A lot of businesses use blogs as a means to reach out to their audience. The blog allows businesses to talk about topics in categories that relate or are compatible with their products or the lifestyle that touches their products. This means that businesses can occupy a larger mind space by being present in more than just the category of their products. For example, a nutritional supplement manufacturer can use a blog to talk about different exercise routines, the best exercise clothing to wear, spots in the city which are both entertaining and also allow you to exercise in the outdoors, and general wellness trends. Thus occupying a larger mind space by operating in the health space rather than just nutrition supplements.
While a blog is great tool to do this, some key social media vehicles can amplify the traffic at this blog. Today we will discuss how Pinterest can be used to amplify traffic to your blog. Pinterest and blogging may seem like they are unrelated, but bloggers can boost their website traffic and build their readership by using Pinterest. Think of Pinterest as the frosting and sprinkles on your cupcake of web traffic, it seems like pretty eye candy, but also adds a lot of flavor and interest!
Start with a strategic mindset
From the very beginning, ensure that your Pinterest account is going to provide relevant information to your audience. Anything you pin should fall under at least one of the following categories or “types” of Pins:
• Useful
• Helpful
• Insightful
These three types cover the fundamental traits of content that people consume and, more importantly, share online.
Examples of Useful Pins
Creating useful content on Pinterest for your audience means things such as:
[abc] checklist
[xyz] chart
[123] quick tips
Anything that is a bite-sized visual that is immediately useful to the audience is what you’re looking for. If they can look at the pin, apply it to something in their life, and get a positive result of some kind, that’s a winner.
Examples of Helpful Pins
A helpful pin is something that answers a question, fixes a problem, or provides some sort of assistance to the audience. Things such as:
How to [xyz]…
What kind of [abc] should you…
DIY [lmnop]
There are plenty of great examples of this on Pinterest because many of their users love do-it-yourself (DIY) pins. In fact, DIY is one of the highest-interest categories (along with recipes) on Pinterest.
Examples of Insightful Pins
Providing a visual that is insightful might take a little more time and thought, but it’s worth it. Things such as infographics are a perfect way to give people insight in a visual way that they’ll want to pin to their own boards.
So now that we know the types of pins, the next step is to use some key tactics to ensure traffic flows to your blog.
Create a separate, Pin-able image for your blog post
The number one mistake that blogs are making today is not having a Pin-able image on each blog post!Size matters! Even if you’re not a graphic designer or have Photoshop, you can make fantastic images that will help your blog posts be seen on Pinterest. Canva has Pinterest templates that are really easy to use. Long, tall images command Pinterest taking up the most visual real estate in the Pinterest feed. Create images that are 735 pixels x 1102 pixels for maximum appeal and re-pins.
Create a pin on Pinterest for each post
Using your custom graphic, create a pin for your new article. Use relevant keywords in your description and add a link. Make sure that you edit the pin and add the link to your post in the source as well. From Rebekah Radice, “Make your content stand out in the search results by using effective keyword targeting. This will ensure that anyone searching for a specific topic is able to locate your content. The goal is to allow consumers within your niche to easily find and share your pins. Using keywords will increase your standings within a specific search and just like other search engines, the higher up you appear, the more likely you are to be found.”
Share the link to the pin with a #PinOfTheDay hashtag
Using the #PinOftheDay hashtag on Twitter, Facebook, and Google+ ties your content to everyone else that has shared a pin with #PinOfTheDay. It’s also a great way to find your Pinterest friends favorite pins for the day too!
Cross-promote your Pins!
Pinterest Pins are easy to share on Twitter, Facebook, Google+, and LinkedIn. Everywhere that you share a link to your blog, you can share the link to your Pin as well.
Taking the time to frost your blog post by Pinning each post and adding the sprinkles of additional post promotion is sure to make your blog more popular.