When you talk to online business owners, most will say that they have 2-3 main sources of traffic to their website - organic traffic from search engines such as Google (hello, SEO!), connecting with people on social media in places like Facebook Groups, and Pinterest.
So, how do you use Pinterest to drive traffic to your website?
The most important thing to know about Pinterest before we go any further is that it isn’t a social media site, it’s a visual search engine. We want to create and share content that encourages people to click through to your website (or anywhere else you want to send them). The idea is that you pin images that relate to your content, products and services and use keywords in the pin descriptions then, when someone searches for the relevant term, your pin appears in the search results.
So let’s jump right in and explore how to use Pinterest as part of your business marketing strategy.
And if the idea of another platform to create content for makes you break out in a cold sweat, there are helpful people (*Ahem* hello) who offer templates, set up and done for you services
WHAT DO I PIN?
Sitting down at your laptop and opening Pinterest for the first time can feel overwhelming. There’s so much content on there already - where do you even start when it comes to pinning?!
There are lots of different types of content that you can pin including:
You original content
Your main goal with Pinterest is to drive traffic to your website and eventually work with you or buy from you. And the easiest way to do that is to share your own content such as blog posts, podcast episodes, freebies and even your paid products and services.
There are lots of different ways you can share your content on Pinterest:
Static image pins
Static image pins with text overlay
GIF pins
Video pins
Idea Pins
Infographics
Remember: Create multiple pins for each thing you want to share. For example, for each blog post you share on Pinterest, create 5-7 pins.
Other peoples’ pins
Be strategic about what content you repin from other people. Find out what appeals to your audience and focus on resharing that type of content. For example, I know that my audience are largely online business owners and they love seeing home office inspiration posts on Pinterest!
Re-pinning content from others, even if it’s not on a topic that you and your business focus on specifically, will help you become a go-to resource for things that your ideal audience want and need.
Take a look at what’s popular on your homepage and what comes up when you search for topics you know that your audience will love.
If you need a hand getting set up with an account don't forget my free Pinterest Checklist to help you get organised!
GETTING THE CLICK
Creating the pin is one thing, as is appearing in the search results for relevant terms but how do you actually get people to click on your pin (and eventually to your website) when there are hundreds and thousands of results?
There are a few key factors that will help you stand out from the crowd:
The pin image - make sure that the image is eye catching but not too busy. You don’t want the image to distract from any text you have on your pin (see below). For some industries/niches, product images work really well, for example, images of food for recipes, the finished product for DIY craft projects, etc. For other industries, such as coaches, SEO experts, etc. stock photos work well.
The pin headline - these are the words you put on the pin (if you want to use words). Make sure the font is easy to read and the text is a large size - we want it to be super easy for people to be able to read what the pin is all about as they are scrolling through the results page. Keep the headline simple and straight to the point.
The pin description - this is the text that goes alongside your pin and is visible once someone has clicked onto the pin. This will give Pinterest users a little more information than the pin itself and should end with a call to action for them to click the link. It’s great practice to include keywords in your description to help your content get discovered but don’t go overboard! You want your descriptions to make sense!
Experiment with different styles of pins and different lengths of captions to see what performs well.
Which leads me nicely on to…
WHAT METRICS TO FOCUS ON
When you log into your Pinterest account, there are a few prominent metrics on your dashboard - monthly views and follower count.
Monthly views is one of these so it’s logical to think that it’s an important metric that you should track. In addition to this, we see lots of people celebrating milestones such as reaching a million monthly views which makes us think this is definitely a metric we should be tracking and working towards improving.
But the reality is that it tells you very little about how your account is actually performing.
The monthly views metric includes everything in your account, including content you have pinned from other people. It also doesn’t take into consideration what action people took. You may be getting 2.3 million monthly views but if none of those people are clicking on the pins or continuing through to your website, those figures aren’t very useful.
In a similar vein, your follower count doesn’t matter too much either!
Instead, focus on which of your pins are performing well in terms of people clicking through to your website - after all, that’s the end goal!
In the Analytics menu option, select Overview. Now you’ll see a snapshot of all the information for your account. Along the left-hand side menu, there’s an option to select just your own website - select that to cut out any content from other people. Because it is nice but we don’t need it for analysis.
Now you will see your impressions for all of the pins associated with your account. But that’s not telling you about people going to your site. For that, we need to change the option on the drop-down menu to ‘Outbound clicks’.
The figure that appears and the line on the graph shows how many people are going to your website from Pinterest each day. That’s the most important metric to track!
EXPERIMENT AND HAVE FUN!
This is something I don’t see many people talk about when it comes to Pinterest marketing for business owners.
Whilst the strategy and knowing what is working well is an important part of Pinterest marketing, it’s also important to remember that people will be drawn to what they like on Pinterest (it is a visual platform after all!) and there’s no set formula for what people in your audience will be drawn to.
Experiment with different pin styles and create content that you enjoy creating - if creating pin content feels boring, you’re much less likely to stick with it and Pinterest is definitely a long game!
If you'd like to follow me over on Pinterest my account is here
My free Pinterest Pin Templates can be found here
And my Checklist to set up your account can be found here
Last but by no means least... My Pinterest Packages are here!