Pinterest Tips For Bloggers

Pinterest, as a social media platform, should be at the top of your list when it comes to what time, energy, and yes money you’re willing to invest. It is growing rapidly, has the highest concentration of most influencers’ desired demographics, and isn’t showing any signs of slowing down. As of the latest statistics, Pinterest has approximately 250 million active users in a month. Pinterest is also showing its willingness to evolve in order to compete as content consumption needs change. They’ve recently added Idea Pins to the mix, have announced analytics updates for business accounts, and are constantly improving their platform as a whole.

Pinterest Tips For Bloggers

As you’ve probably noticed, we mostly focus on two forms of driving traffic to your website. The first, is obviously SEO for bloggers. The second, is Pinterest. There is a reason these two methods for growing your blog are our main focus. The reason is, they work. If you put the time, effort, and knowledge in, you will see results. Other forms of gaining traffic to your website are less predictable and less stable. Think Instagram algorithm updates, and their recent crash, for example. In all honesty, Pinterest is less reliable when it comes to guaranteeing incoming traffic than search engines like Google, but it’s our second favorite method if we’re putting them in order. And if you’re able to follow Pinterest best practices, you can really set yourself up for success as a content creator.

Unfortunately, most bloggers look at Pinterest as a place to simply automatically distribute their content vs. a place to invest in some sort of strategy. Most often, bloggers utilize Pinterest as a platform to post their blog images as Pins whenever they have a new blog post, and then forget about it. This is a mistake. You can get so much more out of Pinterest if you’re able to follow our list of Pinterest tips for bloggers.

Use a headshot in your profile picture.

A headshot of a person or a family picture is more relatable to Pinners compared to a business logo. So if you are a blogger, use your face as your Pinterest profile picture instead of your logo.

Sign up for a Pinterest business account.

If you’re a blogger, we recommended you sign up for a Pinterest business account so that you can better take advantage of Pinterest marketing. If you currently have a regular account, simply convert your existing personal Pinterest account to a business account. The difference between the two is you’ll get access to Pinterest Analytics Tool for Businesses. You’ll be able to verify your ownership of your website, Instagram, YouTube, even a Shopify account if you have one. Plus you’ll gain access to absolutely invaluable data in their analytics section.

Once you have verified your website with Pinterest, you can see the behavior of your pins with the help of Pinterest analytics. You can track which pins get your audience’s attention, which ones are the most engaging, and which ones drive traffic to your site.

By knowing which pins are the most engaging, you can gauge which content is most valuable to your audience.

Create multiple niche boards.

With the number of active Pinterest users that come with varied interests, it is challenging to attract new audiences with a limited amount of Pinterest boards or boards that are too broad or basic. The answer to this dilemma is to create relevant boards for different niches. This Pinterest strategy allows users to find what they are looking for quickly and caters to Pinterest’s search algorithms. So get specific. Instead of “Dinner Recipes” try “Crock Pot Dinner Recipes” or “Gluten Free Dinner Recipes”. 

Also, by creating multiple boards, you can repost your pins to different boards. Doing this allows you to target a broader audience using just one pin.

You can also take advantage of Pinterest group boards. When you first post an image, pin it on your personal niche board. Then, you can re-pin it to group niche boards and later on group catch-all boards. 

Use article Pins.

One of the newer Rich Pins from Pinterest is the Article Pin. The other ones are Product Pins, Recipe Pins, and Movie Pins.

Article Pins automatically add an overview at the bottom, which includes the headline, author, story summary, and link to the blog post. One downside is you have to apply for Rich Pins before you can actually use the Article Pins. Your blog needs to meet a few requirements set by Pinterest, and you also have to add metatag data to your site.

Write keyword-rich titles and descriptions.

It’s not enough that you have an attention-grabbing image. If you want to engage your audience, you have to write compelling titles. Because Pinterest is also a huge search engine composed of images, this is where SEO comes in. While it’s important to write relevant but catchy headlines and Pin descriptions, they also have to be keyword rich and framed in ways that users search. That way your posts will be more likely to populate in the search results.

Know the best time to pin.

There isn’t a clear cut guideline on when is the best time to pin on Pinterest. But like any other social media platform, there aren’t a lot of active users during working hours. So generally, the best times to Pin are after work hours, and weekends.

However keep in mind, that more users also means more competition. So even though there might be a “better” time to Pin based on volume, there may be an even better time to Pin based on engagement. This takes a bit of data analyzation that we won’t be getting into in this post. However if you’re interested in this, we optimize all of the Pin schedules based on engagement for InfluencerSEO Pinterest clients.

How often should you Pin?

This my friends, is and always has been somewhat of a moving target. It used to be that the more you Pin, the better you’d perform. It’s not that way anymore and is actually more complex. Pinterest wants your profile to be a well rounded resource. So simply Pinning all the time isn’t going to cut it anymore. There should be a healthy ratio of your own content to Repinned content. And consistency is important as well.

We’ve found that the best way to stay on top of this moving target is to use Tailwind for Pin scheduling. They keep track of Pinterest Spam alerts and can help you optimize your Pin schedule to avoid any spamming. However, out of the box it doesn’t come set up in the best way possible. So it takes some tinkering as well. We optimize the Pin schedule on Tailwind for all InfluencerSEO Pinterest clients.

Repin strategically.

Only 20% of Pinterest pins are original images. This goes to show how adding original content to Pinterest is so important. The platform risks becoming repetitive if users aren’t uploading new, fresh Pins. Pinterest recently stated that they value Fresh Pins and Fresh Pins tend to outperform duplicated or Repinned Pins. That being said, Pinterest also wants you to engage and spend time on their platform, not simply use it as a space to promote yourself. So having a healthy ratio of Repinning to Pinning is ideal.

Recirculate Pins.

If we at InfluencerSEO can drive one point home to bloggers, it’s this: STOP thinking of your blog as scroll, and start thinking of it as a web. When you publish content, it shouldn’t be looked at as old, outdated, and useless as time goes on. Instead, it should ideally be evergreen. Something worth recirculating on a regular basis or at least seasonal.

On Pinterest, you can recirculate your top performing Pins, seasonal pins, and Pins that most represent your brand goals or identity. We recommend Tailwind Loops for recirculating Pins. We set up, manage, and optimize Tailwind Loops for all InfluencerSEO Pinterest clients!

Boost your Pins using Communities.

Another shoutout to Tailwind here! They have a feature called communities, that we’re honestly obsessed with. In Tailwind Communities, you can add your content and share content from other Community Members. This helps your Pins gain more traction because you’ll be gaining more Repins from other Pinners in your niche. However you have to be careful. Not all communities are created equal. You want to make sure you’re Repinning quality content from Communities and not just adding a ton of low value, low engagement Pins to your Saved Pins. So keep that in mind!

How Tailwind Communities work:

In Communities, you can join open Communities, request to join Private Communities, and even form your own Community with bloggers in your niche, or bloggers that have great content. You can create rules for community members such as what kind of content is allowed, Pin to Repin ratios, etc. For example, InfluencerSEO has a Community for high value blog content. In this Community, we only allow content that is considered SEO friendly, informative, and evergreen. We actually vet the content and remove Pins that aren’t high value. So the content is curated and Pinterest friendly. This ensures that everyone in the Community gains a benefit from the Pins they add AND the Pins they Repin. If you want to join our Tailwind community, you can request an invite HERE.

Create “Pin-Worthy” images for Pinterest.

In order to really see growth on Pinterest, you’ll want to take things up a notch when it comes to images. Yes, you’ll want to Pin all of your website content. But you should also create content specifically for Pinterest. These should be high value, Pinterest optimized, custom graphics designed specifically for Pinterest users, and designed to drive your Pinterest traffic to your blog. Our team creates custom Pinterest friendly graphics for all InfluencerSEO Pinterest clients.

Because Pinterest is best known as an online scrapbooking site, 92% of Pinterest posts are images. The average time on Pinterest spent by a regular user is 15 minutes. In that limited time, it is your goal to catch their attention. So you have to make sure that your images are Pin-worthy. To grab the attention of Pinners, remember the following tips.

How To Create Pin-Worthy Images

Remember image size matters.

When you create your Pin image, bear in mind that the ideal ratio of a Pinterest image is either 4:5 or 2:3. The bare minimum width is 600 pixels. However Pinterest clearly states that the ideal Pin size is 1000 x 1500px and an aspect ratio of 2:3 for standard Pins.

Vertical Pins perform best, but you can also do square pins as long as your ratio is 1000 x 1000 pixels. Avoid horizontal Pins if possible. The reason behind this is because 80% of pinners use their mobile devices when viewing their Pinterest feeds. So horizontal Pins are much smaller and less visually appealing on their screens. If you want to opt for extra long Pins for more infographic style images, 1000 x 2,500 pixels is the ideal size.

Use images that tell a story.

One of the effective ways to entice people to click through your pin is to use images with a backstory. A photo of a woman wearing a fashionable outfit and walking in the streets of New York gets more re-pins compared to a model wearing the same outfit but stands against a white backdrop. Another example would be if you’re featuring a recipe. You can simply show an image of the completed dish, or show three images stacked. One with ingredients, one with the completed dish, and one with you eating the dish.

Images with a contextual background set the mood of the users and entice them to open your blog. 

Add vibrant colors.

Pins with multiple, vibrant shades get Repinned more often. I know, you don’t want to throw off your aesthetic. But the data shows that Pins with bold colors get Repinned more often.

Add texts to your images.

When done right, adding texts to your pins makes them look more professional. Also, they help the pinners know what the pin is about at a glance, without having to read your caption. You can use Canva, PicMonkey, and many other free image editing tools to help you with this. Again, keep in mind that if you want this task completely taken off your plate, our team at InfluencerSEO handles custom image creation for all InfluencerSEO Pinterest clients.

Create faceless images.

Pins with no faces get 23% more Repins than those that show people’s faces. Pinterest users often bookmark things that they find interesting or fun to do. This include recipes, clothing styles, gadgets, and motivational quotes.

We hope that these Pinterest tips for bloggers can help you grow your readership. But as busy as a bloggers life is, this can be pretty time consuming.

Fortunately, InfluencerSEO has a Pinterest package for bloggers. We have a team of professional Pinners who will manage your account based on Pinterest’s best practices.

Will you follow these Pinterest best practices for bloggers?

Hopefully you will find this insane list of tips helpful! We tried to be as detailed as possible. The goal is you’ll be able to take some actionable tips from this list and implement them into your strategy. And remember, if you want all of this taken off your plate plus a few sprinkles of additional knowledge and skill ( we can’t share all our secrets after all ), definitely check out our Pinterest Packages. We would love to help you grow and reach new milestones on Pinterest! If you have any questions or comments, drop them in the comments below!