Pinterest is a visual search engine and it has real power when it comes to driving traffic to your website. 2020 has seen a lot of changes to pinning strategy, as well as pretty much every other aspect of our lives.
If you’re looking for a clever way to grow your online audience, it’s probably time to start using Pinterest strategically. It can be a really smart ways for many businesses to drive traffic to your website!
Today, I’m sharing tips to help you do just that!
Listen to this on the podcast, or read on for the blog:
1. DO USE KEYWORDS!
Start with the less exciting bit! You do need to use your profile, board descriptions and pin descriptions well. That means making the best use of each and filling those descriptions with keywords.
Now I know that just saying ‘keywords’ might make you want to run for the hills! All of a sudden we’re not talking pretty pins, we’re talking SEO.
But DO NOT WORRY.
All this means is filling your descriptions with the words that people are going to search for. Yes, there’s a way to build a keyword strategy for Pinterest and yes, I can help you do that, but at its simplest we’re talking about filling your descriptions with the sentences and phrases that are going to help people find your content.
Why is it important? Well, it helps Pinterest to know how to rank your pin in the feed. The more relevant your content is, the higher up the feed it will show. And the more keyword-rich your descriptions are, the easier you make it for Pinterest to rank your content.
2. DO PRIORITISE YOUR OWN CONTENT
There have been big algorithm changes bedding in throughout in 2020, and with that Pinterest have been advising us all to prioritise our own content, even more than normal. For some, that means a big change, especially if you’ve been pinning mostly other people’s content to your boards.
We’re talking specifically about driving traffic to your website here, so of course most of your pins should be designed to do just that – drive traffic. The secret is to use create 90% of your pins from your own content. The remaining 10% can come from a few select places – we’ll get to that in tip 4!
But does the ability to pin mostly your own content mean you need to come up with endless amounts of blogs, articles and links to send people to?
Absolutely not! This is the good part… you can create multiple pin images for one URL and each time you post a new pin image, as far as Pinterest is concerned, that is new content.
This is how to prioritise your own content and use multiple pins that drive traffic back to one URL:
Let’s say you publish a new blog post each week.
For each blog, you create 20 pin images (those 20 images don’t need to be on the blog on your website).
You use a scheduling tool (I use Tailwind, it’s the absolute biz for Pinterest scheduling!)
In Tailwind, you upload your pin images, your description and the URL you are sending traffic to.
Select the boards you are pinning this image on.
3. DO PLAY BY THE RULES
Important: Use Tailwind’s facility to schedule a gap between your pins publishing. When I’m pinning the same image to multiple boards, I aim for at least a seven day gap between those pins going out, so the same pin image isn’t popping up too often in my feed. This is really important and helps Pinterest to view you as a responsible pinner, not a spammy one!
Doubly important: Once you’ve pinned an image DO NOT pin the same image to the same board in the next 365 days. This is spammy pinning and you’re going to find yourself in *Pinterest jail really quickly if you do this often!
This is one of the big don’ts for Pinterest – luckily Tailwind helps you out here by giving you a warning if you’ve pinned the same image to the same board, so it’s worth it for that alone!
I also have a spreadsheet I’ve refined over time that I use with clients so we can keep track of when and where each image is posted. That’s an essential for me and an invaluable way to keep track for yourself.
(*I have a mental image of Pinterest jail being a place with gorgeous pin-worthy cakes, crafts, checklists, soft cushions, cosy couches and gorgeous scenery where everyone is soooo lovely!!!)
4. PIN FROM OTHERS SPARINGLY
With 10% of your pins coming from Pinterest users, it makes sense to choose wisely and plan carefully. Whose pins are you going to pin, and which boards do you pin them too?
My strategy comes back to Tailwind, using their Tailwind Tribes. I share from my Tailwind Tribemates first, that’s part of the deal when you join a tribe – different tribes have different rules, but generally the idea is that you share as much as you post to your tribe so everyone gets their content shared.
Which also means you need to be strategic about any Tailwind Tribes you decide to join. Make them useful and meaningful for your brand and for your business. Don’t join theme-less or really broad tribes, you won’t find the best pins to then repin to your own content.
5. DO MONITOR WHAT MATTERS
Keeping an eye on your stats is really important. But knowing which stats matter when you’re driving traffic is crucial!
Like everywhere, there are some vanity metrics that don’t make a difference to your objective – don’t get sucked in by the stats that aren’t relevant for your business.
What matters when you’re driving traffic is link clicks.
Monitor the number of people who are clicking on your links and making it through to your website. Link clicks are the metric to pay attention to above all others, those clicks are where people are going to sign up for your optins, read your blogs, follow you on social and fall in to your audiences.
You also want to monitor link clicks to figure out which boards and pins are your most popular pieces of content.
Use your information to inform your future pins – the more a piece of content is driving traffic, the more you want to be creating new pins for that content (remember, you can create multiple pins for each piece of content, there’s no limit really!). And the more your audience is responding to some of your pins, the more you know that’s what your audience is interested in.
Check out my other blogs and podcast episodes for more info on Pinterest or Facebook Ads. Click here to get in touch.