I Increased my Pinterest Viewers from 173 to 435k!

With specific Pinterest and marketing strategies, I was able to increase my Pinterest viewers from 173 to 435k! You can too with a few tips and tricks.

These are my personal results. As part of my Pinterest strategy, I recommend users subscribe to Tailwind, who also publishes the Typical Results of Tailwind for Pinterest Members every year, so you can see exactly what the average growth rate looks like for their members.

When I first launched Caffeine and Conquer in February 2018, there was so much I didn’t know. I’ve learned since then and want to share some of my strategies with you so that you can succeed at your goals as well.

RELATED: Pinterest Social Media Manager – That’s Me!

Continue reading to learn the strategies I used to increase my Pinterest viewers from 173 to 435k in 4 months!

Disclosure: This post contains affiliate links, which means I may receive a small commission, at no cost to you, if you make a purchase through a link. For more information see the disclosure policy.

Why Promote your Website’s Content?

Before diving into talking about Pinterest specifically, I want to get into why you should be promoting the content of your website in the first place.

Increased Traffic to your Site

The biggest and most important reason to promote your content is to drive traffic to your website. If you created a website, wrote an amazing blog post or produced a product you want to sell, you need to promote it. Creating it and leaving it be will result in little results. Therefore, promoting increasing traffic to your site, which will increase views, engagement and make sales.

Brand Awareness

Another reason to promote is to increase brand awareness. The more your brand is seen on social media, Pinterest, Google, etc., the more familiar you will become to readers and consumers.

More Engagement

Lastly, you want to promote to increase engagement. You can get engagement directly on your website through comments or shares. You can also increase engagement on social media through shares, likes, and comments.

Increasing engagement on social media will result in heightened brand awareness and hopefully more traffic to your site. Many social media algorithms work by showing the content that has the most engagement. Therefore, promoting to increase engagement will help improve your reach to more people.

Don’t Ignore Pinterest as a Marketing Tool

Pinterest is a search engine!

A lot of people see Pinterest as a social media platform like Instagram or Facebook, but it doesn’t work the same way. The website works similar to Google. You can think of it as a search engine with images.

If Pinterest is a search engine than it makes sense why it would be a marketing and promoting tool you wouldn’t want to ignore. In fact, most bloggers claim Pinterest is their #1 platform that brings in the most traffic.

Gain Large Amounts of Traffic

With the right strategy, Pinterest can bring in the majority of your website traffic. I asked a few bloggers what their biggest traffic source was and their strategy and here is what I received back.

Mel at Mel’s Money Mindset shared her experience using Pinterest as a new blogger.

Pinterest without a doubt brings me the most traffic as I am a relatively new blog, SEO searches are taking a while to increase but after 6 months I am now starting to get a bit of organic traffic.When I started using it in mid- April I had about 2 visitors a day to my blog but Pinterest very quickly got me some views.

My Pinterest strategy is simple, I have about 9 boards of my own, I post to all of them with my pins and other people’s pins (except for my blog board, which is only my pins). I’m also in about 30 niche specific group boards, plus a few general blogger boards (which I am now phasing out). I post about 20-25 of my pins via Tailwind to post each day to all of the group boards, plus my own boards (doesn’t matter how many times you post to your own boards, nobody can kick you out of the group for ‘spam’). I also share my pins in the Facebook groups promo threads (I do at least 4 of these a week), and I manually pin other people’s content from those groups. When I have a new blog post, I start with 1 pin per post, but then make new pins after I’ve pinned to all of the group boards a couple of times, so things do not become stale. I am aiming to make 3-5 pins for every post, but I’m not there yet!

Using this strategy made my Pinterest growth happen in about 6 weeks from zero (no followers, no views) to about 130k, including a viral pin and an average of 100 view a day on my blog.

Nicola at My Inner Creative shares how she gets 1.1 million Pinterest views per month!

Instagram is my highest traffic driver and then Pinterest – I find that the engagement I’ve created on Instagram actually out performs my Pinterest – however my Pinterest is only just below that at 1.1 million views per month.

For Pinterest strategy I post my blog – then share it to my main board and group boards in a staggered approach. I manually pin up to 20 pins a day.

Ann Lovelady Remo at Gardening Limited doesn’t forget about old blog posts

Pinterest brings the most traffic to my website. I am constantly adding new pins from old and new blog posts and repinning them to group boards daily. I use Tailwind and pin manually daily.

Hidah Mwende at Sprout Mentor explains how she made a breakthrough when she changed her Pinterest strategy

My blog is relatively new (less than 4 months old) and it has been a long learning journey. So far Pinterest is my main source of traffic. I use a combination of manual + scheduled pinning from Tailwind and I have managed to grow to 167k monthly views and 9000 website visitors. It has not been easy, I have been trying many strategies to see which works best. I was stuck at 1000 all along until the last two weeks where I have been trying a new pinning strategy and I noticed today am at 9000. In the new strategy I’m focusing more on manual pinning of my most clicked (domain referring pins – you can get them from Google analytics) and strategically pinning to group boards. I am also actively trying to find niche specific group boards since I was only in general blogging ones. And of course pinning other people’s content a lot (from every group board I post, I pin at least two pins plus saving from the home feed constantly). In short there is no one size fits all, just keep discovering new strategies and test them out!

The manual pinning strategy I used I learned from this eBook: Pinteresting Strategies by Carly, while the exact scheduled pinning strategy I use I got it from this post: Pinterest Group Boards are they still Relevant?

Brand Awareness

Creating pinnable images gives you the perfect opportunity to work on your branding. With careful attention to colours, fonts, and logos you can build the reputation of your blog and be recognizable. Pinterest is making this even easier with some of the changes they have recently made. For example, business accounts now have a custom image header filled with pins. To optimize brand awareness, many bloggers are choosing to share only their pins in this header. If your pins are consistent in colours, fonts, and logos this can work in your favour.

Provide More for your Visitors

Lastly, Pinterest is a great way to provide similar content from your niche for your viewers. Chances are, someone who follows your website will be interested in reading more about self-development, health, beauty techniques or whatever you’re writing about. By adding Pinterest as a promotional tool, you can engage with your followers more.

How to Increase your Pinterest Viewers

There may not be a “one size fits all” approach, however, there are some strategies that seem to work for everybody. If you incorporate the strategies below you will see growth in your monthly Pinterest viewers, followers, engagement and traffic to your website.

It was through the strategies below that I was able to go from 173 Pinterest viewers to 435k! (In fact, by the time I finished writing this post, three days later, my viewers had increased to 456k and continue to climb).

If you are serious about your pinning strategy pay attention to these areas.

Switch to a Pinterest Business Account

I recommend bloggers use a Pinterest business account over a personal one. Business accounts allow you to view analytics, which gives you insights into how your pins are performing, what your viewers are interested in and fluctuations in growth over time. With a business account, you can measure how well your strategy is working and track the results of changes.

If you have a personal account already you can change it to a business account or you can create an entirely new account for business.

Pay Attention to your Profile

When Pinterest viewers visit your profile page they see your photograph, profile description and title, header, and website URL.

Your photograph should either be a photograph of you or the logo of your business. Keep in mind that website visitors use social media to connect, and having a photograph of yourself is more personal.  The best practice is to keep profile photographs consistent across all social media platforms so you’re easily recognized.

Your profile description and name should reflect what you are providing to your visitors. For example, this blog is about self-development, sustainable plant-based living, books, and blogging – my Pinterest description mirrors this:

Grab a coffee in one hand, your confidence in the other, and come join me. Writing about self-development, sustainable plant-based living, books and blogging!

I divided the name as my name and what I do: Sarah Fournier | Lifestyle Blogger and Artist

If you have a business account, which I recommend you do, your profile will include a customizable header that you can either put your latest pins or pins from a specific board (such as your blogs board). I personally keep my latest pins, however, if your pin graphics are heavily branded it might be a good idea to display your pins instead.

Lastly, your profile should have your web URL listed.

Board Categories and Descriptions

Each board you create on Pinterest should have an assigned category and keyword rich descriptions. This strategy helps Pinterest know what your boards are about and then show them to people with similar interests and in searches.

To edit your board’s description and category, hover your mouse over your board and click the pencil icon in the right corner.

One trick I use to find keywords is to input the board title in Pinterest’s search box. Press enter and the top of the page should list variations of your title. I use these to populate my board descriptions! For example, if I input “animals” into the search I can get “cutest animals”, “funny animals” and “wild animals”. These are keywords people are likely to use when searching.

You should have a board for your blog posts or website pages, as well as boards of various topics related to the content of your website. The board should have more than 10 pins to be effective.

Pinning High-Quality Original Content

The ideal sized pin is a 735 px x 1102 px vertical pin, with quality images and text overlay.

If you have a quality camera, such as a Nikon or Canon DSLR, you can make your own photographs. For those of us without amazing technology at our fingertips, there are free and paid stock photo websites that offer high-quality photographs. My favourite free resources are Pixabay and Unsplash, though I have also purchased stock photos when I can afford to at iStock. The benefit of purchasing photographs is they are used less by other websites.

The text overlay should clearly describe what the pin will bring the visitor to, with keywords. Pinterest has technology that scans pins and can recognize images and text. This allows the platform to show your pins alongside others of similar content.

Lastly, I recommend using Canva to create your pins. They have ready-made templates and font pairings if you do not design pins all day every day (like me). I have also heard other bloggers use PicMonkey and Photoshop, though I believe those cost money to use.

Remember, low-quality pins WILL affect your Pinterest viewers growth.

If designing your own pins makes you cringe, I offer pin design as part of my Pinterest Social Media Manager services. 

Scheduling Tools

If you are going to do one thing from this list I urge you to subscribe to Tailwind. I and most of the bloggers I spoke to about their Pinterest strategy use this service. I can’t imagine working without it now. With Board Booster shutting down last month there are going to be a lot more people benefiting from Tailwind as well.

If you have never heard of it, Tailwind is a Pinterest (and Instagram) scheduling program. It will determine when your Pinterest viewers are most engaged and suggest pinning at those times. You save pins with Tailwind and they will schedule those pins out for you. Therefore, instead of spending hours a week pinning your content to every group board you belong to, you can sit down for 30 minutes and schedule a week’s worth of pins. Tailwind will do the work for you!

In fact, they will make suggestions to optimize your Pinterest profile using some of the same strategies in this post (eg. missing board descriptions, boards with 10 or fewer pins, etc…).

Lastly, Tailwind offers more insights you can combine with your Pinterest insights! My favourites include the pin inspector and board insights. With board insights, I can monitor which boards are performing well and which are underperforming. This is especially important for group boards!

Read more: How Tailwind Helped Me Work More Efficiently

Share Other Peoples Content

While it’s great to get your content out there, you want to make sure you’re pinning other people’s content as well. This will help you avoid spamming your followers and provide interest, relevant, content for your website followers.

Stick to topics relevant to your niche and check links to avoid pinning bad content.

Pin Descriptions

Like your board descriptions, pin descriptions should be keyword rich to make them appear in searches.

I like to add the post title, a short description with keywords and a few hashtags to my descriptions. If you’re an SEO (Search Engine Optimization) guru on your website, you would practice the same strategies with your pin descriptions!

It is debated whether or not hashtags are useful in 2018, especially with all of Pinterest’s recent changes. I’ve heard many bloggers say they will continue to use them anyways, which is the strategy I have adopted unless told otherwise.

Optimize your Website for Pinterest

This strategy isn’t done on Pinterest’s interface, however, it will affect your viewer numbers. Optimizing your website for Pinterest means making sure they can pin quality content, with descriptions from your website to Pinterest easily!

There are different techniques to achieve this, however, simple share buttons can be really effective. On Caffeine and Conquer I have pink “pin it!” buttons that appear when you hover over an image. I also use WordPress’ plugin “Social Warfare” which I highly recommend. 

Optimizing your website increases Pinterest viewers by increasing your repins and reputation on Pinterest. 

Enable Rich Pins

Have you ever seen links from pins on Facebook that included the posts title instead of the board? Or clicked to have a closer look at a pin, such a recipe, and the ingredients are listed beside the pin? These are rich pins and they are very useful. 

To enable rich pins simply follow Pinterest’s instructions and input your website into their Rich Pins Validator. 

There are four options depending on your website needs. I use Article Pins, which show the title, author and story description, but you could also choose recipe pins, product pins or app pins. 

Join Group Boards and Tailwind Tribes

Lastly, to increase Pinterest viewers use Group Boards and Tailwind Tribes to your advantage! They both work the same way, they are just located in two different places. 

Group boards and tribes are usually created by bloggers and businesses to collaborate with others in a similar niche. This is a great way to get your pins seen by other people and increase your repins. These collaborative groups require you to pin other people’s content if you participate so everyone is working together to help promote each other. 

I host my own Pinterest group board and tribe for those in the same niche. They are also open to new collaborators!

I WANT TO JOIN THE GROUP BOARD!                  I WANT TO JOIN THE TAILWIND TRIBE!

How to Measure how well your Strategy is Working

After all the work you put into creating a Pinterest strategy and implementing it, how do you know if it’s working? 

Insights!

By keeping track of your insights (or analytics) you will hopefully see an increasing trend. The best insights for this are your website’s, Google, and Pinterest analytics as well as Tailwind insights if you’re a member. 

Thankfully these apps make it easy for you by creating reports and emailing them once a week (if you have opted for that). 

The best indicator (the one that gets me most excited!) is when you start to see your website page views and visitor numbers begin to steadily increase due to Pinterest referrals. 

You Got This!

Promoting is a necessity of running a blog or business online and Pinterest is one tool you should not pass on. Follow the steps I mentioned above and you WILL see your Pinterest viewers steadily increase over time. There will be certain seasons where Pinterest viewers decrease, but this is normal! 

Don’t forget to become a member of Tailwind, or at least give the free trial a try (it will change your blogging world!). 

Remember, this is not an exhaustive list but recommendations based on what has worked for my own Pinterest viewer growth. If you have found other strategies that work well for you then stick to it! The goal is to just find what works and to keep doing it. 

Not at this point yet? I also have a small FREE e-book on signing up and setting up your Pinterest business account. Once you get that ready, then I recommend coming back to this post. 

If you have found other strategies that increase your Pinterest viewers share them in the comments below! If you have incorporated some of these strategies and they have helped you in a positive way let me know!