Beginners Guide to Using Pinterest For Your Blog to Grow Your Traffic!

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Using Pinterest for your blog can get you so many page views and so much traffic! Some blogs get well over 50% of their traffic from Pinterest alone meaning tens of thousands of views! However, it’s also very underused by a lot of bloggers!

There’s no doubt about it, food and lifestyle bloggers get the most traction from Pinterest but it can be good for travel bloggers and bloggers in other niches too!

Some pins and some blog titles will do better than others, but two things are certain:

1 – You have to put the time and effort into Pinterest to get these views, they don’t just happen, it does take work!

2 – When you put the work in and pins that are doing well, you’ll know about it!

Up until a few years ago, I had NO IDEA how to use Pinterest, but as I started to learn how to use it and learn how to pin using Facebook threads and Tailwind, I saw my views very clearly increasing from 0 into the thousands which definitely helped my monthly page views increase, which in turn helped me make more money through my blog from Ad’s & Affiliates.

This is a beginners guide to how to use Pinterest for blogs. Starting from scratch on how to use SEO and Keywords on Pinterest, how to create Pinterest boards, how to create Pinterest pins, how to use Facebook Pinterest, Tailwind and how to Manually Pin. Plus, which ones are best to do in 2020!

If that’s what you’re looking for, let’s get into it!

Tip: Don’t try to do this all in one day, it’s something you need to do in steps, so bookmark this post on using Pinterest for blogging and keep coming back to it when you reach the next step!

How to Use Pinterest For Your Blog

Tips on how to use Pinterest as a Blogger:

Pinterest is not a social media platform, it is a search engine.

Due to the above, it does not matter how many followers you have. Do not spend time gaining followers. They don’t have an effect on how well you do on Pinterest.

To really succeed with driving traffic from your Pinterest account to your blog, you need an understanding of SEO and Keywords.

Because Pinterest is a search engine, treat it like a ‘business’ platform, rather than a way to connect with other bloggers.

Pinterest is a 2-way thing, you share your pins to gain traffic but for your pins to be shared, you need to share other people’s pins too.

Pinterest needs time to grow, your pins need time to be found. Pinterest is not a quick fix in terms of increasing page views.

Implement my steps below and keep doing them every day / every few days. Checking your stats but don’t put any pressure on yourself for at least 3 MONTHS because it’s likely you won’t see much of a growth until then!

If you don’t have time to pin and schedule pins there are lots of people out there who will do it for you. Hiring a Pinterest VA is a very popular thing to do if you’re willing to invest and help grow your traffic. Don’t think that all bloggers do this by themselves! If you want to hire a Pinterest VA you can look on platforms like Upwork.

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• In this post I have covered:
• 1 – Creating an Account
• 2 – Creating Relevant Boards
• 3 – Create Pins & How to Create Pins
• 4 – Uploading Pins & Pinterest SEO
• 5 – How to Sharing Pins including Group Boards, Facebook Threads and Tailwind
• 6 – How to Carry on & Make this a Routine

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1 – Create a Pinterest Account and Ensure it is on a Business Profile.

Create a new Pinterest account and create it as a business account. If you already have a Pinterest profile that you use for your own personal pinning of things that are not related to your blog, create a new account!

Your Pinterest account needs to be the same name as your blog. Create a bio that describes your blog and what you’ll be pinning. Don’t use this as a ‘personal’ bio like on Instagram. Fill it with Keywords like you can see I have done below.

I learnt from watching my friends youtube video (watch it here) that Keywords in your profile name and bio are so important because Pinterest can then show you account to the right people when they are searching!

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2 – Create a Set of Boards to Match your Blog Style.

If you are a travel blogger like myself you’ll want to set up a selection of boards that are travel related. I use Continents but others create one for each Country. 

As you make these boards make sure you add keywords into the board descriptions as you can see I have below.

If you’re not sure on how to find the right keywords use the Pinterest search tool to see what people search for.

For example, if I type in ‘Asia’ for ideas for my Asia Travels Board, I can see people are searching for ‘Asia Travel’ ‘Asia Travel Photography’ ‘Asia Travel Tips’ which are all pins that I pin so I will add these keywords into the board description!

One board you definitely want to create is one for all of your blog posts. Think of it as a file of your work. ‘Best of (The Wandering Quinn)’ or ‘(The Wandering Quinn) Blog Posts’, works well.

Tip: Don’t spend too much time on this, create a few boards that you can think of to start with. As you start pinning you’ll realise what other boards are needed.

For example, I didn’t have a ‘Gifts’ one but as Christmas approached I quickly created a ‘Gifts Ideas’ board for all of the travel gift guides that were being shared!

This is a snapshot of what some of my boards look like:

I have created board covers with the name of the board on which is why it looks the way it does, you can create these now or later in the stages of you using Pinterest.

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3 – Create Pinterest Pins for your Blog Posts Using Canva.

Before you start ‘pinning’ you need to create pinnable images to pin!

Most bloggers tend to use Canva because it is really easy to use, plus it’s free for basic designs, I don’t pay for any designs. There is even a Pinterest Graphic you can edit and this size works best on Pinterest so use this.

Create at least 2-4 pins per blog post as you want to share your blog post more than once on Pinterest.

Look on Pinterest first for inspiration of what to make your pins look like, think about which ones attract your attention most and be inspired by these.

If you are an established blogger with a lot of blog posts already, I suggest creating 2-4 pins for your top 10 viewed blog posts and for your 10 most recently published posts, or something along those lines. This will give you a good amount of pins to share for the first few weeks for blog posts that you know are already in demand.

Tip: If you don’t have many vertical photos that you have taken yourself, don’t be afraid to use stock photos. I prefer using my photos as it feels more personal but as said, Pinterest is Business so if a stock photo looks better, use it. I use Pixabay & Pexels mostly, they provide free images and there’s no need to credit them. There are lots more available sites too.

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4 – Upload a few Pins onto your ‘Best of’ Pinterest Board & Implement SEO!

Now you need to get your pins onto your Pinterest account to grow your Pinterest as a blogger.

Don’t upload all of the pins you have created in the step above onto your profile because to get the most out of Pinterest you need to upload them slowly and regularly (more info on that in point 5).

For now, upload 5-10 pins onto your ‘Best of’ board.

Simply click ‘Create’, ‘Create Pin or Product Pin’ Upload your Image, Add the Title, Add the Description, Add the URL, Save it to your ‘Best Of’ board and click ‘Publish’.

It is really important here that you think about SEO & Keywords! Yes, Pinterest is all about SEO too!

Add the keywords of your blog post into the Title and Description because remember, Pinterest is a search engine just like google! Use all the characters and add some hashtags at the end of your description too!

Also, with your title, from experience I have found that people on Pinterest tend to click on titles like ’10 Things You Cannot Miss in London!’ more than ’10 Things To Do in London!’, so think about that because your Pinterest title doesn’t have to be exactly the same as your actual blog title.

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5 – Start Sharing Pinterest Pins and Repining Others Pins.

This means that some of the ways people pin have changed to what the advice was back in 2017, 2018 and even 2019.

Here are 4 ways you can share your pin’s and re-pin other people’s pins:

5.1 – Use Group Pinterest Boards

Group Boards on Pinterest have always been very popular and they still are.  In order to do this you need to join some group boards, I would suggest finding these by looking on Pinterest users profiles that are in the same niche as you. A Group board is identifiable by the circle of accounts that shows on the board (see image below).

Usually, you need to request to join group boards. To do this, click on the group board and you’ll see something like the image below which details the rules of the board, how to join (usually by emailing the admin) and a button to ‘follow’ the board. 

Posting in group boards are a good way to post your new fresh pins every day as per the new 2020 suggestions, and find a few pins from other bloggers to pin too because like I said, it’s suggested to post mostly your own pins and only a few from other bloggers!

5.2 – Use Facebook Pinterest Pages & Threads

 You may have heard about Pinterest Facebook groups. These groups have daily and weekly Pinterest ‘threads’.

This means that you post one of your pins in each thread, everyone in that thread has to repin your pin, and you have to repin everyone’s pin too.

Sometimes the threads are quite small with 30-50 pins, sometimes they can be quite big and up to 200 pins.

Facebook threads were suggested for a long time and many people still use them in 2020, but by using them and using them every day it means that you are pinning a lot of pins from other people, so keep this in mind.

In order to find Facebook Pinterest Pages, you will need to join the pages. You can use the search tool on Facebook to search pages under your niche and something like the below will appear:

When joining the Best Facebook Groups for Pinterest keep 4 things in mind:

1- Make sure you join a page that is relevant to your blog, e.g if you blog about beauty or mainly lifestyle, don’t join a travel related page.

2- Read the description, not all Pinterest for Bloggers Facebook pages will be to share pins. Some will be for information and learning purposes, which are fine to join but don’t spend days waiting to be approved only to realise you applied for a board that wasn’t what you thought it was for!

3- Read the rules! These rules will include the fact that if you share a pin you HAVE to re-pin everyone else’s along with how long you have to pin them after you have pinned yours. Plus, certain boards have restrictions on which blog posts you can share. E.G most travel-related pages don’t let you share ‘blogging tips’ pins!

4- It can take a few days to get approved to a Facebook page so don’t wait for the day you want to start using them to apply as you won’t be able to use them until you get approved. 

Tip: If you are a travel blogger, ‘Mappin Monday’ is a great one to join! So is ‘Ultimate Pinterest Group for Travel Bloggers’ as seen above.

How To Use Facebook Pinterest Threads

Let’s use ‘Ultimate Pinterest Group for Travel Bloggers’ as an example of how to use these Facebook Pages!

Each day one of the admins will post advising that todays thread is now live. Each daily thread on this particular group is live for 24 hours.

Copy the Pinterest URL for the pin of yours you want to share from your ‘Best Of’ board.

Scroll down the thread on Facebook, see what the last number was, # the next number, your blog name and your pin URL. Wait a few seconds as initially the preview will appear which as per the rules, you need to remove. Click remove preview and you’re done.

Once you have pinned yours, its time to pin everyone else’s. Go to #1, click on their URL and save it into your most relevant board (do not pin these into group boards, only your own boards!), like their comment and carry on doing that until you get as far as you can!

Due to the boards being live for 24 hours there will be people who post after you so ensure you go back the next day or later on and keep pinning until the thread is closed! Once a thread is closed you want to be able to look back and see a like against every single comment so you know you have pinned every one.

Tip: The process I use is loading about 10 or so tabs from the comments in one go and as I load a new tab I ‘like’ the comment, this way I know where I have got to in the comments. Then I go through every tab to save it. I close all the tabs and start again! This is the most time-efficient way to pin Pinterest Facebook threads I find.

5.3 – Use Tailwind to Schedule Pins.

Tailwind has been a popular scheduling tool for Pinterest and bloggers for many years. It lets you bulk load pins which will schedule on the days and times you set. It means with some work, you can schedule your pins, and other peoples pins for the next few weeks, even months and during that time you don’t need to do anything as you did all the work when scheduling.

Tailwind Tribes are also popular, this is a way to get other people to pin your pins and in turn, you pin their pins. A bit like group boards on Pinterest directly.

It’s worth noting that as of 2020 I have seen many bloggers say that they have cancelled their Tailwind subscription and stopped using it. This is because Pinterest wants FRESH PINS and I believe that scheduled pins are not considered ‘fresh’.

If you want to give Tailwind a go though, you should! Tailwind is free for your first 100 scheduled pins, so its worth signing up and testing it out. After that, it will cost you a minimum of $9.99 a month for unlimited scheduled pins and you can cancel at any time which is handy.

5.4 – Manually Pin Directly on Pinterest

This is what I see most bloggers talking about these days, especially in 2020.

It fits in with Pinterest wanting FRESH Pins and it also helps you pin mainly your own pins and only a few pins from other people.

This will mean spending time on Pinterest pinning every day but it seems that it’s worth it.

However, as of 2020 (I believe) Pinterest now has it’s own scheduling tool which you can use so that you don’t have to be on Pinterest posting pins every day!

Plus, if you batch create new Pinterest pins every few weeks, you save all of the post Titles, Descriptions and URLs that you want to post in a document, it won’t take you long to upload 10 pins, copy and paste in the details, publish them and pin a few pins from other peoples accounts.

And that leads me onto..

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6 – How to Carry this on & Add it to Your Routine!

This may seem like a lot of work but once you get into a rhythm it becomes a lot easier.

Whether that’s pinning through Facebook threads that you quickly become really fast at doing, or manually uploading pins most days of the week because it becomes a habit.

A lot of bloggers I know use a spreadsheet which details what they’ve pinned and what they need to pin.

I also suggest trying a few of these options and seeing what works best. You won’t know for a few months but if you keep track of it you should be able to see what’s working and what isn’t.

Remember to keep up to date with the new Pinterest guidelines. Facebook groups for Pinterest users are a great way to stay up to date with ‘what Pinterest likes’ and to ask other bloggers for help and advice!

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For even more advice on how to use Pinterest for blogs, have a watch of my friend Janet’s YouTube videos on how to use Pinterest! View her Pinterest Playlist here!

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I hope you have found this post useful! I would suggest doing this post STEP BY STEP, do not try to do it all in one day as it’s not going to happen.

Bookmark this blog post and do each section at a time, keep referring back and it will all come together!

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• More of my Blogging Posts:
• 10 Honest Ways I Tripled My Page Views in Less than One Year!
• 10 Ways To Work on Your Blog Without Writing New Blog Posts!
• 1 Year as a Full-Time Blogger & Traveller. My Honest Life Review!