How do I grow my traffic with Pinterest?
That’s one of the first questions I hear when someone finally gets the true reason for Pinterest’s popularity with bloggers and small business owners.
And then it’s usually followed up by this one, “I use Pinterest all the time personally but how do I use this site to get more readers for my blog ?”
If you’ve spent any time using Pinterest, then you know this site has become so much more than just posting a pretty image. Pinterest wants us to use Pinterest to search for things. They want us to use the site for everything that it can provide for us – not just drop in an image and leave.
They want us to spend time clicking on pins in our Pinterest feed. They want us to do research for things we want to buy in their search bar at the top.
They want us to use Pinterest for the reason that they created the site – to discover what interests us and to save those ideas to help us dream, plan and take action.
To start seeing site traffic for your blog from Pinterest, you need to understand one big thing about what happens you click on that red circle P in your apps:
For many of us, it’s the first site we go to when we want to research something. It’s the first place we click on when we’re looking for something to buy for our home or 10 steps to help us learn how to write better blog posts.
Our online behavior is changing and now many of us use Pinterest as our go-to search engine. And that behavior isn’t really all that surprising when you think about the fact that most people are visual learners.
We connect faster with images because it’s easier to scan visual search results over a list of text links in a Google search.
As I share with you how to grow your traffic from Pinterest, you need to stop thinking about how you use social media sites and start thinking about the steps you use to optimize your website for Google.
The ONE thing you can do to increase your site traffic
When you first started to blog, one of the first things that you learned was how to optimize your posts to show up in a Google search { SEO }.
You knew it was important to show up as an option when someone ran search on Google for something that you were writing about. You probably even spent time doing your own research about what keywords you should use to get to your stuff to show up.
I mean it’s pretty simple. If your posts don’t show up in a search, no one can find and read your blog.
If we know that Pinterest is a visual search engine, then all those things that you learned about SEO can be applied to how to use Pinterest. It’s about doing the research to find what keywords you can use to get your pins found by people who aren’t already following you or who are actively looking for the content that you’re pinning on Pinterest.
SEO on Pinterest is about doing a little research on keywords for your pins. And then adding those keywords into your pin’s description as part of the description sentences.
The best way to start is to do some keyword research on Pinterest and to use their Guided Search in the search bar at the top of the site.
How to search for keywords
When you start typing in your targeted keywords into a Pinterest search, Pinterest will suggest other keywords that Pinners are actively using to run searches on the site.
Take a look at these keyword options and see how you can add these words into the sentences of your pin description. Don’t go crazy trying to add in all the options, just add in the ones that make sense for your content.
Basically, your pin has a description that’s explaining to the Pinner what kind of content they can find from clicking on your pin.
A first place to start is to add in the title of your blog { especially if you’ve been optimizing your blog post title for SEO } and then include your keywords and phrases into your pin description.
But, to get more Pinners to click on your pin to read your post, you have to do more than that.
To get more people to click on your pins, your pin descriptions need to:
- Solve a problem – use your keywords to describe how your content can help them { this free guide will help you organize your project }
- Detail the solution – give them enough information to describe how you’ll be solving their problem { these 3 simple action steps can take you from feeling overwhelmed about how to do a Facebook Live into feeling confident to connect to more people }
- Pull at their heart strings – use emotional adjectives to let them see themselves in your description { these easy changes can help you fit into that black dress for your high school reunion }
- Give them their next step – make sure you add in a call-to-action in your description { click to read more, download your free guide, grab your copy today }
Let’s talk about hashtags
There’s been a lot of questions about using hashtags on Pinterest.
We’ve been told from the Pinterest experts to NOT use hashtags. We were told that all we needed was to use the keyword phrases in our pin descriptions because those specific words are searchable.
And since this isn’t a social media site like Twitter and Instagram, do they even work?
If you had asked me that a couple of years ago, I would have agreed with the Pinterest experts and said ‘No, don’t even bother to use them’ but now things have changed. Pinterest has brought them back and wants us to start adding in hashtags again.
You may have already started to see them in pin descriptions in blue and yes, they are clickable links to help you search for other pins with the same type of content.
How should you start using hashtags on Pinterest?
Pinterest is not the same as Instagram where it’s perfectly acceptable to add in up to 30 hashtags and not look spammy. You’ll be better off if you use only 2 – 3 specific keywords in your pin descriptions to help your content get found.
When you start thinking about which 2 – 3 hashtags you should use, I want you to go general and then add in one that’s specific.
Some questions to ask yourself to find general hashtags:
- What type of blog do I have?
- What content am I writing about?
- Is my blog connected to a business – if yes, then what category does my business fall under?
If you’re a health coach, you’d use hashtags like #health, #diet and #exercise. If you create a product like jewelry, you could use general hashtags like #jewelry, #bracelets and #rings.
Think about the word the best fits and generalizes the work that you do and the content that you blog about.
Now, let’s look at how to use a specific hashtag to add to your pin descriptions.
- What specifically is this blog about?
- What problem am I solving with my content?
- What is the solution that I’m suggesting to my readers?
If you’re a DIY blogger, you could use specific hashtags like #pallet, #exteriorlights or #sagegreen. Or let’s say that you’re a social media coach, you could use specific hashtags like #Facebookads, #Tailwindtribes or #Twitterchats.
Spend some time testing out different hashtags – both general and specific – and see what helps your pins start connecting with more people on Pinterest.
Just always remember that Pinterest is constantly changing their features of the site so don’t go crazy worrying about whether you have the right hashtags or not.
Right now, hashtags are an option for us to use to help our content get found but don’t let that be the only thing that you do with your pin description. I would always suggest that you spend more of your time crafting better pin descriptions to reach your goal to grow your website traffic.
Download This FREE Pinterest Strategy Guide That’s Different Than the Rest
With so many people pinning to Pinterest, it’s easy for your content to get lost in the thousands of images that get uploaded everyday. And if you’re pinning without a plan, your pins may not be reaching new people or even worse, NOT showing up for the pinners who are actively looking for your content on Pinterest.
In this FREE ‘How I Grew My Pinterest Account to over 14,000 Followers’ guide, I’m going to take you through the strategic steps to grow your traffic to your website.
You’ll get more than just a list to help you create more engaging Pinterest images { and I’m going to guess you’ve seen this list before! }. I’ll give you my secret steps and we’ll deep dive into the details of my process to get your top content noticed in that overcrowded Pinterest feed AND get more of your pins shared!
Here’s what we’ll do together with the ‘How I Grew My Pinterest Account to over 14,000 Followers’ guide { which will be broken up into separate strategy ebooks }:
- Understand how to pin your content in Pinterest to reach more people, whether they’re following you or not!
- Create optimized pins with easy to follow steps that will help you develop better branded images and stronger pin descriptions.
- Learn how Pinterest REALLY works and get the steps to create high-traffic content that brings more potential customers to your website.
Growing my site traffic didn’t happen overnight or even in just a few short months.
It happened because these steps I discovered worked. I used this process to create my Pinterest strategy and I follow these steps every week.
And now I want to share it with you!
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