How to Get Blog Traffic from Pinterest in 2021 Without Going Crazy

If you’re wondering how to get blog traffic from Pinterest without losing your mind, then this article is for you!

Many content creators will spend hours upon hours scouring Facebook groups and Youtube tutorials, searching for the ‘secret weapon’ to successful Pinterest marketing… but not you.

In this article, you’re going to learn exactly what you need to know and do in order to get blog traffic from Pinterest – no fluff and no fuss!

And then you’re going to go do it, so that you can watch that traffic start flowing into your blog this year.

BEFORE YOU GET STARTED WITH PINTEREST

A couple quick things before we dig into Pinterest marketing.

1. There is NO single ‘secret weapon’ to successful Pinterest marketing.

Let’s just get that out of the way right now.

Pinterest does not share their ‘secrets’ or their algorithms with anyone, including content creators.

There are only educated guesses, educated strategies, trial and error, and finding what’s working for your niche. What works for one might not necessarily work as well for another.

If you are looking for a secret weapon that works across the board, you’re wasting your time. 

Instead, spend that valuable time figuring out what YOUR target audience is searching for and responding to on Pinterest

2. Pinterest marketing isn’t for everyone.

If your audience isn’t spending time on Pinterest, don’t worry about Pinterest!

Don’t get caught up in the trends of chasing Pinterest traffic if it doesn’t make sense for your audience.

Do some research. Figure out if your target audience is spending time on Pinterest, and then act accordingly.

If your targeted person is a regular Pinterest user, then keep on reading!

3. Pinterest growth DOES take time, no matter what you do. 

It is not something that (most of us mere humans) will see results from overnight. We have to consistently put in the strategic work and make adjustments when necessary if we want to grow. 

But following these Pinterest tips is a good start!

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HOW TO GET BLOG TRAFFIC FROM PINTEREST IN 2021

First, comes the tough love.

The ONLY WAY to drive quality traffic to your blog from Pinterest is to have interesting and engaging content that your target audience will enjoy or benefit from. 

So, that should be priority number one.

Remember, we are NOT talking about Pinterest page views or Pinterest followers – both of those numbers are not what you need to focus on.

We’re talking about people that find our pins on Pinterest and then come back to our blog to read more about it. And the only way to accomplish that is to create great blog content that people want to read.

How can we figure out what people want to read?

It starts with narrowing down your focus, figuring out who your target audience is and what kind of stuff they are searching for online.

Once you know who they are and what they are searching for online, you can write more of that content for them. If it’s useful, engaging, and relevant to them, they will want to read it!

This is where Pinterest comes in.

You wrote the great content and published it on your blog. Now, how the heck can you get it in front of your target audience?

Pinterest, baby!

Pinterest is a search engine where people look for ideas and inspiration for the things they want to use, make, try, or buy. 

I’m a Pinterest junkie, so I KNOW. 

Whether I’m cooking up a new recipe, building gingerbread houses with my kids, or starting a new blog, Pinterest is where I go to find inspiration.

As content creators, we’re trying to get our content in front of our target audience when they are searching for things on Pinterest.

This leads to quality blog traffic, which is what all bloggers want.

So, with that little narrative in mind, here is how you’re going to get blog traffic from Pinterest in 2021 (without completely losing your mind).

1. GO BACK TO PINTEREST BASICS

Even if you’re not a beginner on Pinterest, I’m gonna bet that you can probably use a quick refresher about what Pinterest is REALLY for, from a consumer perspective. Because content creators tend to forget the most fundamental things about Pinterest USERS, and this hurts their growth.

Refresher:

Pinterest is a place for PINNERS to search, organize, and store their ideas, plans, projects, and inspiration. It’s all about the user experience and giving pinners what THEY want.

Pinners (not content creators like you and me) want to see helpful, fresh, interesting, inspiring, catchy things that make them SLOW. THEIR. SCROLL when they are browsing through Pinterest or searching for something specific.

The Pinterest algorithm is designed to serve PINNERS and make their experience as pleasant (and addicting) as possible. 

If pinners are happy, they will spend more time on the platform and keep coming back to the platform. Which is exactly what Pinterest wants!

If you and I help Pinterest accomplish their goal of giving pinners a pleasant experience, they will reward us… more about this later.

Going back to the basics: Pinterest is all about the end user and giving them what they want.

If you know what your audience wants from the Pinterest platform, you can create content that contributes to their experience.

2. CREATE ATTRACTIVE PIN IMAGES

Alright, we’ve got the great content down and we’ve got the basics of user intent fresh in mind. Now, we need to create some attractive pin images.

When I say “attractive” I am not talking about Will Smith (my teenage crush). Although, if he needs me to school him on Pinterest best practices, I think I could make room in my schedule!

I am talking about eye-catching visuals from the perspective of your target audience.

You have to create pins that will make pinners SLOW. THEIR. SCROLL. And even though there will be commonalities in the images/designs that make people slow down and click that pin, some of it will depend on your target audience and what THEY are specifically looking for on Pinterest.

This includes using imagery and wording that appeals to them and their needs.

Creating attractive pin images is going to be the most important part of your Pinterest strategy.

How do I know this?

Well, reason number one: Pinterest said so.

They have been telling us for years that we, as content creators, need to publish pin images that are relevant and eye-catching for our potential readers and followers. But they reiterated this point very clearly in their February 2020 interview with Tailwind.

And reason number two: spam pins still find their way to the top of the Pinterest feed on a regular basis!

I’m talking about pins that LOOK attractive on the surface, but they have actually been stolen by spammers who redirect them to their own sites illegally (in an attempt to steal that Pinterest traffic).

How do those spam pins still manage to rank? **Insert eye roll here**

Because the pin IMAGE is still getting attention from Pinterest users.

The Pinterest team has explicitly stated that the pin IMAGE is more important than the pin URL, so keep this in mind.

Of course, we’re all hoping that they get a grip on the spam sooner than later, but it’s still a clear indicator that what they are saying right now is true: attractive pin images get more favor in the Pinterest feed.

Remember: attractive pins are pins that catch the eye of pinners and get them to slow their scroll. 

Now, how the heck do we figure out what makes a pin “attractive” to pinners and how to create those pins ourselves?

You have a few options here…

STUDY TOP-PERFORMING PINS

This involves looking at the pins in the top of your feed when you search for specific things…

It is one of the most time-consuming and least efficient options, because top-performing pins change constantly. Top performing pins are also different in each curated Pinterest feed, so the pins you engage with look and perform differently than the pins others engage with.

It’s still a good idea to see what’s ranking in the Pinterest feed, don’t get me wrong! But to rely solely on studying other people’s top pins is not the best route.

TRIAL AND ERROR

Oh, the trial-and-error route!

As content creators, a lot of us learn things the hard way through trial and error. We create a bunch of pins based on different things we hear or see, publish them on Pinterest, and hope for the best.

But instead of doing things by trial and error, why not look to the people that have done this successfully and get direction from them?

TAKE A PINTEREST GRAPHIC COURSE

If you want to learn from a great teacher, then I recommend this pin graphics course. 

Here are some screenshots that show the power of implementing the strategies in this course – the training works if YOU put in the work!

I’m a firm believer that better pin graphics WILL drive more traffic to your blog from Pinterest. So, keep working on improving those pin graphics.

Pro Tip: Only use images that have some sort of connection to the content in the blog post you are linking to.

If the blog post is about babies, include pictures of babies or baby products. If the blog post is about school, include classrooms, teachers, or school supplies.

Pinterest can SEE your images. 

The algorithm then takes those images and pairs them with other similar images in the search feed. With this in mind, let’s make things easier on Pinterest and help them see what our posts are about so they can rank our pins properly in the search feed!

Real talk:

If you think your pin graphics are great, but you aren’t getting many impressions, clicks, or saves, then you need to do some adjusting.

4. KEYWORDS AND OPTIMIZATION

Getting blog traffic from ANY search engine involves some optimization work, right?

To get blog traffic from Pinterest, you need to make sure that all of the text connected to your pins, boards, and blog posts are optimized for Pinterest search.

This includes keywords on your actual pin image, if you’re including text (remember Pinterest can SEE everything on your pin image). Keywords and keyword variations in your pin titles, pin descriptions, boards, board descriptions, blog post URLs, and blog post content.

The better you optimize your content, the easier it is for Pinterest to help you rank in their search engine. So, get to optimizing, babe!

5. PIQUE THE CURIOSITY OF PINNERS

Okay, now we have great blog content that our target audience will love, and we have beautifully optimized pin images that make them slow their scroll when they’re on Pinterest… 

But how do we actually drive those pinners back to our blogs? We’re trying to get BLOG TRAFFIC from Pinterest right? Not just impressions and saves.

Let’s look at Pinterest from the pinner perspective again.

As a pinner, I save lots of pins for things I want to come back to later: camping hacks, organization tips, clean eating, capsule wardrobes, etc. This is typical pinner behavior.

Can you guess how many times I actually went back into my boards and opened up those blog posts?

Not all that often (if ever).  Most of the time, those pins faded into the Pinterest void.

And we don’t want that to happen to YOUR pins!

To get blog traffic from Pinterest, you need to give pinners a reason to click on your pin image and head over to your blog RIGHT NOW.

* As a side note: some of your pins WILL get lost in the Pinterest void of forgotten boards. It happens to all of us. This isn’t a bad thing though. Those initial impressions and saves tell the Pinterest algorithm that your pins are getting attention from pinners (and this is never a bad thing).

Okay, so how do we pique the curiosity of pinners?

Give them a little taste of the awesomeness that they’re going to find in your blog post, but don’t give away the farm. <— Shameless ‘Friends’ reference, who can guess the season and the person who said it?

If you can get a pinner to pause and say to themselves ‘I need to see what’s on the other side of this pin’, then you’re on your way. Blog traffic from Pinterest, comin’ right up!

This brings us back to that great blog content of yours – once they click on your pin and head over to your blog, you need to actually DELIVER what you promised on your pin. 

Because remember, Pinterest is interested in the overall user experience for their pinners. They want your pin image, description, and blog post to serve their pinners and keep them coming back for more.

6. CREATE FRESH PINS

Ohhhhhhhh, here we go!

The three little words that caused so many bloggers to break out into a frenzy of frustration in 2020. In an interview in early 2020, the Pinterest team stated that content creators should focus on publishing their own “fresh” pins to the Pinterest platform.

Fresh pins were defined as brand new pin IMAGES that do not already exist on the Pinterest platform. 

They also implied that if you’re repinning old content more than you are creating fresh content, you will not receive as much favor in the Pinterest algorithm.

This idea of creating fresh content is not new information.

Ever since the launch of the Pinterest business account, Pinterest has wanted content creators to CREATE and publish catchy new pins so that pinners have fresh content to view on the platform.

Nerdy Pinterest fact:

Pinterest launched their Pinterest Business Account feature in October 2012 (a looooong time ago) with the purpose of helping business owners and content creators reach their target audience on this platform.

Each year, they publish new tools and trainings to encourage content creators to use their platform with pinners in mind.

Pinterest is not the enemy – they are offering us a free marketing tool to grow our blogs. We just need to follow some basic marketing principles to stay on their good side.

So, do we need to work ourselves to death creating hundreds of fresh pins every day, with the hope of keeping Pinterest happy and getting blog traffic from them?

Nope.

We just need to make sure that our FOCUS is more on creating fresh content and less on repinning old content that isn’t necessarily helpful to pinners right now. That’s it. 

And this is something that we really should’ve been doing already, if we’ve been paying attention to Pinterest basics and the fundamental facts about pinner intent.

With that said, I still repin occasional old content when I feel that it’s helpful and relevant to my target audience (and you can too). I still schedule the same pin to a few relevant boards through Tailwind (with plenty of time between the publish date)… And I still create fresh pins for older blog posts and upload those to Pinterest regularly too. 

Pinterest just wants us to avoid excessive repinning of the same old pins that already exist on Pinterest.

Bottom line: you’re a content creator. Focus on creating fresh content.

7. MAKE SURE YOU KNOW THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN PINNING AND RE-PINNING

We throw around Pinterest terms so casually, but sometimes we forget the little differences between these basic things.

Pinning to Pinterest: taking an image from the internet or from your own computer and uploading it to the Pinterest platform.

You can do this from a blog post or website, through Tailwind, or through direct upload via Pinterest. 

Keep in mind that the very FIRST TIME a specific pin image hits the Pinterest platform, it is considered a fresh pin (this has been confirmed via the Tailwind team).

Anytime that same pin image appears again (even if it is scheduled through Tailwind) it is considered a duplicate pin. Not a BAD pin, but a duplicate pin. According to the Pinterest team, duplicate pins are fine in moderation, as long as they are only being pinned to relevant boards and are not being pinned excessively.

Repinning on Pinterest: taking a pin that already exists on the Pinterest platform, and re-pinning it to your board(s).

It is okay to repin content on Pinterest.

Re-pinning is natural Pinterest behavior and it is not bad to repin content that already exists on Pinterest, as long as that content is useful or relevant to your audience.

But, when Pinterest says that we should focus more on creating fresh content and less on repinning, they are actually HELPING US perform better on their platform.

I still repin content occasionally, and you can too. We just need to focus more on creating our own fresh content and less on repinning content that already exists on Pinterest.

8. FOCUS ON QUALITY OVER QUANTITY

This has been my motto since day one, and I’ll admit, it feels kinda good to be correct on this one! Back in the day, when all the Pinterest coaches were saying you should pin 100+ pins a day, I cringed.

Such bad advice. And so much unnecessary work.

Pinterest has finally stated that we do not need to be pinning an excessive amount of content on their platform to be successful. And that’s a good thing!

They want high-quality, fresh pins (new images) that are interesting and useful to pinners. That’s it.

9. USE TEMPLATES TO MAKE LIFE EASIER

Hopefully by now, you have a decent handle on what’s going to help you get blog traffic from Pinterest: great content, catchy pin images, optimized pins, curiosity-provoking text, fresh pins (even if they link to older blog posts), and a focus on quality over quantity.

But what if you’re super busy and can’t manage to create new pin images every day?

Here are two helpful pieces of advice in that case: batch your work and use pin templates.

For batching, try to dedicate a specific amount of time to pin creation each week and avoid all distractions during that time. If I have a few good pin templates and an hour of free time, I can easily create 20-30 fresh pins.

You’ll get better and faster at this too, especially after taking a good pin graphics course and finding some good pin templates!

Pin templates are all the rage right now, because it takes all of the guesswork out of your creative Pinterest process. 

Leave it to the graphic pros and grab your monthly pin template subscription here!

10. USE TAILWIND

Alright, here comes the controversy.

Is Tailwind useless now that Pinterest is being strict about excessive pinning of the same image?

Actually, no.

Tailwind is working with Pinterest to make the user experience and the content creator experience better. They are rolling out tools and resources to help you and me perform better on Pinterest.

Tailwind has a SmartGuide feature that monitors your account to make sure your pinning behavior falls in line with Pinterest best practices. If it doesn’t, they will let you know exactly what you need to fix!

Tailwind also launched Tailwind Create in late 2020, which is a tool that allows you to create dozens of personalized pin images from a single photo. You can access Tailwind Create through your Tailwind account here.

MANUAL PINNING vs. TAILWIND

Most bloggers and content creators fall on one side of this fence or the other.

They either love Tailwind or they hate it.

While I personally use and like Tailwind, the scheduling tool might not be the right fit for everyone, and that’s okay!

You can learn about effective manual pinning strategies through this Pinterest course.

WHAT TO DO WHEN NOTHING IS WORKING

If none of these strategies are helping you grow your blog traffic through Pinterest, then it’s time to do an audit and figure out what’s going on.

• Is your content helpful and hyper-focused on serving your very specific targeted blog reader?
• Is your Pinterest account optimized, including your profile, boards, and pin descriptions?
• Do your pin images catch the eye? If not, have you taken a course or purchased pin templates to help you improve?
• Are you pinning fresh content (including attractive pins) to Pinterest on a very consistent basis?
• If you feel like you tried it all and nothing worked, have you taken a strategic Pinterest course to help you master the platform?

WHAT ABOUT STORY PINS?

The jury is still out on using Story Pins in 2021. 

As of right now, Story Pins on Pinterest DO NOT include any way for the pinner to click a link and visit your website, making it difficult to get traffic from story pins.

However, Story Pins do appear to be receiving some favor in the Pinterest algorithm, which might come with some benefits to your account if you utilize them.

Story Pins also appear at the top of your feed on the Pinterest mobile app (if you have access to the feature), which can potentially get more eyes on your account if you’re utilizing them.

Again, jury is still out, but I’ll be updating this article with my findings as I test new things.

Not all Pinterest accounts have the feature at this time, but you can request access to Story Pins right here.

GET BLOG TRAFFIC FROM PINTEREST WITH THESE HELPFUL RESOURCES

You can also stay up-to-date on Pinterest news in the Pinterest Newsroom right here. 

You can stay up to date with Pinterest Trends right here.

And you can join the Pinterest Business community right here.

Tailwind is another great place to turn if you have Pinterest questions. They published a FAQ article with Pinterest best practices for 2020 right here. And they look back on the Pinterest trends of 2020 right here.

Follow the Tailwind blog for more Pinterest info as the New Year unfolds!

PUTTING IT ALL TOGETHER

I know we covered a lot of ground here today, but here’s a quick recap.

You CAN still get blog traffic from Pinterest – even the “little guys” are getting steady (or increasing) blog traffic from Pinterest if they do things right.

You just have to focus on keeping pinners happy and following Pinterest best practices.

This includes creating and publishing fresh pins on a regular basis. You should also focus on improving your pin graphics if you want to improve your blog traffic conversion rate (this pin graphics course can help). And ultimately, just remember that serving your target audience more fully will help you to see growth in the long run.

Bottom line: create great pin images that lead to great blog posts, and you’ll get blog traffic from Pinterest!