15 of the Best Tips to Skyrocket Your Pinterest Traffic

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Getting more traffic to your blog is probably one of your biggest goals as a blogger. Thankfully there is a very easy and accessible way to drive HUGE amounts of traffic to your blog and it’s Pinterest! Pinterest is a very powerful search engine and in this post, I am going to share with you 15 tips and tricks that have helped drive a tremendous amount of traffic to my blog. Pinterest is hands-down my biggest social network referral, and it can be yours’ too if you follow the steps outlined below:

Why You Should Pin Frequently and Consistently

One of the easiest things you can do to dramatically increase your Pinterest traffic is to pin frequently and consistently. It’s no secret that Pinterest rewards accounts that are active and regularly pinning. I recommend setting aside time each day (preferably twice a day!) to pin images to your boards. This is called manual pinning. If pinning manually seems overwhelming, you can always sign up for a Pinterest scheduling service like Tailwind or BoardBooster.

I like to do a combination of the above. I use Tailwind to schedule about 15-20 pins each day and then I pin manually when I feel inspired to do so. I also pin my own pins manually during the evening hours, when my Pinterest users are most active!

A Pinterest Scheduling Service Can Save You A LOT of Time!

As I mentioned above, I use Tailwind to automatically pin for me throughout the day. Since I have a limited amount of work time each day (and 3 kids to care for!), I prefer to automate tasks like pinning so I can devote more time to creating quality content. Using a service like Tailwind also gives you access to analytics that can help you determine what content is getting pinned from your site, which boards are most viral, etc.

Investing in an E-course like Pinterest Success Strategies Will Give you the Knowledge You Need to be a Power Pinner

Sometimes you need to spend money to make money, and I think this definitely holds true for blogging and social media. I don’t spend a TON on blogging education, but there are a few courses I would wholeheartedly recommend (and do recommend) to blog coaching clients. One of these courses is the Pinterest Success Strategies from Jennifer Ledbetter. It’s a great primer on everything Pinterest and how to use the platform to really boost your blog traffic! If you are well-versed in using Pinterest, the Pinterest Improvement Master Plan will teach you how to get even MORE out of your pinning!

Use Keywords in Your Profile, Board Titles, and Pin Descriptions

Just like you optimize your blog posts for search engines, you need to do the same for Pinterest (because it’s also a search engine!). Pinterest makes it really easy to find and expand on your keywords. Choosing keywords that reflect your blog’s categories can be a great place to start. Take that list of categories and then plug the keywords into the search bar on Pinterest. You will see a bunch of tiles appear below the search bar that gives you other related keywords and keyword phrases (this is exactly what Pinterest users are searching for!). Use these related keywords to come up with titles for your boards and to use in your pin descriptions.

Make sure you are using the keywords you have chosen in your Pinterest profile, board titles, AND pin descriptions!

Use Branded Board Covers

When I first started off on Pinterest, there was no such thing as stylized board covers and now I see them everywhere! I think branded Pinterest board covers are a great way to make your Pinterest profile look cohesive and easy to navigate. If you want to get an idea of what they look like, you can head over to my Pinterest profile to see them in action!

Board cover graphics are SUPER easy to make with Canva-– a free online graphic design platform. I recommend making your board covers 600 px by 600 px and incorporating your brand’s color, logo and/or fonts.

Optimize Your Pinterest Profile

Your profile is the first impression someone gets when they visit your page, so make it count! While you may be tempted to use your brand logo, I ALWAYS recommend using a profile picture of yourself (preferably a headshot) to give your Pinterest account a more personal feel. Your Pinterest profile is like an abbreviated version of your About Me page and it’s your opportunity to let the Pinterest user know who you are and what you like to pin about. I use a few different terms to describe myself and you can take a look at mine on my Pinterest profile page. Make sure you use keywords in your Pinterest profile description (see above)!

Claim Your Site

If you want to convert your Pinterest site to a business account, you will need to verify your website first. There are several ways you can verify it, but I think the easiest way to do so is using the Yoast SEO plugin. It’s the same plugin I recommend for optimizing your blog posts for SEO, but it can help verify your site using open graph too!

The other way you can verify your site on Pinterest is to add a meta tag to your header (not the header image, but the header of your CSS). It’s easy to download the Insert Headers and Footers plugin to do this. After you have activated the plugin, you will be able to easily insert the necessary meta tag without messing around with your theme’s CSS! You can also upload an HTML file to your web server at the root folder, but in my opinion, this is the most complicated option! *

*These tips are for self-hosted WordPress bloggers, so they may not work for other blogs.

Convert to a Business Account

One of the most important reasons to convert your Pinterest account from personal to business is to be able to take advantage of Pinterest Analytics. If you already have a personal account, you can convert it easily to a business account to save time– just make sure that you make boards that aren’t aligned with your blog topics “secret.” To convert your account, you will need to claim your website using the instructions in under the Claim Your Site section above.

Create High-quality Pinnable Graphics

The key to getting a lot of Pinterest traffic is to make high-quality pinnable graphics. I like to use Canva to make my pins, using templates I’ve purchased on Creative Market or Etsy. I’m not a professional graphic designer, so I use pre-designed pins and then I tweak the colors to fit my branding. Pins that have bold colors often attract attention, so I often use them for the background of my pins. I also like to use a mix of a few fonts — just make sure they are large enough to be read easily on mobile devices since that’s what drives the majority of Pinterest traffic!

Pinterest changes the optimal sizing from time to time, but for 2018 the suggested sizing is 600px x 900px or a 2:3 ratio. I use 1200px x 1800px for better resolution. I love this post that has a cheat sheet for all of the image sizes you need for social media (including Pinterest!). It’s best to experiment with several different pin styles and see what performs best. When you have a winner, you can easily duplicate it for other posts.

Clean Up Your Pinterest Boards on a Regular Basis

I recommend periodically cleaning up your Pinterest boards. I start at the bottom of my boards, looking for pins that are over a few weeks old. I delete pins that don’t have any re-pins or have very few re-pins. I have no data to back this up, but I think Pinterest looks favorably on boards that have pins with a lot of re-pins. It makes your pins appear very popular and likely to be re-pinned. I also think it encourages more people to follow your boards when they see that your curated pins have a large number of re-pins. More followers don’t always translate into more traffic, but it certainly doesn’t hurt either!

Use Rich Pins

Rich pins are MUST for increasing your Pinterest traffic. You can take advantage of rich pins if you have a business account, and they allow you to have more information displayed along with your pins. There are several different types of rich pins: recipes, product, articles, and apps. Depending on your blog content, you can choose which type of rich pin you want to use. For example, if you have a food blog, you would likely choose the recipe rich pin. Since my blog focuses on articles, I use the article rich pins. You can read more about rich pins on the Pinterest website.

Include Pinterest Optimized Graphics in Your Blog Posts

One of the simplest ways to dramatically increase your Pinterest traffic is to include Pinterest-optimized images within your blog posts. This may seem really obvious, but you would be surprised by how many people don’t do this! I like to include a pinnable image at the beginning and end of the post (2 different images). If you want to have pinnable graphics but don’t want them to appear in your post, you can try to “hide” them with some code added to the image in your text editor. Since starting to include Pinterest optimized images, I have noticed A LOT more people pinning directly from my site using Social Warfare!

Join Tailwind Tribes

If you sign up for the Pinterest scheduler Tailwind, you can take advantage of a newer feature called Tailwind tribes. Tribes are sort of like group boards where you ask to join and then you can add your own content and repin content from other tribe members. Most tribes have rules, so make sure you read them after you are accepted! I have found the tribes to be very helpful for getting more activity on my pins and they are also a great source of content for me to schedule on my own boards. If you would like to try Tailwind tribes, you can get a month of Tailwind FREE with my referral link! You can also click HERE to join my Build Your Best Blog Tailwind tribe.

Don’t Forget to Join Pinterest Group Boards

Group boards can drive a TON of traffic to your blog, so I would definitely suggest joining about 10-15 of them to start. The key is to join group boards that pin content similar to what you write for your blog. PinGroupie has a very comprehensive database of group boards, so you will have no shortage of boards to choose from! Most boards require an invite via email request, though there may be additional requirements like following the board founders Pinterest profile. I select my most popular pins to pin to group boards regularly to give them an extra boost of traffic!

Only Pin and Repin High-quality Pins

One of the most important factors in getting more followers for your boards and views/repins of your content is to carefully curate what you pin and repin. Your Pinterest feed and boards are a reflection of your brand, so carefully choose what you want you followers to see. A few things I recommend are only pinning high-quality, vertical pins and checking links before your repin content. You would be surprised at the number of pins that are stolen or linked to articles that don’t reflect the content shown on the pin! Think of yourself as an art collector and carefully and selectively curate your collection.

I hope that these tips and tricks will help you skyrocket Pinterest traffic to your blog, just like they’ve done for me! Let’s connect on Pinterest and please join me in my Build Your Best Blog Facebook group!