How to drive 4x more traffic to your blog with Pinterest SEO

If you found this page, you probably found it through Pinterest. If you came here via Google, then awesome.

I have been building and designing websites for over 20 years. In that time, most website optimization has been focused on Google and specifically Google SEO. This is normally fine if your website domain has been around for many years, and has established domain authority, or there are a lot of back links coming back into your website.

On the other hand, if you are just getting started, trying to rank in those #1 spots is almost next to impossible these days with so many websites out there already ranking with domain authority.

This is where Pinterest is a hidden gem.

Most people think of Pinterest as a social media site. Along the lines of Instagram and Facebook. But Pinterest is so much more than that. Its a search engine.

Pinterest is a Search Engine.

Users of Pinterest find things of interest through visual search. It is primarily image based, and users will Pin (bookmark) images that are of interest to them. These are usually pinned to boards, essentially helping categorize the image.

Pinterest users tend to also be slightly more affluent (50% of users have household incomes over $50k, with 10% of households earning over $100k). This means that these users visiting your site have a higher chance of being interested in buying whatever it is you are selling.

It is also still relatively easy to rank on Pinterest for keywords you are targeting. This is due to the fact their user base is growing exponentially, and the platform is still much newer compared to google. Also not all marketers have jumped onto the Pinterest bandwagon yet due to not fully understanding how to utilize the platform.

Popular topics on Pinterest range from DIY ideas, Home Decor, Food Recipes, Health and Fitness, to Gardening, Making money, etc.

The majority of users today on Pinterest tend to be female, but that is changing also, with a sizable Male population also starting to use it.

How do I get started with Pinterest?

1. Create a Pinterest account. If you already have an individual account, then upgrade it to a Business account (its free). A Business Account gives you more power such as Analytics, the option to promote ads, as well as being able to claim your website domain.
2. Once you have your business account set up, make sure your business name and descriptions are SEO optimized, targeting the keywords for your niche.
3. You will want to have between 20 - 50 boards initially do cover sub-niches you are interested in within your niche. Make sure your boards are named, and have descriptions that are also keyword optimized based on traditional SEO techniques.
4. Try to have at lease 20 pins in each board to start off with. The pins should be high quality (not broken, 404 links, good images, good descriptions, related to the sub niche).
5. Over time, be active on Pinterest. That means regularly pinning on many of your boards. The more you do this and populate your boards with high quality content, others will find you interesting and the Pinterest algorithm will help you increase your reach. Be careful though, don’t pin anything and everything - be human, else this could also hurt you. In other words, avoid pinning 100 pins within 5 minutes. Spread them out throughout the day like you would with your personal account.
6. Pin your own content! This is the most critical piece. As you publish content to your blog, make sure you pin it to your relevant boards.

How do I start driving real traffic with Pinterest?

Okay, so you got your basic Pinterest profile set up and you are starting to become an influencer with the type of content you are pinning. Unfortunately, only pinning other users pins won’t sky rocket your reach.

It is tempting to look at Follower counts, but that is also a misleading number. Pinterest is always changing their algorithms, and although Followers will see your content, Pinterest is more likely to offer you content on the Home page view to many thousands more - if you are considered a high quality content creator.

So, here’s the big secret:

If you want to get crazy traffic, you have to work for it. That means, publish new content to your blog as often as possible (eg 4 - 5 times a week). Over time you can probably reduce that to 2 - 3 times a week. Pinterest rewards content creators. So if you are creating new content, and pinning it, then your reach will really start to ramp up.

Remember to watch what your audience is excited about, and tailor your content to that. This is no different to Google SEO.

Keep track of what you are seeing in Google Analytics. It will tell you what pages are viewed the most, time of day etc.

Once you determine the time of day your customers are clicking on your pins, then try to pin your new blog posts around that time. That way you can try to get in front of as many of them as possible.

If you stop posting new content and pinning it, you may start to see a dip in your reach. There are schedulers that can help with this by repining your pins at regular intervals. But, don’t repin the same pin to the same board within 4 months. That is discouraged by Pinterest. You can however, create multiple pin images for each blog post and pin those to your boards on a schedule. A common scheduler you will see recommended by most Pinterest bloggers is Tailwinds. This is due to a lot of the analytics they give you around your pins, as well as its scheduling and smart loop capabilities.

I will go over each of these points in later blog posts to drill down into the details. For now, this is just a teaser to get you started. Follow me on Pinterest to stay up to date with how to improve your blog.