One of the pleasant surprises for my blog in 2021 was Pinterest. It went from bringing very little traffic in 2020 to being my number one source of views in 2021. Many bloggers struggle with Pinterest. When I tell other bloggers about my success, they often ask what my strategy is. If you’re just figuring out how to use Pinterest for your blog, read on for my best Pinterest tips for bloggers.

Let me be honest right up front. I hear of bloggers creating hundreds of fresh pins a week. Then I hear them complaining when Pinterest flags their account as spam. Well—how could it not be spam? Who has enough original content to pin hundreds of pins a week? I don’t have the time or the energy to create that many pins. The strategy that has worked for me is a lot less time-consuming. That’s why I think it’s achievable for any blogger.

This is not a paid review of any of the products mentioned.

Let’s start by taking a step back…

I started out doing Pinterest all wrong

There are a lot of self-proclaimed Pinterest experts out there. I’m not one of them. I’ve learned a lot from trial and error—mostly error if I’m totally honest.

When I started my blog, I heard Pinterest was a big deal for bloggers but I didn’t have a clue what it was all about. Feeling like I should do something, I created a Pinterest board for my blog posts. Every time I published a post, I would just go in and pin it to my Pinterest account with no thought to the size or type of image I was pinning.

Knowing that other bloggers were getting thousands, or even millions, of blog views from Pinterest, I waited…and waited…and waited. In 2019, I got a grand total of 22 views from Pinterest. I was clearly doing something wrong.

Early in 2020, I learned that I wasn’t doing Pinterest the right way at all. I discovered there was a preferred size for a Pinterest image, and that you could go in and create a pin directly on Pinterest with a title and description and a link to your post. It sounds so silly now but it was a revelation for me!

Armed with that new information, I started creating pins “the right way”. I also did more research on Pinterest strategies for bloggers. Pinterest started to bring me some blog views but growth was slow.  

A new Pinterest strategy

In the middle of 2020, I committed to creating three new pins a day—every day. Yes, just three pins a day was all it took to turn Pinterest into my number one source of blog traffic.

There are many ways to measure success on Pinterest. While it’s interesting to look at the number of impressions or views on Pinterest, my goal is to drive traffic to my blog. That’s why I use the number of blog page views coming from Pinterest as my measure of success.  

That almost-embarrassing 22 blog page views in 2019, turned into a modest 886 page views in 2020, then exploded to around 10,000 in 2021.

My best Pinterest tips for bloggers

Here are my best Pinterest tips for bloggers based on what has worked for me.

Set up your Pinterest account correctly

Before you start pinning, there are a few administrative things you need to do. I’m not going to go into the technical details of how to do these tasks because there are hundreds of posts out there that explain all this way better than I can. A quick search will teach you how to:

• create a Pinterest business account (or convert your existing account to a business account)
• set up your profile
• claim your blog domain
• set up your Pinterest account for rich pins

With the technical details out of the way, you’re ready to get started.

Research keywords

Pinterest is an awesome place to find answers to questions, and tips to help you get something done. Unlike other social media platforms where posts have a very short lifespan, pins can drive traffic to your blog months, or even years, after you create them.

That’s why it’s important to research the terms people are searching for. It will help you create powerful pin descriptions, and effective names for your boards.

If you need a little inspiration, go to trends.pinterest.com. It will show you the current hot trending search terms. You can also type a search term and it will show you many people have searched for that term over time.

Another way to research keywords is to simply type a term into the search bar on Pinterest. For example, if you’re writing a post with blogging tips, start typing “blogging” into the search bar and a list of commonly searched terms will appear. This will give you key words to use in your pin descriptions.

Create your boards and start pinning

First, create a board where you can pin all your blog posts. But don’t stop there. Your boards help people who look at your Pinterest page to find what they’re looking for. Create a board for all the categories you write about on your blog.

If you blog about a specific niche, set up several boards related to that niche. This will let you save multiple pins for the same blog post. For example, I have boards for Green Living, Less Waste Living, Sustainable Living and Eco-Friendly Living. When I write a post on an environmental topic, I create pins for all four boards.

When you create your boards, you’ll give each a name and a description. You might be tempted to get cute with the name but it’s best to stick with a term people will search for. As for the description, this is where your keyword research comes in handy. It will tell people what they will find on the board so include keywords related to the content you’ll put on the board.

Eventually, you’ll pin your own original pins to your boards. Since that won’t happen overnight, get searching and pin related content to your board. This will give anyone who finds your boards something to look at until you fill the boards with your own spectacular pins.

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Design fresh pins that perform

Creating pins can be time consuming but a tool like Canva makes the job a whole lot easier. If you’re not using Canva yet, sign up for your free account today. It makes it easy for non-designers to create professional-looking images.

You can do a lot with the free version but the paid version Canva Pro is worth every penny if only for the millions of images it gives you access to. It has saved me so much time searching multiple sites for the right images for my blog posts.

Once you’ve set up your Canva account, you can start creating beautiful pins. Let’s look at some pin design tips I’ve picked up along the way.

Pin design tips

• Make your pins the right size. The current preferred pin size for Pinterest is 1000 x 1500 px.
• Use templates to make pin creation easier. I have 10-15 templates I use for all my pins. You can create your own templates or one of the hundreds of pre-formatted templates in Canva. When I was learning about Pinterest and Canva, I connected with Yolanda from Full Circle Digital on Facebook who gave me some helpful feedback on my pins. I downloaded some of her free Pinterest templates and invested a small amount of money to buy some additional templates from her. It was money well spent.
• Choose a quality image. Pinterest is a visual platform so make sure you use an image that complements the content you’re linking to.
• Make your text stand out. Most people use a mobile device to scroll through Pinterest. Make sure your text is easily read on mobile.
• Always include your blog URL in the image to prevent people from stealing your pin.
• Write a pin description that includes keywords based on what people are searching for related to your topic. The best performing pins solve a problem or answer a question. Include a call to action in your description like “Check out my post for…” or “Click through to learn more about…”.

Here are my best performing pins in recent months. The first is a new pin I created a couple of months ago to promote one of my 2020 Christmas posts. The second is a pin from 2020 that has been bringing traffic to my blog every day for over a year.  

You’ll notice the pins are quite different in design. That’s why it’s important to experiment with different designs and keywords. The stocking stuffer pin was one of several I created for the same post, using the same keywords and description. What made it work? Maybe the large image made people take a closer look. (Note to self for future pin creation.)

Interestingly, the success of these pins made those two blog posts from 2020 my top performing blog posts of 2021.

Plan and schedule pins in advance

I use a simple spreadsheet to plan my Pinterest calendar 10 days at a time. For every new blog post, I create several pins for different boards, and spread them out over a week or two after the post goes live.

Then, I fill in the slots in my Pinterest calendar with fresh pins for older posts. I find that works really well for seasonal content—especially in the couple of months before Christmas.

I manually schedule my pins on Pinterest. There are applications like Tailwind to make scheduling easier but I can do what I need to without them.

Make it easy for readers to pin your blog post

When a reader finds one of your blog posts, you want to make it really easy for them to pin it to one of their boards. There’s nothing worse for me than when I try to pin a page and there’s no image that works for Pinterest.

I include at least one Pinterest-optimized image in every blog post. It’s usually my favourite of the new pin images I created for the post.

Another way to make it easy is to install a plugin that will show a floating “Pin It” button when the user hovers over an image. I use the free Weblizar PinIt Button on Image Hover and Post plugin for WordPress. You can see it in the top left corner of the image below.

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Ultimately, success on Pinterest comes down to trial and error, consistency, and a lot of patience. Not every pin will go viral and it will take time to see traffic to your blog. But, stick with it and you will see results.

I hope this post was helpful to you. Feel free to snoop around in my Pinterest account to get a better sense of how I set things up.

What strategies have worked for you on Pinterest? Tell us your tips below.