Last Updated on May 4, 2020 by ellduclos
Top 10 Pinterest Tips for the Latest Pinterest Update
It’s no secret that Pinterest has made an update to their algorithm this past month. A lot of bloggers and business owners have felt the side effects from this change. If you are a blogger/biz owner who has been trying to grow your blog traffic with Pinterest, but can’t seem to figure it out no matter what you do, don’t worry, I GOTCHU! Today I want to share with you my top 10 Pinterest tips that will help you grow your blog traffic and Pinterest.
A little about me:
My name is Ell and I am the creator of BossGirlBloggers which is a community of over 30,000 female entrepreneurs and bloggers. In my community we strive to help each other learn and grow. I am 100% all about community over competition. I also believe in the power of positivity. My mission has always been to live by my own standards and no one else’s. I started my blog in April 2017 with a dream of being my own boss and working from home. I knew I wasn’t going to stop until I made that dream my reality. About 9 months later my blog became my full time job and now I am helping others do the same! You can read more about my journey here.
I have products and courses that I sell and I always believe in providing value at an affordable cost. There are so many blogging courses out there that are hundreds of dollars but when I first started out I could never afford those courses. Since I know what it’s like to want to learn something so badly but not be able to afford it, I now offer my own courses at an affordable price. One of those courses being my Pinterest E-Course.
Before I started my blog I was a Pinterest addict. I used Pinterest to get inspired. One day, I noticed that Pinterest was made up of a ton of different blogs! Essentially almost every pin led to a blog post. This inspired me to create my own blog. I haven’t looked back since. In just a year I was able to grow my Pinterest to over 14,000 followers and over 1 million monthly views. I was also able to figure out Pinning strategies that bring me consistently over 25,000 views a month to my blog JUST from Pinterest. Now I want to help you do the same!!! It is possible to be a few months into your blogging journey and getting eyes on your content! It just takes a bit of marketing.
Let’s get onto the tips, & thank you for trusting in me to help you grow!
(p.s my Pinterest course is currently on sale – the first 100 to use coupon code “UPDATED” will get my course for just $20 !! AND affiliates will make 30% of each sale!)
Disclaimer: Affiliate links are used. I receive a small commission if you purchase via my link at no additional cost to you! Thank you for supporting as always. Here is my disclosure.
Pinterest Tips #1 – Set up your Profile Properly
It’s easy to create a Pinterest profile and start creating random boards and pinning BUT, if you are using it to grow your blog and business you are going to want to set it up properly.
This includes:
- Converting to a business Pinterest account. Which you can do here.
- Claiming your website on Pinterest. Go to edit your Pinterest settings > profile, and then you will see “claim website” They will give you a code to insert into your website. If you have wordpress and you are self hosted you can install the “Insert headers + footers” plugin and place the code they give you into the “headers” section of the plug in.
- After you claim your site, use the rich pin validator to set up rich pins.
My course goes over these steps in much more detail and step by step tutorials.
- Create boards that are related to your niche. I aim to have at least 20 different boards of my own. (in reality I probably have about 50, I don’t think theres a set limit) Make sure you are using KEYWORDS in your board names and descriptions.
- Create branded board covers. I use canva to create board covers for my Pinterest boards to help make my Pinterest look organized and more put together. I use colors in my covers that I use on my blog. Here is what it looks like for example:
- Make sure you edit your “display name” in your Pinterest settings to make sure you are using keywords as well. This has been huge for me. I incorporated keywords in my display name and bio and it has helped me rank high in searches.
As you can see I use the keywords “Pinterest Marketing Strategist & Blog Coach”, now when I search for “Pinterest Strategist” I rank top as well as when I search for “Blog Coach” AND “Pinterest Marketing”
& in addition to keywords in my Display Name, I also added keywords to my bio to give me that extra boost. Pinterest is a visual search engine so it’s important you are practicing good keyword strategies!
Pinterest Tips #2 – Join some Pinterest Communities!
One of my brand new favorite Pinterest tips! Join some Pinterest communities! Pinterest communities are new on Pinterest. They just got added in September. I think of Pinterest communities kind of like Facebook groups. I feel like Pinterest is trying to make the platform a bit more “social” In these communities you have the ability to share photos, pins, text, comments, etc.
The thing that is important to note about Pinterest communities is that it’s sole purpose is to collaborate and share ideas. It is NOT meant to be used for self promotion. If you are using them to primarily promote your own content, Pinterest will penalize you.
As far as I know it is invite only in order to access the “communities section” on Pinterest, SO here is an invitation to Boss Girl Bloggers community on Pinterest. Once you join you will see the “communities” area pop up and that is where you can browse for other communities to join that are related to your niche!
In my Boss Girl Bloggers community on Pinterest we share opportunities to collaborate, we ask questions related to Pinterest and blogging as well as share inspiring posts and pins! Give the “About” section a read to see what we are all about!
Being a part of communities and engaging in them will help draw attention to your Pinterest which will in return hopefully bring you a larger reach (:
Pinterest Tips #3 – What’s the deal with group boards?
The question everyone is curious about BECAUSE before the Pinterest update group boards were KEY for bloggers and business owners. What was awesome about them was the fact that even if you had only 60 followers but pinned your content to a group board that had 1,000 followers, your pin had the chance to be seen by potentially 1,000 people even though you only had 60 followers…. Essentially group boards helped to expand your reach and get your content seen by a larger audience.
Here’s the thing though…Pinterest began to catch on and a lot of group boards became “spammy”
For example: I was a part of a group board that had 3,000 contributors which meant 3,000 people were pinning to this board almost everyday… That’s a lot of pins being pinned to one board at one time. AND this group board wasn’t keyword specific. There was a whole bunch of random content being pinned to this board which REALLY messes with Pinterest SEO. YIKES.
Pinterest has made it clear that group boards weren’t being used properly and that group boards aren’t prioritized anymore. Pinterest is prioritizing personal boards over group boards. However, I am still apart of some group boards.
I am not saying go and leave all of your group boards. NO. BUT what I am saying is, it might be worth it to ditch your poor preforming group boards and only stick to those group boards that are related to only one niche that doesn’t have thousands of contributors.
You can check out how your boards are preforming by going to Tailwind and analyzing your “board insights”
I find that my most engaged boards are mostly my own boards! In my newest pinning strategy I am focusing a lot of attention on pinning to my own boards and my blog traffic and Pinterest views have both been increasing.
Always pin to your top performing boards!
With that being said you also want to try your best to pin to all of your boards. If you have boards that you aren’t pinning to ever, it might be wise to make those boards “secret” or just try and pin to them at least once a week if possible!
Pinterest Tips #4 – Invest in Tailwind
I have to give credit where credit is due, my blog traffic and pinning strategy would not be complete without Tailwind. I was extremely skeptical to invest in Tailwind. I heard everyone talking about it but I didn’t think it would be worth it. Well, I was so wrong. After using Tailwind consistently for a month my blog traffic went from 9,000 views a month to over 25,000 views a month.
Tailwind is a pin schedule tool. Essentially you can schedule pins and it will pin them sporadically throughout the day for you. Let’s say you work full time and aren’t able to go onto Pinterest and pin all the time (WHICH BTW – if you want to grow your Pinterest you need to be actively pinning everyday.) This is when Tailwind comes in handy. You can schedule your pins so that you are pinning while you are working! OR while you are sleeping!
The nice thing about Tailwind is that it uses a “smart schedule” that will create a schedule with times that your Pinterest audience is MOST active. That way you are more likely to have your pins being seen since your audience is active during the times Tailwind suggests.
Now, Tailwind can be a bit confusing to use and if you don’t use it properly you won’t see any results which is why I put together a step by step in depth guide in my Pinterest e-course that tells you EXACTLY how to use Tailwind to your best advantage so you are getting your money’s worth.
Tailwind has a free trial BUT, please don’t base your decision off of the free trial. The free trial only allows you to schedule and pin 100 pins which only lasts you 4 days if you schedule and pin at least 25 pins a day. That’s not a long enough trial to get real results.
The monthly plan is only $14.99 and it’s truly worth it. I even use the annual plan which gives me unlimited pin scheduling and that costs $119 annually and saves money in the long run! Just a tip (:
Related: How to grow an engaged audience on your blog
Pinterest Tips #5 – Create Fresh Pins Weekly
This is a HUGE part of my Pinning strategy. I schedule pins every Sunday. My Tailwind schedule is usually made up of about 75 pins a day. If you aren’t creating new pins for your blog posts weekly you should REALLY give it a try. Pinterest LOVES fresh pins which are new pin designs that you are creating for your blog posts and urls.
I used to say it’s okay to pin the same pin to the same board more than once BUT, Pinterest does not like this. Again, Pinterest is a visual platform so when you are pinning the same pin to the same board Pinterest gets confused.
HOWEVER, Pinterest doesn’t mind if you create multiple different pins for the same link! That’s okay and YOU SHOULD be doing this!
What I like to do every Sunday is create 10-15 fresh pins for my popular blog posts, blog posts that bring me the most sales, and for my e-courses. I will then upload these pins to Pinterest and link them to their appropriate blog post url etc. Then I will schedule these pins on Tailwind! If I am pinning these pins to 20 keyword rich boards each, my schedule fills up pretty quick!
Any remaining slots left open in my schedule for the week are dedicated to scheduling others’ content from Tailwind tribes that I am a part of.
Again my course goes over all of this in detail with visual tutorials to help make it easier (:
Pinterest Tips #6 – Super Long Pins is No Longer Neccessary
For a while on Pinterest it was important to have super long, vertical pins. My pins were about 736 x 1400. WELLLLLL.… that’s not ideal anymore. If you look through your Pinterest feed you can sometimes notice that long pins are actually getting cut off and look a bit weird because Pinterest is messing with the sizes in the feed.
Pinterest states that it’s ideal to keep a 2:3 ratio and that 600 x 900 is key.
If you are wondering where you can create beautiful Pinterest pins – Canva is the place to be! You can easily create pins with canva!
Pinterest Tips #7 – You Gotta Be Active & Don’t be Afraid to Pin your OWN Content
If you want to see any results from Pinterest you need to be active. ALSO – if you want to get traffic to your blog from Pinterest, you need to pin your own content too!
If you are a brand new pinner you should try and follow the 80/20 rule.
This means that you are pinning 80% others’ content and 20% your own. I usually pin 75-100 times a day BUT, if you are new I recommend pinning at least 50 times a day.
These 50 pins would be made up of 40 pins from those who you follow and then 10 pins of your own a day.
Once you notice your Pinterest growing and gaining traction you can switch up this number and start pinning your own content more.
Currently I pin at least 60 pins of my own a day and the rest is made up of others’ pins.
Although I schedule a lot of pins, I am still present and manually pinning on Pinterest 3 times a day. It would be nice to just rely on Tailwind to do all my pinning but I find that when I am also pinning manually throughout the day on Pinterest, I am getting rewarded.
Related: 5 Focus Points For New Bloggers
Pinterest Tips #8 – Do you have a good keyword strategy?
It is so important to have a keyword strategy on Pinterest! Since Pinterest is a Visual Search Engine, Keywords matter!!!! When you upload a pin and you decide to skip out on giving it a pin description, you are hurting your reach!
It is important to have at least 3-5 sentences explaining what your pin is about and you need to be including keywords. On top of that, Pinterest actually enjoys when you use 2-3 hashtags on your Pin description as well so don’t be afraid to do so.
If you search “How to look like a professional blogger” my pin ranks top, number one! That is because I have my keyword strategy in place!
In my course I go into detail on how to find keywords and how to use them properly so that you can rank high too!
If you aren’t ranking high in searches, you are limiting your chances of getting your blog posts seen and read! People are more likely to trust pins that rank high in search! Use that to your advantage.
Pinterest Tips #9 – Pin with the Season
This is one of my favorite tips to give! How were you using Pinterest before you became a blogger? For me I would use it to find holiday recipes, summer trip ideas, DIY crafts, & especially christmas ideas!
The holiday season is upon us and you should use that to your advantage! Pin content that is related to the season!
For example: At the end of July, beginning of August I started to pin fall related content because I know that people would be popping onto Pinterest to search for fall related pins.
Now that it’s the middle of October I have been pinning Christmas related content because I know that people will be starting their holiday decorating and shopping. GET THOSE GIFT GUIDES UP AND PINNED. I am telling you, the holidays are so busy on Pinterest! That’s when bloggers begin to see a huge increase in their traffic AND sales!
Don’t be afraid to create content that is seasonal too. You will get a ton of hits on your seasonal content through Pinterest.
Also – Pinterest says that it’s best to start promoting your seasonal content 45 days in advance.
Pinterest Tips #10 – Create A Dedicated Blog Post Board & Feature it
I have a couple dedicated Pinterest boards for my blog posts.
These boards are called:
- On The Blog – EllDuclos
- Trending on EllDuclos
- Shop My Favorites
I will pin all of my blog posts to my blog board and then when those pins go “viral” I will pin them to “Trending on EllDuclos”
I also created a “Shop My Favorites” board that is dedicated to my affiliate link pins as well as blog posts that talk about my favorite products.
I then went to my Pinterest Settings and hit “profile”, if you scroll you will see an “edit featured boards” button. This is where I chose to feature those 3 boards so whenever someone comes onto my Pinterest, those are always the boards displayed up front! It helps to direct extra traffic to your blog and blog posts (:
These are my top 10 favorite Pinterest tips! I hope you found this helpful. If you are ready to take the next step and really dive into learning ALL of the strategies and tips I have up my sleeve in a more in depth way, then I really suggest you give my Pinterest e-course a try!
It is up to date with the latest Pinterest changes AND if you are one of the first 100 to use coupon code “UPDATED” you will get my course for JUST $20
I have taught over 1,000 students how to properly use Pinterest to grow your blog traffic and the results say it all!
In my course I go into detail on:
- How to properly set up your Pinterest to benefit your blog and rank high in searches (including step by step how to claim and set up rich pins)
- In depth on how to use keyword strategies to rank high in searches. How to find keywords etc.
- How to create a perfect pin on Canva and what to do to increase your chances of your pin getting clicked.
- How to analyze your analytics to make sure you are always growing.
- Step by step how to use Tailwind to your best advantage
- How to pin, where to pin, what to pin, how many times to pin, and when to pin!
- How to use affiliate links on Pinterest to increase your sales
And so much more!
& if Pinterest sounds like a ton of work and you’d rather outsource it, I offer Pinterest Strategic Management Services! If you want to learn more please feel free to reach out to me: BossGirlBloggers@Gmail.com
What have others said about the course and my pinning strategies?
Thank you this is so useful! I’ll be implementing these later!
https://happilyhavingnoideawhatimdoing.wordpress.com
I got a Tailwind subscription a few months ago and I love it. All I do is just spend maybe a half an hour twice a month scheduling my pins. I also create a pinable graphic for every blog post. These tips are awesome!
Tailwind is seriously so awesome! So glad you enjoyed the Pinterest tips! Thank you (:
I found this SOOOOOO super duper helpful! Omg because I don’t have the slightest idea how to grow on Pinterest! HOWEVER, I don’t know how to put the Pinterest board covers on there? I haven’t seen the option and I don’t remember seeing them when I created my boards.
Thank you so much!! I’m so glad you found the Pinterest tips to be helpful. For covers you need to upload the cover to the board you wish to set it as the cover then when you edit your board you will see a select board cover option and you’ll click on the pin of the board cover you uploaded (: I do it via my phone on the Pinterest app!
Pinterest is probably the one platform I need to work on. Thank you for these amazing tips.
So glad you enjoyed these Pinterest tips!!
These tips are so incredibly helpful, as I’ve been really working hard on my Pinterest lately now that I’ve rebranded my blog. Thank you SO much for sharing this! I can’t wait to start implementing all of these strategies!
I’m so glad you found these Pinterest tips helpful!!! Can’t wait to hear if they end up helping and giving you results (:
Very useful information. I subscribed.
Thank you so much!
Omg this was soooo helpful!! When you create new pins for your blog post, do you just upload them straight to Pinterest and link to your blog from there? No need to put the new pin actually in the article right? Thanks in advance!
I am so glad you found the Pinterest tips helpful! & yes you are correct! No need to upload them to your post, just upload straight to Pinterest and link them to the correct blog post (: Happy pinning!
Thanks Ell, I have been so confused with all the latest updates, this is just why I needed to read right now 🙂
So glad the Pinterest tips helped! Thank you (:
I learned a lot from just this one post. I am going to create my board covers now. And I need to create fresh pins too. And oh yes I need to polish up on my keywords too. Thank you Ell, you are such a darling.
So happy to hear Karen! Thank you so much(:
I love these tips! I am still so confused about the newest update (communities). I’m just not quite sure how to use it and have it benefit my blog. I already have “blog” communities on Facebook and Instagram. I really have time to learn a new one.
Also I have had so much success posting “fresh pins” instead of always repinning the same pin like I was doing in the beginning.
Thank you Tricia! I know the communities is kinda ehhh for me right now, still trying to figure it all out! I enjoy Facebook communities better at the moment!
I use Buffer to schedule most of my pins and love it! I have noticed a slight increase in traffic since scheduling. I didn’t think to try multiple images for the same pin – great idea!
So glad you enjoyed these pinterest tips! (:
I need to start taking my pinterest more serious. I just redid my boards and made them more organized!
These are amazing tips! I need to jump up my pinterest. Thanks for sharing ♥️ ♥️ By any chance you are interested on doing collaborations, you can check out the collaborations portal of Phlanx.com and connect with amazing brands!
Xoxo,
Tiffany
So glad you enjoyed these Pinterest tips! I love Pinterest! I will have to check that out for collabs, thank you!
wow that seems like so many pins per day! wow!
Xx
Kali
http://www.lovelaughexplore.com
Ah I know! But it works!! (:
Thanks this is really useful for newbies. I’m just wondering if I create a couple if blog posts a week, how do I manage to pin them multiple times a day without my boards looking spammy and repetitive. At most I could feasibly create a few graphics per post, but don’t see how people manage to fill a schedule.
Thank you so much! I know you may think it looks spammy but if you use proper pinning techniques you can make it not look spammy (: In example, creating different pin designs for each post and making sure to shuffle up your pins on tailwind so the same pin doesnt get pinned multiple times in a row!
Amazing article and it was indeed helpful. thank you and well done for the great work you’re doing. you’re such an inspiration ?
Nice Blog post
Thank you!
Great content as usual! Love reading your blog!
Thank you so much!!