If you are seriously interested in growing your Pinterest following and monthly viewers this just might be the blog post for you. This is been my main focus for the last two weeks. I really wanted to harness the power of Pinterest and gain a greater understanding of how it works and how to be successful at using it.
You may be asking What does Pinterest Monthly views mean. Well simply put it the total number of people who have been shown any of your pins.
Unfortunately I tried several strategies during this period. This of course means I have no idea which strategy affected my results the most.
However I think the main thing I have taken from this experiment is that if you concentrate and focus on your Pinterest account it will grow. I will still talk about the different strategies I used to grow my Pinterest but I think the idea you should take away from this is like a plant if you give it attention it will grow.
Set Up Shop
When I started this experiment my Pinterest profile was a mess. I had started it about three years ago for posting personal project ideas and abandoned it since then. So the first thing I wanted to do was make sure that my profile looked as professional as possible. This means adding a logo as my profile picture and updating my profile description.
I think there are three main things you need to focus on when you are writing your profile description. You wanna make sure you are using natural speech you want to include as many keywords for your niche as possible within their natural speech and you want to use all the characters that are given to you. It is much easier for people to find you if you use proper keywords. Pinterest is not the place to use keywords that are not relevant.
Add Boards for Pinterest Categories
Pinterest only has a few main categories so I think it does not hurt your Pinterest profile to create a couple of boards focused on these categories specifically. I am not saying create a board for every category but you could if you wanted to. The idea behind creating these boards is they may not be your main focus but they can still draw in people. So what you want to do is put the most popular pins that exist in that category in those boards. I figure Pinterest will give you a little credit as at least a decent curator of pens and reward you for doing that.
These boards will also help you later when you start using tailwind tribes because you are going to need boards tip and other peoples pins to.
Create Boards Just For Your Content
I created a board just for my blog posts and a board just for my YouTube videos. I have have positioned these boards at the top of my board list so when someone comes to visit my profile the first boards they will see are those two. I do not want you to be confused about this. You can still post pins for your content on other boards but I think it is important that the first place you pin them is on a board specifically with only your content. Pinterest wants you to pin your pins on the most relevant board first and what could be more relevant than a collection of more content that you have created.
You should pay particular attention to the description of these boards and try and make them the best you can. Make sure to use easily readable speech and your niche is keywords. I will talk more about what to do with your pin descriptions later on in this blog.
The 2 Tools That Changed The Game
Upping Your Pin Design with Canva
I have written a whole blog post just about Canva. You can find the link below.
https://yourhelpfulaffiliate.com/2019/09/11/what-the-heck-is-canva/
I think Canva is a huge game changer for Pinterest users. Before I was using Pinterest my pins were mostly screenshots with pixelated text overlay. They were ugly they were confusing and they did not get any interaction.
Since I have started using Canva I have had several pens get over 1000 views by simply sharing them because they are so beautiful. I think SEO also has a huge part to play in the exposure my pins are getting but I think having beautiful pins should be number one on your list. I believe this because your pins are the first thing users are going to see.
If you would like to sign up for Canva you can do so through my affiliate link below. This affiliate link pays me commissions at no extra cost to you.
https://canva.pxf.io/yourhelpfulaffiliate
Schedule and Repin Pins with Tailwind
Tailwind is the official pin scheduling software for Pinterest. You can create a free account and start scheduling pens almost immediately. What is the point of scheduling pins? Well in less you want to use Pinterest every single day manually to post new pins I suggest using a pen scheduler. This way you can schedule 1 to 2 weeks worth of pins all at one time.
I think a lot of people underestimate the value of using a tool like tailwind. On top of Tailwind’s pin scheduling tool it has another awesome feature. This is called Tailwind tribes. It is a pretty fair deal. You join a tribe in your niche and pin other peoples pins to relevant boards and they will do the same for you. The more repins you get the more popular you are going to be. That is the main reason I take advantage of tailwind is to get more repins.
If you would like to sign up for Tailwind you can do so through my affiliate link below. This affiliate link pays me commissions at no extra cost to you.
https://www.tailwindapp.com/tribe/join?h=LPYMIDp3LCy0R8
Brand Your Pins
Before I started this experiment I looked around to see what other successful Pinterest users were doing. One of the things I noticed was that most of them included their website either at the top or the bottom of their pins.
I am a big believer in trying to do 10% more than my competition. I thought how can I do this just a little better than them. So what I decided was I would brand my pins with not only my website but I would include my logo and my slogan as well. This is all included usually at the bottom of my pins.
I also try to keep the color scheme for my pins matching my logo and website color scheme. This makes for a pleasant transition from Pinterest users looking at your pen to visiting your website.
Clean up
This one was pretty quick and basic. I just went through and got rid of anything that was kind of an eyesore did not belong or I just did not want.
This also means cleaning up your language and making it more natural speech. Try and make your text more like a conversation instead of static information.
Post and Repin Often
Like I was saying above posting often on Pinterest makes a huge difference. Having a pin scheduler like Tailwind can be a lot of help. But if you don not want to do that what I recommend is that you manually repin from 27 to 37 of other peoples pins every day.
I also recommend you pin some of your own pins. If you don’t have any new content such as blog posts or YouTube videos to create a new pin for you should create a new pin for an old piece of content. I frequently make multiple pins with different designs for the same piece of content.
As far as repairing often I try to add at least one person to all of my main boards every day. To find this pen I will look for the most popular pin in that category. I will also add pins that I find interesting or useful.
Test Out Pinterest Ads
Ahh! Oh no! That means I have to spend money. That is true most of the tips and strategies that I talk about in this blog post can be done for free and this one does cost money. You can get a Pinterest ad for as low as two dollars. If you do not have two dollars to test out ads to grow your Pinterest profile I don not think you seriously want to do it.
For my first try using Pinterest and I spent exactly 2 dollars. I wanted to promote the pin and the blog post that I thought was my best one. I was pretty happy with the results. A large amount of people viewed my pin. Some people pinned it and some people clicked through.
For my second try using Pinterest ads I spent ten dollars over a two day period. This time I was promoting a much better pin and a much better blog post. I was a little underwhelmed with the results for this ad. While a lot of people did see the pin not manyof them pinned it or click through.
Since this ad this pin has preformed much better than my average pins.
After about a week after the end of the ad I started seeing much more news pins and click throughs on all of my pins. So I think if your Pinterest account is in kind of a low spot it does not hurt to take out a small ad to kind a get a little kick off Pinterest love.
Use the Whole Pin Description
Pinterest gives you 500 characters to use in every single Pinterest pin description. Most people either leave this blank or just copy and paste the title into the description. I think this is a huge waste of SEO space. By taking advantage of this massive SEO sign post you will get more views on your pins. So what should I be putting in this description?
Much like your profile description you should try as hard as you can, use natural speech, the main keywords for your niche and fill up the damn thing. You can also include a few hashtags for keywords you can not naturally fit into your description. I suggest a range of 2 to 6 hashtags broken up with vertical lines.
This is a strategy I just started focusing on so I have not been doing this the entire two week experiment. However I did want to share it with you because I think it is going to be pretty powerful. I also want to go back and update my old pins with longer descriptions and hashtags.
For example I posted this pin last night to 4 relevant boards. I used all the description space, used keywords and hashtags and I have an awesome image. With in 1 day this pin has had 479 view, 3 repins and 3 clicks. You can visit this pin by clicking on the image below.
Conclusion
Giving your Pinterest account a little attention with a focused result in mind can do wonders! I can not want to see how much my Pinterest account will grow in the future.
If you would like to follow my Pinterest account you can do so through the link below.
https://www.pinterest.com/yourhelpfulaffiliate/