*This post may contain affiliate links. Please read the full disclosure here. 

*This post contains affiliate links. Please read full disclosure here.

If you are a new blogger or someone that has been blogging but never really used Pinterest to promote your blog, this is for you.

I am going to show you how to get started with Pinterest, create boards and Pinterest images and increase blog traffic.

These are Pinterest marketing tips explained in plain English, with a strategy that works.

How can I say these tips work?

Because I was able to bring my Pinterest reach to over a million in just 8 months blogging, reached over 5,500 organic Pinterest followers and the important bit – had incredible traffic conversion from Pinterest!

Below is the statistics to one of my pin images that brought over 4,000 views to my blog – and that’s just ONE pin!

I am going to take you through the exact steps I took to get here.

I understand Pinterest is ever changing but is still an evergreen source of traffic that works great for new bloggers.

You can send a pin out once and if it’s your best performing one it can bring you traffic and sales even 6 months down the line.

But to get this right, you would need to first address the basics. If you have been doing it wrong, then its time to start “cleaning up” your Pinterest account, which might take you a few days. But laying your foundation right is essential for Pinterest success.

I was once the blogger that had my business account set up, website claimed and rich pins set up.
And I thought I had done it all. But it doesn’t stop here.
Note: Those are three essential basic steps, and if you haven’t already done them, now is the time to do it.
Apart from the technical set-up, you still need to create neat looking pins, place relevant keywords, increase your Pinterest presence and share your pins following a few little strategies.

First, let’s create some boards.

You will need to create personal boards, and join some group boards to start pinning. And a board with only your Blog pins in it.

Pinterest boards

You can drag and drop your boards to arrange them in the order you like. Take a quick look at my Pinterest profile here to get an idea how it looks.

The first board should be your own BLOG board. I named mine – One Fine Wallet. Here I share only my own pins.

The next set of boards are my personal boards- Boards I created relevant to my niche. So for me, its work from home, blogging and money making boards.

And finally you have your group boards.

Personal boards are the boards YOU create and everytime you pin to it, your followers get a chance to see it. Group boards are boards SOMEONE else creates, but if you join one, you can share your pin and THEIR followers get to see your pins too. So if you have 200 followers. Everytime you share a pin your 200 followers stand a chance to see it. And if you join a group board with 10,000 followers- then 10k people get to see it.

This is when joining right group boards help your traffic. Don’t worry if you don’t get accepted into group boards as a new blogger. There is a way to deal with this and will explain it to you later in the post.

Before you start your pinning make sure you have your keywords in place. You don’t need to be an expert at this. It’s pretty simple.

You hit a few keywords in the Pinterest search bar and just below it you see a list of words that pinners are using to search for something on Pinterest. Below, I have listed 4 places your keywords need to show up.

If someone on pinterest was searching for a vegan brownie recipe. You want your pin to show up right at the top of their search results. The only way Pinterest will find you is if you “tell them”. You can let Pinterest know what your pin is about if you add the right keywords in the right places.

Pinterest sizing and board covers

Right now the recommended size is 600 x 900px and anything longer than 1260px seems to be cut on the feed. I usually do my pins with a 600 x 1200px dimension. I still believe longer pins perform better – atleast in my case my best pins have been the long ones.

Board covers – I honestly wouldn’t worry too much about it. But if you are keen to create one, size them at 500 x 500 on canva. Creating boards covers can sometimes be time consuming – especially because you are trying to design and brand your pins. I got carried away doing this and spent a whole week designing and re-designing before I was fully satisfied.

Now back to the keywords.

Keywords

Where do you place them? Lets start from the top.

1. Profile name

2. Bio description

3. Personal board description

4. Pin descriptions

When you are adding your keywords, try not to ONLY add keywords without forming a meaningful sentence. Here is an example.

#1. PIN DESCRIPTION:

Keyword stuffed pin description – cure common cold | cold | home remedies | cold remedies | treat cold.

People friendly pin description– In 10 easy ways you will learn how to cure common cold with simple home remedies

You want to place as much keywords as you can. But to a common pinner that is reading your pin description- they might be put off by what you write, if its only a bunch of words.

Remember you are writing for Pinterest to find you and for People to like you. You need to balance this out in your pin description. You can’t take sides here.

#2. PROFILE NAME:

Your bio profile description should also be in plain English WITH your Keywords.

But.

#3. PROFILE NAME & #4. BOARD DESCRIPTION:

You can stuff keywords in your personal board description and your profile name. Yes. Add as many RELEVANT keywords as you like and this is good.

Why?

Because everytime you add a pin to one of your OWN boards, each pin you add pulls the keywords from that board telling Pinterest what that pin is about.

Say I have a pin about blueberry vegan muffin and add it to 2 of my OWN boards – muffin board and vegan breakfast board. Pinterest now understands this and everytime someone searched for,

Muffins, Vegan, Vegan breakfast, or Blueberry, your pin might show up especially if it’s doing well.


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Pinteret still not working?

Now if you have set your boards right, keyworded your Pinterest profile, pin images and board descriptions and yet no result – take a look at your pin images.

I cannot stress how your pin images can be hurting your blog traffic. If your images are not neat and visually appealing, you are at a huge loss. Your efforts of researching and strategically inserting keywords are a big fail.

My traffic doubled in a week after swapping poor images for high quality ones. I was using the free version of Canva along with free stock photos. I still use free stock photos, but I invested in Picmonkey as there are a lot more features to play around with. From creating transparent backgrounds, resizing images, creating hidden text, adding glitter text and so much more.

Take time with each pin image you create, this is what is going to make your post a winner.

You can check out Picmonkey here with a free 7-day trial to create some stunning pin visuals and see the difference.

Quick recap!

Re-check your Keywords

Here’s where you check,

1. In your bio – Is it friendly and has keywords incorporated that flows like a sentence?
2. Is your board description and profile name well keyworded – This doesnt need to be in a sentence format. You can have JUST your keywords here.
3. Do each of the pins from your blog/website have high ranking keywords. Are your PIN descriptions keyworded as a sentence?
4. Are all your own boards and group boards relevant to your niche, and not the SHARE ALL pins type of boards. If yes – you can either chose to leave the group or not pin to them.

If you have created any of your own boards that are not relevant to your blog you can just make it a secret board. This way no one else sees it and you can bring it back any time without having to delete it.

What to do if you dont get accepted into group boards as a new blogger>

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If you are looking to make your first $1,000 blogging I wrote this guide that will help you make sales through affiliate marketing and show you how to create stunning pin images that will result in more click throughs.

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