How to Get Free Traffic from Pinterest?

Tip #1: Create a business account or convert your existing profile to a business account

A business account will help you to analyze your page with Pinterest Analytics.

It will also give you important information about the behavior of users visiting your content, and how each pin and board perform.

Tip #2: Claim your website on Pinterest

Before to use Pinterest Analytics, you will need to have your website verified by Pinterest.

To claim your website, you’ll need to add a meta tag or upload an HTML file to your website’s HTML code. You can claim one website on your profile and a website can only be claimed by one Pinterest account.

Tip #3: Create a Pinterest profile that attracts your audience

When you start a website, as a business, the first thing to do is to determine your audience to adapt your content.

It's the same on Pinterest.

If you want great results on Pinterest, you have to create an account that is designed and customized to attract your target audience.

Even if you have only a few followers on Pinterest, there are probably hundreds of people who view your profile every month thanks to your pins and boards.

When you have a lot of views, you have the opportunity to make these users subscribe to your account.

For that, you must convince them:

1. You have the content they are looking for.
2. You are different or better than other accounts.

You must show and explain to them what your is added value.

And all these points must be clear on your Pinterest profile.

For that, you need to:

• Write a description that explains what the goal of your account is, who you are, and what your content is about. That will make it easier to attract the right audience.
• Keep in mind that the only thing the users care about is what value you can bring to them. So curate your content carefully and make sure it always brings value.
• Add a photo about your brand or your logo.
• Implement keywords in your profile. Like that, your profile will be more likely to come up when someone looks for one of these keywords on Pinterest (or even Google).
  • Ex: Fitness, fitness outfit, best fitness outfit, fitness women, sport outfit women...
• Add a call-to-action with a link to your website.

Tip #4: Create a Pinterest board dedicated to your website

You must create a board on Pinterest dedicated to your website’s content.

This way, your followers will quickly find your new articles.

This board should have the same name as your blog.

It will give you the opportunity to associate some keywords in the description of this board.

With these keywords, search engines could add your Pinterest board in their results.

Whenever you post a new article on your website, make sure to always pin it on your Pinterest account, in the right board.

Tip #5: Keep only relevant boards

On your website, you organize your content in categories (if not you should do it ^^).

So, like your website, you have to organize your Pinterest with relevant content and titles for your boards to help people find what they want.

If you already created boards, but their content is not related to your brand or website, I recommend you to delete them to keep only relevant content for your audience.

You must create a board in relation to your editorial line, your market, and your audience.

Be careful: if you delete an entire board, it will also delete all subscribers to this board (but it’ not a huge loss, if you lose subscribers who aren’t really interested in your niche and your website).

Pinners will be more likely to subscribe to your profile and follow your website if there is a harmony between your content and what you "inspire" them.

One thing to do, if you want to keep posts, photos from other accounts, I will suggest you to create a board but not share it on your page. You can create a board and keep it in “secret”. You will be the only one to see it and it will not affect your Pinterest page.

Tip #6: The Importance of Images

Pinterest is a visual-based social media.

That means you must have good visuals to encourage users to click on your profile and then on your website.

You should think of Pinterest as a magazine, where you have to grab the reader's attention and that's what makes Pinterest attractive, addictive, and different than the other social media.

Here are 3 good tips:

• The image must be at the right size:
  • Up to 80% of Pinners watch Pinterest on mobile:
    • Use a 2:3 or 4:5 type ratios
    • And the best is portrait mode
• The image must be really attractive:
  • Do not use faces (images without a face receive + 23% pins back)
  • Use vibrant and harmonious colors
  • Use high-quality images
  • Be creative and different
• Content must include text:
  • To grab attention and drive traffic to your blog: add text to your image
  • Or create illustrations, graphics…
  • This content will help your Pinners to know about what your website/article is

Tip #7: Be active on Pinterest

Like any good social media, you must be active on the platform and engage with other users.

The more you interact with people on Pinterest, the more likely they will be to visit your website.

Here are some tips to start on Pinterest:

• Pin original and relevant content.
• Pin often and regularly so that your pins will be seen in the feed of your followers.
• Follow your followers.
• Look at your followers' pins to find great content ideas.
• Pin great content from other websites that your followers will love.

Tip #8: Improve the SEO of your Pinterest account

Many people confuse Pinterest with other social media, like Facebook and Instagram, but Pinterest is far from being a simple social media, it's a real search engine, like Google.

Therefore, you have to think about Pinterest as a search engine, and to work on your “Pinterest SEO”.

When you go to Google and type something, you will get a list of results listed in order of relevance and usefulness according to the keywords you typed.

Pinterest acts the same way.

It uses an algorithm to rank pins in an order which it believes will be the most relevant to their users.

That means you can optimize your content on Pinterest to help it rank higher on the results.

Here are a few tips to improve your Pinterest SEO:

• Make sure your illustrations/photos are linked to your website or articles.
• Use your blog title as the title of your Pinterest board.
• Use relevant keywords to describe your pins and profile.
• Include hashtags.
• Use keywords in the "alt" tags.
• Do not forget to check in your account settings that you have authorized the indexing of your content (do not activate the option "Hide your profile from search engines (Ex. Google).").

Not only this will improve your rankings on Pinterest, but it will also help your Pinterest account and boards ranked on Google.

Because yes, Pinterest also has a positive impact on your SEO on Google.

Tip #9: Showcase your website/business identity

Internet users are curious.

The more they know about you, the more likely they are to trust you.

To improve your brand identity on Pinterest, you can:

• Add cool photos of your team
• Write a short biography with fun facts
• Explain the added value of your website
• Talk about your brand

Tip #10: Add a “Pin it” button to your website

When your readers share your articles, their friends and subscribers are more likely to read them too… it's an easy way to gain more visibility.

If your website is on WordPress, you can add a "Pin it" button to your content with the Pinterest plugin.

Tip #11: Plan your Pins

To create engagement, get followers, and improve your traffic to your website, there are no secrets.

You must create a real strategy where you decide to post often on your Pinterest account.

Here are a few tips :

• Each time you post a new blog post, pin it to Pinterest: don’t forget the link
• Mix your own content with content from other people/blogs… in different boards
• You always have to think about the user’s need before to post or pin: “Is it interesting for my followers?”

Tip #12: Pin to Pinterest at the right time

Hundreds of pins are added on Pinterest every hour and every day.

The most effective strategy is to find the best time to pin.

According to behavior-based studies in the USA, it seems the best time to pin is Saturday morning and the worst time to pin is during office hours.

But you must adapt this to your audience, your type of content, and your location.

I would suggest you to follow your own statistics to create your own strategy.

For that, use the statistics from Google Analytics and link them to your Pinterest marketing strategy.

Tip #13: Use Rich Pins

Rich Pins are pins including more information than just a standard pin.

There are 6 different types of Rich Pins:

• Movie
• Article
• Product
• Application
• Recipe
• Location

It’s the same idea as Google’s Rich Snippet.

If you use WordPress with a Yoast SEO plugin, you can activate Facebook Open Graph. Pinterest will use it to generate its Rich Pins.

Then, you can claim your rich pins from Pinterest on its special page.

Tip #14: Create a carousel

Pinterest allows you to create a carousel of the 5 best boards of your choice.

With this carousel, its easier for the users to find your best boards, pins, and link for your website.

Conclusion

Now, if you don't have a Pinterest account yet, it's time to start one!

Do you need help to set up your Pinterest account, create a strategy, manage your account, or create customized illustrations, graphics for your boards?

We're here to help.

Check out our social media management and social media design services.

And if you have any questions about this post or social media marketing, feel free to drop a comment below or to send us a message.