How to get more website traffic from Pinterest!

Between 2021 and 2022, the number of users and businesses on the Pinterest platform grew by over 50%.

Making Pinterest one of the most popular, FREE ways to share ideas, get inspiration, sell products and drive unlimited traffic to websites, blogs, online stores, and other social media platforms.

The cool thing about Pinterest is once a pin is on the platform, it’s there for LIFE! This pin is over THREE years old and this month alone has sent me nearly 2K website visits! 

Like Instagram, Facebook, and TikTok, Pinterest is an ever-changing platform, which can be frustrating. Especially for seasoned Pinterest users such as myself, who have been on the platform for nearly a decade.

It seems new changes are often being made, and we content creators constantly have to flex and change up how we are pinning.

And while it can be a bit daunting at times to have a strategy that worked so well for a while suddenly stop working, these changes are for the better, which we have been able to see in the form of user growth on the platform.

While Pinterest is a great place to promote and share content, getting that desired click can be more challenging. Many Pinterest marketers out there tend to make it seem like it’s an easy feat to drive 1,000’s of page views to your blog almost overnight. And when that doesn’t happen, it’s pretty easy to want to throw in the towel and give up.

I get it.

However, I am here to give you some realistic tips on how to get more traffic from Pinterest because it is possible! I average 80,000+ views to my site monthly from the platform. And with the RIGHT tips and a decent amount of effort, you can also start driving free traffic to your site!

Let’s get a quick rundown on how Pinterest works.

Which you may already know, but it can’t hurt to revisit!

Pinterest is a search engine. And while it has many social media aspects, first and foremost, it is a search engine. It pulls from SEO and places content in front of the right audience based on the keywords you use to optimize your pin and the keywords other users are searching for.

It has an algorithm that decides how valuable your content is based on your pin imaging, the keywords you use to optimize your pin, the boards your pin is being pinned to, and how much engagement that pin specific pin is getting.

The Pinterest algorithm favors relevancy. It wants to see your pins being saved to relevant boards. For example, recipe pins to recipe boards, travel pins to travel boards, etc.

The better your content is optimized and pinned correctly, the higher of a chance it has to appear in front of the right users when specific keywords are searched.

Sadly, your reach has nothing to do with clicks. As much as other Pinterest Marketers like to focus on that, I am here to break the bad news and let you know that your monthly views are simply a vanity number.

Yes, the more users you reach, the better! But, pin engagement no longer boosts reach as it used to, which is a big bummer. And just because a pin has reached 2K people doesn’t necessarily mean they even saw it. It just means it appeared in a 2K home feeds. They could have scrolled right by it without even noticing it.

So the question stands, how do you get more clicks?

I pride myself on being EXTREMELY transparent when it comes to Pinterest traffic to my clients and my students.

There is no quick fix or magic solution. However, contrary to other things you may have read regarding Pinterest traffic, it does take a decent amount of work to figure out what works for YOU.

I want to emphasize the “YOU” in my last sentence. What works for one user most likely will not work for the next when it comes to getting clicks. Why? We all have VERY different audiences, niches, and businesses.

What works for a travel blogger in terms of getting clicks most likely isn’t going to work for someone like me in the marketing niche. Our ideal readers are interested in very different things.

Even someone in the exact same niche as you may have a different audience. They may attract readers who respond to a more neutral pin color, whereas I know my audience responds to brighter pin colors and bolder text.

The VERY best way to get more traffic from Pinterest is TRIAL AND ERROR when it comes to your pin’s design and wording. Yes, I know, not the answer you were probably hoping for.

Once you figure out what works for YOU, the easier it will be to create pins moving forward, and the more traffic you will get!

Let’s talk about the things you can tweak if your current pins aren’t sending you the traffic you want.

Colors: The colors you may be using for your pins might be too neutral, making them not stand out as much in a smart-feed full of pins. If the colors you are using for your pins currently aren’t working, try to step out of your comfort zone a little and use some different colors.

Wording: The wording you use on your pins is EXTREMELY important. These words will get your reader interested in what your pin links to OR send them scrolling. Get creative with your wording. Try to get your reader interested without giving too much away.

Fonts: First, you want to make sure the wording on your pin is easy to read. Using a variety of easy-to-read fonts can help certain words stick out over others. Words you know will get your reader interested in what your pin links to. Try playing around with fonts on your pin image to see if it helps with engagement.

Imaging: Since the algorithm also pulls from imaging on your pin, you want to make sure you are using images that pertain to the wording on your pin AND the keywords you are using to optimize your pin. So if your pin is about cleaning or organizing, you would choose an image of someone cleaning or an organized drawer. It seems like a small thing, but trust me, it will pay off!

Other things you want to make sure you are doing…

Make sure you are up-to-date with current best practices and guidelines. Pinning with outdated strategies will get your account flagged as spam and shadowbanned. When that happens, 95% of the time, you have to start an entirely new account.

Group boards can hurt you more than help you if they are not niche-specific and optimized correctly. Remember how I said Pinterest picks up where your content is being pinned? If it’s being pinned to a board full of pins on various topics and that board is not optimized for SEO, your pin will TANK. And it will hurt your overall profile performance.

Make sure your boards are correctly optimized, AND if you are pinning to group boards, make sure they are also niche-specific and optimized.

Here are my client’s results with an 7 week old Pinterest account! Proper pinning and SEO pays off! 

Stay consistent! The best way to see results is to pin fresh NEW images daily (over re-pinning images on the platform) and analyze what your audience is responding to!

If you want to learn all there is to know about using the Pinterest platform properly and staying up-to-date with best practices and guidelines, click HERE!

As always, happy pinning!

xo Megan