How To Use Pinterest To Drive Traffic To Your Blog

Pinterest is one of those platforms that many small business owners and bloggers overlook. This is often due to the misconception that the platform is only used for looking up recipes and home décor ideas.

However, there are several other blog niches, such as fitness, DIY, finance, parenthood, tech, relationships, and coding that are extremely popular.

There are also plenty of more traditionally "masculine" brands like Harley Davidson, Art of Manliness, Lowe's, and Dollar Shave Club using Pinterest as part of their marketing strategy.

In fact, about 61% of the traffic to my fitness blog — 7Sigma Physiques — comes from Pinterest.

If you've already started a blog, you know how challenging it can be to drive traffic to it — especially if you don't have the budget for paid ads and are focused on getting free organic traffic.

In this article, we'll go over why Pinterest is great for bloggers and seven tips to drive more traffic from Pinterest to your blog.

Why Is Pinterest great for driving blog traffic?

Let's start with a few reasons why Pinterest is so great for bloggers and other small business owners:

It's a search engine. Most people have the misconception that Pinterest is a social media platform, but it's actually a search engine. This means that your content will continue to be found years after being published instead of disappearing a few hours later like on platforms such as Facebook and Instagram.
It's easier to rank. Pinterest's algorithm isn't as advanced as Google's, which means it's easier and faster to rank for popular keywords.
The audience consists of high-income users. 27% of adults who use Pinterest earn $30,000-74,999 per year, and 41% earn more than $75,000, according to Statista.

People are ready to buy. 47% of Pinterest users make purchase decisions on Pinterest, which is more than Facebook at 15% and Instagram at 11%, according to Statista.

7 tips to drive more traffic from Pinterest to your blog

Now that we know how Pinterest can benefit your business, let's take a look at seven concrete tips to help you drive more traffic from Pinterest to your blog.

1. Do Pinterest keyword research

If you've already learned the basics of Google SEO, chances are you're familiar with the term "keyword research."

But in case you haven't, keyword research is the process of looking for popular search terms people type into search engines and include them strategically in your content so that it appears higher on search results.

Luckily, Pinterest keyword research is a bit simpler than keyword research for Google. Let's take a look at three techniques you can use to find keywords in your niche:

a) Pinterest search bar

Once you start typing any search term relevant to your blog niche, Pinterest will automatically suggest other commonly searched keywords.

These recommendations are based on what thousands of people on Pinterest have searched for.

On the image above, you can see that when I type the search term "weight loss," the following suggestions appear:

"weight loss" meals
"weight loss" workout plan
"weight loss" plans
"weight loss" smoothies
"weight loss" before and after

b) Explore Pinterest

The second technique is using Pinterest's explore page and checking out what type of content is popular in your niche.

After you click on a topic, Pinterest will show you things like featured articles, trending searches, and popular ideas.

This is a great way to not only see what's popular, but also what keywords your competitors are targeting.

c) Pinterest Ads

To find keywords using Pinterest Ads, log in to your Pinterest account and go to Ads > Create ad.

Don't worry, we won't actually be creating a campaign. We only want to see more keywords.

Anyway, now click New ad group on the left column > select any strategy (doesn't matter) > click on Keywords & Interests > Add keywords.

In the right column, type any keyword for your blog topic. Pinterest will automatically show you related keywords and their monthly search volumes.

These keywords are the most popular keywords on Pinterest, with some having over 5 million searches per month.

If you're running Pinterest Ads, these are the best keywords you could use for your campaigns. Here's a great Pinterest analytics guide in case you need help analyzing the performance of your organic and paid Pinterest campaigns.

Tracking your Pinterest keywords

Now that you've found a few keywords, it's time to write them down somewhere since you'll be using them to create content and optimize your Pinterest account.

You can use any tool you feel comfortable working with. It could be anything, like:

Trello boards
Notepads
Word
Google Docs
Excel

Personally, I love using Excel spreadsheets to keep track of keywords.

2. Include keywords in your Pin titles and descriptions

After you've typed down some popular keywords in your niche, it's time to start your Pin titles and descriptions so that they can be found when people search for those terms.

In order to optimize your Pins, you want to:

Add the main keyword in the Pin title and description
Add the main keyword on your Pin image (Pinterest reads text placed on images)
Include other related keywords in your Pin description
Include between 2-5 relevant hashtags at the end of your Pin description

3. Use related keywords in your Board titles and descriptions

On Pinterest, users can search specifically for Boards to follow, so it's important that you include related keywords in your Board titles and descriptions.

The same rules we covered above for optimizing Pins apply to optimizing Boards. The only difference is that you don't really need to add hashtags (some people would argue you don't even need to add them on Pins).

4. Match your blog post title

Pinterest is becoming more and more like Google. The platform now scans your blog post to see how much it relates to the Pin that's linking to it.

Making sure that your Pins match the content being linked to is what Pinterest engineers refer to as Pin cohesion.

Pinterest wants to make sure that a Pin's web page matches its semantics. For example, if you publish a Pin titled "Green Throw Pillow" and add it to a board titled "Living Room Décor," Pinterest might expect to see it linked to a retail site with home décor products.

5. Create curiosity with your Pins

One of the best ways to make sure that people click through to your blog is to create curiosity with your Pin titles and images.

This technique isn't only used for Pins, but also for things like email subject lines and blog post titles.

For example, if you wrote an article titled "Foods to avoid for weight loss" and used an image of a donut on your Pin, not many people would click through because it's pretty obvious that donuts are high in calories.

A better image to use would be of something like yogurt, which is typically considered healthy but most of them have tons of added sugars.

Also, using a title like "Healthy foods that make you gain weight" would create more curiosity.

6. Make your Pins stand out

When it comes to making your Pins stand out, most people give you the same advice — use bright colors that get people's attention.

While it's true that brighter colors tend to be more attention-grabbing, it isn't necessarily a good idea for Pinterest.

The reason is that if everyone is using bright colors on their Pins, then no one will stand out.

A better technique is to look at how the Pin designs of bloggers in your niche look like and create something different.

For example, if you're in the fitness niche and see that all the Pins have vivid colors, you can use earth tone color combinations to stand out.

On the other hand, if you see that everyone's using earth tone colors, you could then go for something more vivid.

7. Apply for Rich Pins

Rich Pins are Pins that automatically pull information from your website to your Pins. This allows users to easily see extra information of your article upon close up, which can increase click-through rate.

Rich Pins will also sync information from your blog whenever you make changes to your blog post.

For example, if you wrote an article titled "The best roller skates for teens in 2021" and then decide to update that list the following year and change the title to "… in 2022," Rich Pins would automatically update all your Pins linking to that blog post with the new title.

Types of Rich Pins

There are four different types of Rich Pins:

Article Rich Pins. These show the title, meta description, and author of the blog post.
Recipe Rich Pins. These show the title, service size, cook time, ratings, and a list of ingredients.
Product Rich Pins. Product Rich Pins linking to product pages will show the most up-to-date information on product pricing and availability.
App Rich Pins. These Pins display an install button so users can download your app without leaving Pinterest.

How to Apply for Rich Pins

In order to apply for Rich Pins, you need to add some metadata to your website. This can be done either manually or with a plugin.

Doing this manually can be a very complex process, so I will walk you through the steps of doing it with two different plugins, one of which you might already have installed on your blog.

a) Adding metadata using Open Graph and Twitter Card Tags

All you have to do is log into your WordPress dashboard, install the Open Graph and Twitter Card Tags plugin, and activate it. You don't have to change any settings at all.

Pretty easy, right?

b) Adding metadata using Yoast SEO

Yoast SEO is one of the most popular SEO plugins available, and chances are, you're probably using it.

If you're using Yoast SEO, all you have to do is log into your WordPress dashboard > SEO > Social > click the "Facebook" tab > enable "Add Open Graph meta data" > Save changes.

After enabling Open Graph with either of these methods, you want to clear your cache if you're using a caching plugin.Once you've cleared your cache, go to Pinterest's Rich Pin Validator > copy the URL of any of your blog posts > paste it into the "Enter a valid URL" field > click validate.

That's it. If Pinterest was able to find your metadata, you'll then receive a message saying that your Rich Pins have been approved on Pinterest.

Pinterest best practices

Now, let's take a look at some of Pinterest best practices:

Pin between 1-5 Pins per day. Pinning more used to be beneficial, however, Pinterest has made several changes to their algorithms and is now focusing more on high-quality and fresh content.
Try not to Pin the same Pin to the same Board more than once. This can be considered "duplicate content" and get your account blocked.
Use a scheduler. A scheduling tool will help you save time by automating the pinning process.
Always pin your Pins to the most relevant Board first. For example, if you have a Pin about weight loss for women and a Board titled "Weight Loss," you should pin it there instead of another Board titled "Fitness."
Speed up your website. Speeding up your website will help reduce your bounce rate, increase your conversions, and keep your visitors happy. This is extremely important because most of your Pinterest traffic will come from mobile devices, which might not always have the best connection.

Measuring Pinterest results with Supermetrics

Measuring the performance of your Pinterest strategy is crucial for your success with the platform.

In fact, measuring performance is important for every aspect of growing your blog, whether it is measuring your email marketing efforts, engagement rate, or guest posting efforts.

Without keeping track of your results, you won't be able to see what's working and what isn't.

Basically, you can't improve what you don't measure.

With Supermetrics, you can easily pull data from your Pinterest account to Google Sheets, Excel, and Google Data Studio to see what type of content is performing best.

This will allow you to have a better look at your strategy so you can make any necessary adjustments.

With Supermetrics' new Pinterest connectors, you can easily:

Create reports with both paid and organic data from Pinterest in Google Sheets, Google Data Studio, and Excel
See which types of Pins get the most clicks
See the growth of your follower count over time
Create an ecommerce marketing funnel that lets you link your Pinterest Ads performance metrics with your Shopify's revenue data
Pull all your Pinterest Ads data into a single dashboard or create a paid channel mix report
And more…

Final thoughts

That's it! If you're planning to drive tons of traffic from Pinterest to your blog without having to spend money on ads, these tips will definitely help you get started.

And even if you're currently using another source of traffic like Google, it's always a good idea to diversify.

We don't want to put all of our eggs in one basket, right?