14 Tips on Using Pinterest To Increase Blog Traffic

The world of social media and social networking is ever changing. While Facebook is making it more difficult over time to promote ourselves without spending money, Pinterest, at least for the time being, is happy to help. It has taken time, but Pinterest is now one of the top traffic referrers to my blog.

Like any other social network, the more you put into it, the more you get out of it. However, at least for me, Pinterest is enjoyable work. Who doesn’t like looking at pictures? While all the food images have me craving desserts at times, many others bring back memories, make me laugh, give me ideas and more.

14 Tips on Using Pinterest to Get Blog Traffic

1. Use at least a few images in each post, if not more. The more images you can add per post to Pinterest, the more likely that some will be noticed and repinned. Before Pinterest, I only used one image per post. Now, I’ve gone back to many old posts and added more pictures to them, just so that I could add them to Pinterest and have a better chance of bringing those posts more traffic.

2. Only use photos that  are high quality and try to make them all at least 300 x 300, preferably larger.

3. According to Pinterest, vertical pins work better than horizontal ones.

4. Make sure that you pin directly from the post page so that the pin will take readers back to the right place.

5. According to Pinterest, longer descriptions do better than shorter ones and positive messages resonate with readers.

6. If you have many pins to pin, don’t do it all at once. Space them out throughout the day.

7. You should have very specific boards for all your categories of pins. Make sure you have edited each board to fill in a description and add the Pinterest category your board aligns with. If you have not done this, do so immediately! By not doing this, the only people that will ever find your pins are those following you. With the information filled in, everyone that browses by category (square box next to search) will be able to find your pins if they are looking at your categories.

8. Don’t only follow friends. By browsing through categories (see above) find others with similar tastes and follow them. Many will follow you back.

9. The main goal is to get your pins repinned. The more they are repinned, the more people see them and the more chances of  people clicking through to your post or website. No matter how many followers you have, there are only so many click throughs you will get without repins.

10. Pinterest users repin images either because they are useful or they enjoy having them on their boards. The useful images consist mostly of recipes, and some from areas like education and health and fitness. The other area tend to be mostly quotes, humor, celebrities, entertainment and products.

11. Get people to pin images directly from your blog or website with the Pinterest Image Hover button. Every image on your blog will have a pin button that will be noticeable when a mouse is rolled over. And to make it even easier, if you have WordPress, there is a Pinterest Pin It Button For Images plugin that will add it for you.

12. Another way to display your Pinterest pins and profile on your blog is through Profile Widget. This widget is a box, filled with your past 8-10 pins, that you can add to your sidebar. Just go to you profile page and directly under your profile, next to the edit pencil you will see brackets. Click them and you will have the code for the widget. You can change the numbers for the height and width and add it to the sidebar.  If you would rather, you can create a widget from just one of your boards. If you click open any of your boards, you will see these brackets.

13. If you use an email signature tool like Wisestamp, you can promote your pins below your signature.

14. Have fun and pin pictures that you enjoy also. It will help others get to know your personality.

If you have any questions about Pinterest or if anything was unclear, please let me know in the comments.