How to use Pinterest to grow your blog

Pinterest is not just for food bloggers or DIY-ers. Whatever you blog about you can make Pinterest work for you and your target audience. 

You just need to develop a strategy that works for you. If you are struggling to grow you following on Pinterest, or just starting out then our helpful tips will help you in developing a great strategy for success. 

Pinterest is by a long way the biggest referral site to SavingScotts and has been for some time. If you are looking to develop blogging into a side-hustle then tapping into the gold mine that is pinterest is a must. Despite this I had seen very little growth on Pinterest in the beginning of 2016. 

Pinterest is a valuable resource for bloggers and a great way to reach your target audience,  and if your are looking to make your blog a success then developing a successful Pinterest strategy is key.  Knowing this I knew something about how I was engaging with Pinterest needed to change.

Over the past month (July) my goal for the month was to get really intense and focus on refining my Pinterest strategy. I set myself key elements to focus on and stay consistent with throughout the month and the results speak for themselves. 

Since the start of June we have gone from getting 20,000 viewers and 600 engaged (avg monthly) to 105,000 viewers and 3500 engaged. 

There were a number of elemments to the strategy we explored in order to get these results.

1. The Basics

Refining your profile is one of the first basic steps to improving your Pinterest experience. There are three simple steps you can take to make your profile instantly more professional.  

A. Profile Picture
This sounds so simple but think about it, how many times have you followed someone on Pinterest who has no profile picture at all? Probably not to many times. 

Having a profile picture of your rather than a logo makes Pinterest feel like a more personal experience for your followers. It makes it seem less corporation and more girl-next-door which instantly means your less likely to be spam selling.

B. Get verified + business account

Verify your website to your Pinterest account to allow PinterestAnalytics to track your Pins (available for free business account). 

Analytics is a great essential tool to help you better understand how you are performing on Pinterest and areas that can be improved. Using analytics when implementing a strategy is key to assessing its success and a must have for any blogger. 

C. Have consistency with your board covers

Whilst they don't all have to be matching, coordination even by colour scheme can go a long way for consistency and continuity. I makes it clear you have a brand and that you are more than just a 'regular' pinner. I currently have some simple text board covers that I made in photoshop that state the boards name. 

2. Pinning Success

A. Ensure all your pins are Pinterest ready. 
You may have heard of this idea before that certain images work better on pinterest. This is because of how their algorithms organise the layout on someones screen. 
Pinterest works best with taller and narrower pins. There are set optimal dimensions for a pin which are 735 x 1105 pixels.

To save time I keep a template in Photoshop in this size that I use to edit Pinterest pictures quickly and easily. 

Another element to having optimal pins is developing a 'blog pin' style. You want to develop a consistent style that is associated with your blog 

I have a pre-made template that I use for all my blog posts that has the two fonts I always use, the URL at the bottom and a semi-opaque box for behind the text for clarity. 

B. Schedule Pins

Nobody has the time to pin 24/7. Trying to pin manually is time consuming and will leave you feeling frustrated.  
Previously I was doing all my pinning manually this invariably meant that there would be days with loads and others where I would forget. Also I meant I wouldn't be do using on at what time I was pinning and whether this was the optimal time to reach my audience. 

I started using BoardBooster a couple of months ago and love it. It has massively increased the productivity in my pinning time.
I have the scheduling feature set up, whereby I pin to a secret board what will be pinned later. I generally try to keep the boards stocked so that I am only pinning to them once or twice a week. 

I love that I can pre-set when the pins go 'live' this is especially key if you live in a non-USA time zone. Most users of Pinterest are based in the USA and as such optimal times are dominated by them. Manually pinning to hit this times was unrealistic. 

On my blog board "best of SavingScotts" I have looping where old images are looped to the top of the board again (and the old one deleted to avoid duplicates). This means that old blog posts are not allowed to go 'stagnant'. I will also try to tweet about the post that has been looped as my post of the day. 

Finally I have a campaign set up to pin from my blog board to certain group boards I am members of. This takes the hassle out of organising pins to these boards. By using a campaign from my blog board it ensure that all the pins I send to group boards are ones I have created for my blog. 

Whilst BoardBooster is a paid service it is super affordable (I'm on the $5 a month plan) and 100% worth the amount of time it saves you through automation of pins. If your not sure why not sign up for a free trial and see for yourself how it could be a game changer for your Pinterest strategy. Its analytics also allow you to see the best times to pin and allow you to break this down to both weekday and weekend (and you can schedule different times for these days).

C. Be wise in who you follow
With my account having been used previously as a personal account,  I was following several pincers who were of no relevance to my blog and so I took the time to unfollow them. 

The people you follow should be because they pin relevant images and are a great resource. So don't be afraid to to unfollow some less revenant profiles. 

Instead I began following people in my blogging niche who are active on Pinterest (have recent pinning activity)  and have at least 1000 followers.

D. Join Group Boards

Posting on group boards relevant to you topic niche can be a great way to gain exposure to so many more readers as these boards are likely to have a lot more followers than you. Try to join groups with reasonable re-pin rates 3+ for the best possible chance of success. 

I love using PinGroupie to search for Pinterest group. It's important to remember the most Pinterest group boards have rules one what they allow you to post so it is always a great idea to be aware of these rules, as the last thing you want is to be kicked out of a group

Which of these strategies do you find most helpful in developing your traffic on Pinterest? Got any other tips share them in the comments below. 

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