How To Use Pinterest For Your Blog

We’ve all seen the ‘How to use Pinterest for your blog’, ‘How to double your traffic in a month using Pinterest’ and ‘How I made my first 1k using pinterest’ posts dotted around the internet and blogosphere. Not even dotted, they’re definitely colouring in a large proportion. But of course, we all read them, and if you’re like me you never take them too seriously. However with Instagram doing…whatever it’s doing, I decided to really work towards using Pinterest for my blog. And surprise surprise, it bloody worked.

I never thought I’d write this sort of post, not in a million years. Honestly I didn’t want to be that blogger. But people were asking me to write this. I also wanted to show you what I found worked and what didn’t from doing my research and testing things out, and doing some of my own things. So I can give you a no bullshit post to help you grow.

However, I’m just going to get this out the way, path your own road kids. I can’t guarantee this will work for everyone, as much as I wish I could. But keeping your own unique style and staying organic is the best things you can do on any social platform. Please don’t feel like you have to imitate other people’s Pinterests to grow. If you want to be strictly a blogging page or if you want to be aesthetic or even a bit of both, go for it. You do you babes.

Before you do anything, if you haven’t converted to a business account on Pinterest you need to. It’s completely free and without it you won’t be able to do a few of the steps I suggest. It also means you can see your analytics which is super helpful to see what is and what isn’t working for you. Now, onto the tips.

ENABLING RICH PINS

This is on literally every one of these sort of posts but I felt it should be addressed. It hasn’t helped my grow views particularly, however as you’re trying to create a professional facade it’s beneficial to have. In a nutshell, rich pins add extra detail to a pin, whether it’s a product, recipe or article. It will also connect to your blog and show your logo next to the pin, thus giving you more recognition.

JOINING PINTEREST GROUPS

Again, a little generic, soz. But this has been a big factor to growing my platform. If you’re new to Pinterest, a group board is basically made for people to add pins of their blog posts too to help circulate them around. It’s great to network and find new people too. There are so many out there for all niches and creatives, and it’s a good way to get your foot in the door. However my one tip would be don’t go joining every single one you come across. Choose a nice group of different types of boards and work with that. It’ll be a whole lot easier for you and more eye pleasing for anyone visiting your boards.

Little plug, but I have made my own board for bloggers if you would like to join. I’m also experimenting with one for Instagram photos/photography so if that seems like something up your street feel free to pop me an email at [email protected] with your Pinterest link.

CREATING ‘PINNABLE’ IMAGES

I think this is where my controversy comes in. Most posts tell you to keep it portrait and add graphics, which works for posts such as this one where you’re providing advice. And for those I either use illustrator or canva. But when it comes to my ‘niche’ posts such as makeup or fashion posts I find it useful to do, what I like to call, ‘dress to Pinterest’. Punny, I know. But what I mean is your average joes who don’t blog, and who you may want to be targeting probably won’t be pinning images saying ‘How to master SEO’. However if you just post your outfit pictures, it’s more likely to circulate around those people. All in all, take photos that you would pin. This is the analytics of my most successful pin, using this method and it really worked. As it’s also a rich pin meaning it will show my blog, which is good for publicity.

If you do still want to take the canva route, go for it, people have well established that still works. I guess it just depends on your style. However my one tip is to have a style to those posts and keep some sort of consistency. You don’t have to make them the same, just to style. People will then recognize it as your styles. Which is pretty hypocritical of me to say, as I’m yet to have a consistent style, I’m still working that bit out. So saying that it may be useful to create 2 or 3 of slightly different styles and different title variations to catch as many eyes as you can and get as much recognition as you can.

CREATE A PLEASING PAGE

Just like Instagram, blog or any sort of display platform, it’s good to make it eye pleasing. It’ll be what people see first and if you want to represent you and your blog, you want to make it look it’s best. So have an aesthetic that shows you. Don’t be strict with a theme, as that makes Pinterest a task, but use pins that you find pleasing.

To help show your aesthetic, add covers to your boards, and arrange your boards to make it a little more appealing. Have a nice range of boards, of your niches, but don’t have too many boards as it’s too tasking for you and people aren’t going to scroll down that far. Have bigger, meatier boards with a more generalised title rather than ones for every little detail. Put your best ones that best represent your blog in the first 5 or 6, and they are the boards people will see first. You could also add a slider of your favourtie 4 boards which adds a little something something.

I honestly think the best way to get views is to stand out. As I was saying before it’s your page, so make it unique. People come to Pinterest for inspiration and to enjoy the aesthetics, so welcome that disposition with open arms. Okay it’s not as easy as say Instagram. However it can be done simply by adding some boards that aren’t as common or adding interesting titles. I like to use all capitals to add an aesthetic touch. I also use one or two words to sum up the board. And I usually try use alternative titles to the obvious. For instance I use ‘THREADS’ rather than ‘FASHION’, it’s what works for me. This does mean it won’t come up as easy in searches but that can be fixed by adding a category and adding some key words in the description.

JUST KEEP PINNIN’ AND ENJOY IT

This is said a lot too, but pin often. With most platforms, if you engage and use it often you’ll grow. I try to add pins to my boards at least every other day. I mean, currently I’m obsessed so I do it everyday. It’ll keep your boards fresh and new and gets you more exposure.

And lastly, enjoy using it. I can’t stress this enough. Pinterest is there for getting inspiration and enjoying some aesthetically pleasing photos. There’s still nothing I love more than having an idea and diving into Pinterest searches to find ideas and inspiration. Take my advice with a pinch of salt. It’s good to do these things but don’t make it a task. Simply by enjoying it and pinning what you want will still get around. And you’re more likely to use it more!

Good lordy was this post long, but y’all asked for this post, so here we are. I hope you found this helpful and happy pinning! And if you want to come say hey over on Pinterest, follow the link here!

Until next time,

Em x

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