The Complete Bloggers guide to Pinterest

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Welcome to my guide for using Pinterest as a blogger. If you’re a business that wants to drive traffic to a website then this will help you too. Some people think that it’s just for recipes and pretty pictures but I think every blogger should get to grips with Pinterest. After search engines, it’s my top referral source, and sometimes the top source. First off, you’ve got to enjoy it, it shouldn’t be a chore. I had a Pinterest account before I was a blogger and I thought it was fantastic, then I just converted it into my business account.

How Pinterest works and why you should use it

It’s basically a type of search engine like Google, only it shows you images in a certain layout that is very appealing and you can save them (pin) in one place and keep them for later, like a virtual scrapbook of ideas. If you’re planning an event from a wedding to a children’s birthday party, you can create a board and collect ideas. If you want to know how to do something, Pinterest will show you, often with step by step images. You can see straight away whether the pin is going to be from a website that you’ll want to visit. Some people are great at creating those eye catching pins with amazing promises, but when you click on it, it’s not quite what you wanted. Always make sure your content lives up to it’s pin.

For bloggers, this means that your content, instead of coming up in a single search and then being forgotten, if someone pins your post, not only are they likely to visit your site but their followers will see it and may visit / save the pin too. Each time someone pins your pin, either from your pin or from someone who’s pinned it that’s called a re-pin. You get weekly emails from Pinterest telling you how many repins you’ve had. I’ve had a huge increase in the last few months in my repins since using Boardbooster, I get about 500 a week (more about Boardbooster later). They’ll also have it bookmarked to visit again. On my blog analytics, my Pinterest referrals can be from all over the world, meaning they’ve been re-pinned from the original pin. It all leads back to you. Plus, you can also pin affiliate links with a bit of care – add your affiliate link using the add website function, add a good description with keywords – you must also disclose it as an affiliate link. So, how do you get your pins noticed and saved?  How do you grow a Pinterest following? That is what I’ll be covering here.

#1 Setting up your Pinterest account

Set up your account with your blog name, make it a business account (it’s free) so you can get insights into which pins are performing well and analytics. There are also analytics within Pinterest, they show you your most popular pins and their click through rate. It’s no good having the most popular pin if nobody actually clicks through to your site. Don’t put all the information on the pin. Give them a reason, perhaps add a read more text or graphic at the bottom of the image, or ask them to read or click through in the description – this is called your Call to Action (CTA). If you use Pinterest personally, just make your personal boards secret, no-one will see them. Mine vary from my own pins to pins of others. Choose your image,  which should be your logo or a nice clear photo of you. Ideally you should use the same across all your social media and blog to keep it consistent. Make sure you include your website link. Pay particular attention to the description, remember it’s a search engine. Tell users what your blog and Pinterest account is about, what they can expect to find. Add boards, the top one being My blog posts, or Posts from (insert blog name) so people can see your posts first. Make the board topics relevant to your niche and try to make them interesting, there are hundreds of boards with titles like Cake or Parenting tips. Try Amazing cakes to try or Parenting Hacks and Tips instead. Get creative, but remember you need the keywords in the board name and description. Don’t forget to edit each board with a custom image, description and category. Use those keywords again that people are searching for. Some people like a really consistent look with each pin looking basically the same design with slight variations on the background image and titles, I’m more for variety but I tend to stick to the same fonts and overlays.

What is a Pin?

The pin is any image from your website, a youtube video, anything that has an image attached. You can also pin Instagram photos, just copy the share link and add to Pinterest. If you use Chrome, add the Pinterest extension and you can Pin from anywhere on the web. You can also add a website or image directly in Pinterest.

#2 Making a Pinnable Image

The optimum pin size is approximately 735 x 1102 px. You can make it longer than that but stick to the width. A lot of people view on a mobile device remember, and if you make it too long they will have to expand it to view it all and many won’t bother, so if you do that don’t out the key part of the image at the bottom. Use Canva to make a pinnable image, you can upload your own photos or use their designs. Some are free and some cost $1. You can use Picmonkey too, either a collage which you can spin vertically or you can set your own dimensions. 735 wide and a minimum of 1100 long. Have a look at what others are doing, what catches your eye, what makes you click on a pin and have a play around. I love designing images and pins. I’m a lot quicker at it now than I was! Both Canva and Picmonkey have free and premium options, I’ve never needed them, but I have paid for some images on Canva. I’m tempted to use the premium picmonkey, as it gives you lots more options. If I think a post is really suited to Pinterest, I’ll make the featured image the pinnable image, if I think it’s more for Facebook or Twitter, I’ll use the Twitter card size or Facebook post size (see my Twitter tips for info on cards) for the featured image and then put the pinnable image in the body of the post with a heading ‘Pin me for later.’ A lot of bloggers do this for all their posts. Another way if you don’t want the Pinterest friendly image on your blog post is to upload the image directly to Pinterest with it’s own description and URL. You can also hide the image within the post so it only comes up when the pin it button is pressed. Make sure you have a Pin it button enabled on your site, I have a plugin and my theme does it too.

Pin it for later! (made on Canva using a free image from Kaboompics)

#3 Look for group boards

Group boards are great for getting your content out to a wider audience, particularly if they have a large following. There’s nothing to stop you setting one up either and inviting people to collaborate, when you set up a board there’s an option to add collaboraters, just check this option and get inviting. I started doing group seasonal boards and they’re really popular now, I have Christmas, Valentines Day, Easter and Halloween.  I also host the UK Parent Bloggers one. If you’re not sure where to find them then there are some Facebook groups to join, I’m in Pinterest Group Boards, where you can answer calls to be added or post your own group board to get collaborators. Why not start your own group board? All you have to do is in the board settings, add collaborators and get inviting. Put in the board description your contact details if people want to be added and a few rules if you want. My rules just state that maximum 3 pins a day, bloggers only and try and re-pin others content when you can. If you don’t set a few ground rules and take a look at it once in a while you can run into problems. People can pin loads of content all at once, pin inappropriate or poor quality pins so it does take a bit of work, but it can be rewarding. You gain followers (people have to follow you to be added), you get more content pinned to your boards and people will hopefully re-pin some of your pins. See below for how to use Boardbooster to find group boards with high amounts of followers and engagement.

#4 Follow other pinners

First off, find your Facebook and Twitter friends that are on Pinterest and follow them. If you know of any pinners and bloggers you like, follow them too. Search for other pinners in your niche and follow them. Most will follow back or at least take a look at you. Each day or when you can, have a search and follow a few. Take a look at a blogger you admire that has a lot of followers and look at their followers, follow those that interest you. You could just blanket follow their followers but then you’ll probably end up with a weird Pinterest feed. When you start pinning, Pinterest will suggest you follow the pinner who’s pinned it or where it’s from. (Hint, you can find my Pinterest account here). You have the option to follow individual boards or the pinner, so all their boards.

#5 Use a tool that will help you pin and re-pin your content

When I started using Pinterest as a blogger, I couldn’t understand how some people were pinning loads per day and following hundreds of people per day. Then I found out they’re using software to do it for them. There are a few around, with Boardbooster and Tailwind being the most popular. I use Boardbooster, I pay $5 a month (around £4) and it’s well worth it. It means when I post my blog posts to Pinterest, I can stagger it over a few days. Once you have several boards and group boards plus your blog posts board, you’ll find that your blog post will fit into several boards. If you pin it all at once to several different boards, your followers will get 10 of the same pins come up in their feed, making it look spammy and they’re more likely to unfollow you. You do want to pin your post to every relevant board, and Boardbooster takes the hard work out of staggering it (and remembering) over a few days. You can choose your settings and change them around to see what works. There’s a free trial for your first 100 pins so you can see if it’s going to work for you.

How I use Boardbooster

Scheduler

I use the scheduler function for the boards that fit directly in with my blog categories. I have 30 boards set up on Boardbooster scheduler to make 75 pins a day. You’ve got to like pinning! There are 2 ways to keep it topped up: For the dedicated strategist, set some time aside each week or at set intervals and fill up all your secret boards ready to be scheduled according to your plan. Boardbooster creates reports for you so you can see when people are re-pinning your content and what they’re re-pinning so you can constantly refine and adjust your schedules for optimum performance. For the more relaxed among us and more winging it types (me), I do it whenever I have a few minutes, usually at a playgroup, early morning in bed, on the toilet, if I’m in the car (not driving), whenever I fancy. Sometimes I’ll dedicate some time specifically to it and then not do it for a few days. It’s up to you.

There are Basic and Advanced scheduling, plus you choose one or less pins or multiple pins per day. The Basic option gives you one pinning window where you set the times in between you want Boardbooster to schedule the pins. For example, you can set 3 pins to pin between 9am and 5pm. In the Advanced function, you can set 2 pinning windows, like morning and evening and different options for weekdays and weekends. If you’re using this option don’t forget to set the settings on the weekend days too. You get an email giving you a summary of how many pins they’ve made and who re-pinned what. It also lets you know if any alerts, ie if you’re behind in your scheduling. If you’re falling behind a lot, don’t get stressed by it, either rethink your strategy and change the amount of pins you need or dedicate some more time to it. In blogging, it’s all about finding what works for you, there’s no point trying to be everything, you can only do so much. At the same time, it does take work.

Campaigns

When pinning my own content, I use the campaign function mostly and occasionally scheduler too. I like to pin my posts manually, rather than using an app, so I have control over the image and description. I first pin it to my blog posts board which will get seen straight away. You can use a scheduler secret board if you want them always to go out at a set time. Then, I have a campaign board set up that then pins the post to all my group boards over a few days – you set the times and days to post to them. I stagger it over a few days so I don’t have all the same pins at once, then the scheduled pins also break it up. I have it set to 2 pins a day, over 6 days for my 9 group boards I’m a member of currently.

Looping

Not for the new blogger, you need to have a fair amount of posts for this to help, I suggest at least 100. You can add as many boards as you like, start with your blog posts board and see how it goes. I have my blog posts one, my Parenting and Baby Tips and my Blog tips boards on looping. My blog posts loop a pin once a day (so every day it re-pins an old blog pin), the others are one every 2 days. Boardbooster will also tell you your average re-pin rate and how many pins you have on each board.

Other functions of Boardbooster to note

If you’d like to find some group boards in your niche with lots of followers, just ask Boardbooster! Go to Reports – group boards to join and choose your category, it then shows you the top 100 group boards in that category. Click through to Pinterest and if they don’t have direct instructions or a contact in the description, look at the URL and it’ll show you the person’s username who created it, go to them and send them a message pitching to join the group. Follow them, make sure you are relevant and can provide them with quality pins, read the rules and stick to them.

You can delay new pins that are among the 10 most recent ones on the board, and you can set a minimum interval for re-posting a pin to the same board starting at 5 days.

At the moment I’m on their basic plan at $5 a month for 500 pins, but I’m probably going to have to move up to the $10 for 1000 pins a month soon – if you do the maths, 500 pins a month in an average 30 day month is 17 pins a day and I’m exceeding that. They allow for some seasonal bursts but if you do it regularly they’ll ask you to upgrade. Once you sign up to Boarbooster you can then refer people like I do, then you can get $5 credited per referral which offsets your expense.

Pin Doctor

Pin Doctor will test pins on your boards, identify 9 common problems like broken links and content duplication, and help you fix them. Pin Doctor charges a penny a pin. You can order a test for just a few boards, and limit the test to the most recent pins.

Pin Mover

Pin Mover helps you split or clean up large boards. It finds all pins that match your criteria and moves them to a board that you specify. The first order is FREE. The following orders charge a penny a pin based on the number of pins moved. Basically you can find the top performing pins, including yours and move them to a new board, e.g The Best Parenting Pins on Pinterest.

Group Manager

If you manage Group Boards, this tool allows you to monitor them, perform a cleanup by deleting pins with low or zero re-pins.

Pin Sourcer

If you don’t have time but have the budget (my dream), get Boardbooster to source quality pins for you.

Tailwind

I’ve not long started using Tailwind and already it’s yielding big results. Mainly the Tribes feature. They’re basically the same as group boards, and it’s seen my repin rate go right up. It also saves your pins that you’ve put on pinterest so you can repin them again. All the tribe pins are easily scheduled at set intervals. I decided to set up my own tribe Parenting and Pregnancy Bloggers, which you’re welcome to join. You can find other tribes to join by doing a quick search on you guessed it, Pinterest. They’re largely american but that’s where the big players are. I started a free trial then I got some referral free credit so I’m still not paying for it, (it’s $15 a month) but I plan on carrying it on as it’s proved worth it for the extra traffic it’s bringing in. You can continue to use the tribes for free. Tailwind is pretty user friendly to use, it looks the same as pinterest, it also prompts you to finish any outstanding descriptions and fill in your profile. Remember those key words!

#6 Enable Rich Pins

This can seem daunting, but it’s a must if you’re going to succeed at Pinterest. They’re pins that have a bit more information on, they display your chosen favicon and make it easier for people to follow you when they see your pin and save it, even when it’s re-pinned. It also pulls the meta data from your post – don’t get scared about that, either, it’s just your meta description. It also makes that button that says Read it! or Make it! and has your name in bold. I delayed it for ages, but it turns out it was easy! If you’re on WordPress, all you have to do is make sure you have the Yoast Plugin, which is really useful for SEO too. Go to SEO > Social > Facebook and make sure the “Add Open Graph meta data” box is checked. That’s it, really! Then, go to Pinterest to their Rich Pins Validator, enter your page details (any post), make sure the information is correct and click validate and then you’ll hear back. I heard within a couple of days and sooner with my second blog. With this blog, I had to make sure some code was added in the head portion of my blog which was blocking it, but that was easily fixed. If you’re on Blogger, check out this post for the code you need, that’s also where I found out how to do it on WordPress.

#7 Regularly check your pins and don’t be afraid to delete

Don’t be afraid to delete any pins that aren’t getting re-pinned, even your own content. Some posts just don’t do very well on Pinterest, and maybe better on another site like Facebook or Twitter. Don’t be too hasty, especially if you’re new and don’t have a big following yet. You can always re-pin.

I think that’s it! If you have any questions, feel free to ask me, I got help when I started out and I still ask when I run into issues. If you found this post useful, why not share it, or Pin it! If you’re a parent blogger come join my Facebook group Parent blogs? See you there…

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