Pinterest. If you’re a female and have lived for the past few years, odds are you’ve discovered Pinterest and all it’s wonderment and glory. I have to admit I used to be quite the pin addict, but over time I’ve slowly let go of this time-consuming addiction and manage only to get on the black hole of a site once or twice a week. One thing you may not know is that Pinterest can actually be a great source of referral traffic, and can even grow its’ way to becoming one of your leading traffic sources. Ok I realize I just lost all my non-blogging readers, so sorry for that, but you never know, maybe this post will come in handy for you one day!
A couple of weeks ago, I had the pleasure of writing for Kate’s ‘Grow Your Blog’ series, in which I mentioned the importance of using Pinterest to help your blog traffic. I didn’t elaborate too much, as I was afraid of writing a mini-novel on her blog, and risk never being invited to write again! I had a surprising amount of ladies reach out to me about how they could go about utilizing Pinterest, so I thought the best way to answer their questions was to write a blog post!
If you ask? I will answer (Seriously if you ever bug me to post about something, odds are I probably will. I love my readers and their opinions!). I started pinning my blog posts to Pinterest over a year ago, just on a whim, to see if anything would happen. I did feel a little dumb, I mean, what did I have on my blog that the world would be interested in? I pinned sparingly, pinning only the posts I was most proud of. I got a little bit of traffic trickling in from time to time, but nothing substantial. It wasn’t until April of 2013, after I pinned this post 3 months prior, that my Pinterest referral world took off. Quite honestly, I think it pretty much takes the right person to come along and pin something of yours to make the magic happen.
As of now I receive anywhere from 400-2000+ Pinterest referrals a day from my pinned posts. The most repinned posts I have are: I Don’t Use Shampoo, DIY Christmas Photoshoot, DIY Lip Balm, and this Sparkler Photography Tutorial. It’s crazy for me to even comprehend this, but since April I’ve had over 138,000 Pinterest referrals. I know there are other blogs out there with way better stats, but it’s a heck of a start and I’m proud of my little blog.
Ok, let’s give you the dirty on how YOU can work towards getting ridiculous referral traffic!
1. Make your Pinterest page ‘pretty’.
This one seems a little crazy, but if you have people interested in your material and what you have to offer, its best you have a gorgeous (and organized) Pinterest page set up. Get creative and match color themes in your board’s cover photos, come up with creative titles, basically just work on an overall comprehensive ‘theme’ of sorts. I went with a muted pink, gold, and white theme. You’ll be surprised how many pins you actually have to help create a great look for your homepage.
2. Make sure your boards point somewhere. In the ‘edit’ options of your boards you have the opportunity to select a category you’d like each board to be referenced in. If not? Your boards are basically invisible (don’t panic, I think your pins still appear in the Everything category, they’re just harder to find). 
After pinning something in the newly created board (with the correct category referenced) your pin will appear immediately in that category geez I hope this makes sense. Here’s where the waiting game bigins. Your pin may or or may not gain attention, and you may be sitting on the edge of your seat for weeks before you see any traffic. Just remember that my most popular referenced post on Pinterest took three months to take off. Don’t get discouraged!
3. Make Pin-able posts. Here’s the deal. People may think your latest post about how some drunk guy was found walking around in your very feminine shoes is really funny, but the truth is, no one will ever pin that (except maybe your mom or grandma because they naturally love everything). People want to pin something that will help them in some way or form (yet again, 99% of my Pinterest referrals come from DIY posts).
One thing you should keep in mind though: the more original the better. I’ve seen one to many posts on potatoes, cupcakes, christmas trees, and pet shaming. Have a new, brilliant idea to share and as far as you know it hasn’t been over-pinned already on Pinterest? Good, you’re probably golden! I should also mention that these potential ‘pin-able’ posts you make should be organized, free of errors, have eye-catching graphics (after all how else will someone feel obligated to click or re-pin it?), and have the ability to answer potential questions people may have on the subject.
4. Finally, stay true to yourself. If you’re a travel blogger, don’t up and post something on hottest looks of the season, especially if you’ve never posted about style before. Not only will your readers give you a big fat ? but you’re wanting to generate traffic that wants to hang around for a bit. Remember, always write posts that show readers who you are. Remember, most of these referred readers will only stick around long enough to glance at the post they found via Pinterest. You’ll be lucky if they actually read the whole thing or comment! You have one chance to sell yourself and your blog to these readers, don’t misrepresent!
Thank you Pinterest for your always faithful, free advertising love.
Please come back and let me know how your Pinterest/Blog relationship is going! I’m here to help you!
Read more posts in the Blogging 101 series here.