5 Pinterest Tips for Bloggers to Maximize Their Reach & Potential

By: Kayla Watkins

Hi, future friends! I’m Kayla, a previous lifestyle blogger who used Pinterest to bring over 1,000 readers per day, get a consistent RewardStyle payout AND charge 5X more for my sponsored posts. After sharing that with blogger pals, I found out a lot of them had no idea Pinterest could be such a good source of traffic and wanted help getting there. In 2018, I became a full-time Pinterest strategist and ever since, I’ve gotten to work with fabulous clients to transform their Pinterest strategies and rave about my favorite platform every day.

I’m so excited to be hanging out on one of my long-time favorite blogs and sharing some juicy Pinterest tips with you that will help you optimize the platform and reach more of your target readers! 

1. Treat it like a search engine

This is a biggy if you’re new to the world of Pinterest marketing. Pinterest is a visual search engine, not a social media platform. Users don’t use the platform to chat with each other or make new internet-friends (like we use Instagram). They use the platform to find information, get inspiration or buy something.

The journey of a user is typing something they’re looking for into the search bar (i.e. Instapot recipes or fall outfit ideas) > seeing content that others have created around this topic > clicking on pins to learn more (called a “close up”)  > clicking through to the website where the information can be found.

In order to be successful as a blogger on Pinterest, We have to tell Pinterest exactly who we are, what content we’re sharing and who they should send our way. That way they connect us with people who are looking for exactly what we’re sharing. The way to do that: including keywords everywhere we can, especially on our Pin graphics and in their descriptions (Pinterest lingo for “captions”).

This is kind of the ticket to Pinterest marketing so just having read this will give you a leg up on a lot of other businesses on Pinterest! If you want to learn more about finding the right keywords, feel free to get my free Mastering Pinterest SEO guide here. 

 

2.Make your profile name “Blog Name | Type of Blog/Blogger” 

This is one of those good spots for keywords that a lot of people forget. Because Pinterest wants to know who to send to you, unless you’re a global brand, your blog name isn’t enough of a profile name. People probably won’t know to search directly for your blog on Pinterest, but they might type in “food blog” or “NYC fashion blogger.” Having that in your profile name will give you additional reach to people who are looking to find a new blogger to follow. 

 

3.Pin vertical images, graphics and videos. 

Horizontal images just don’t do that well on Pinterest, so sticking to only vertical helps you get more bang for your buck. Here are some vertical things you can pin:

Photos, Photos with text overlay, Infographics, Lists, Videos, GIF’s, TikTok’s, IGTV’s. 

And if you take a lot of horizontal images you can use Canva to crop it to a vertical Pinterest pin size or to put horizontal images on top of each other to make one long vertical pin.

4. Pin directly from Instagram 

As much as I’m a devoted Pinterest kween, I do know that Instagram is often a big part of a blogger’s business (and income). That’s why I think it’s so smart to use Pinterest to bring traffic to your blog AND your Instagram. Pinning your vertical Instagrams to Pinterest helps get you reach new potential followers.

Pro tip: don’t sign up for the automatic posting from Instagram to Pinterest. It may seem like a great time-saver, but when it posts automatically, it just copies over part of your Instagram caption and makes that the Pin description. This takes away the opportunity to add keywords to your Pin description which we now know is SO important to helping your content reach your ideal reader.

 

4.Niche down your boards. 

Trust me. I knowwwww it’s so easy to get carried away with boards. If you’re a blogger, you’re likely creative and multi-passionate and probably could create boards about a billion things that interest you. When you’re pinning for business though, it’s important to only have boards about things that you either cover on your blog OR that your target reader would be interested in. This keeps it clear for Pinterest what you’re about and who to send your way. Too many topics confuses Pinterest about what you’re actually an expert on and who would benefit from seeing your content.

You can still have fun on Pinterest with additional boards by making those non-relevant ones secret! 

 

5.Don’t be afraid to share your content over and over! 

Unlike most social platforms, you can share blog posts as long as they’re still. One blog post can be shared 100’s of times and keep receiving traffic years after it was posted. As long as you’re in line with Pinterest’s anti-spam guidelines, they encourage re-sharing content to different boards or at different times. This gives you unlimited opportunity to reach people that are looking for exactly what you’re sharing!  

I hope you enjoyed these tips and find ways to implement them for your blog! If you’re looking for more tips, I’d love to hangout with you on Instagram, and if you’re looking to start using Pinterest to grow your blog traffic, I have a group coaching program called “Pinterest for Bloggers” that will teach you exactly how to do that! Additional info below!

Posted By: mimosasandmanhattan · In: Blogging 101