often.

We don't spend all day every day on Pinterest anymore as we have built a good following and we want to focus more on writing and updating our site. That being said, when we put more time in, we typically have a jump in blog traffic.

But for the biggest bang for your buck in both the short term and long term, you really can't go wrong with Pinterest. We still enjoy our time using it and we can see our gains every time we put some more effort into it.

If you follow the tips we discussed above, we almost guarantee that you will see a large jump in your traffic like we did when we used Pinterest. The most important part is finding the strategy that works for you and is sustainable.