Using Pinterest To Grow Your Blog Part One

Creating a Killer Pinterest Profile

Back in December, I shared the ways I grew my blog in 2016. In this post, I mentioned how I used to Pinterest to grow traffic to my blog. Many of you asked for a separate post on how to use Pinterest to grow your blog so here it is. I’ve decided to split this post into 2 parts the first part today is all about creating a killer Pinterest profile which will attract your audience.

Define Your Audience

Before you make any changes to your profile, take a couple of minutes to think about your audience. Think about the kind of people who read your blog and who you want to attract. Who is it you create content for? When you have a picture of your ideal reader and want they are searching for you can tailor your Pinterest profile to attract them.

Create a Bio to attract your ideal audience

Now you have a clear idea of who you are creating content for its time to create a bio which attracts them. Use a picture of you instead of a logo. People like to feel like they’re interacting with a real person so show your face. I just use the same picture across my social media to keep a consistent feel.

For the bio section of your profile your need to convince people to follow you in only a few lines. This is much easier said than done. Avoid telling people about yourself and focus on what you can do for them. Tell them what you do and how that helps them. Don’t bother saying things like where you’re from and how many pets you have. Keep it focused on your ideal reader. You may also want to include a call to action. For example asking them to sign up to your email list or to visit your blog. And it goes without saying that you should have a link to your website there.

In my bio, I explain how I can help you to integrate capsule wardrobes into your lifestyle and my call to action is to visit my website for advice.

I blog about integrating capsule wardrobes into your lifestyle without the overwhelm. Visit my blog for simple, honest, to the point and helpful advice.

Create On-Brand Boards

Once you have a bio which will attract your ideal reader it’s time to make sure all your boards are on-brand. Think of your Pinterest boards like categories on your blog and try to have a board to fit with every blog category. Think about your ideal reader and the kinds of things they search for. Create boards on these topics. All of your boards should fit in with your niche and relate back to your blog. So, if you blog about food keep all your boards related to food.

If you want to keep using Pinterest for personal searches just make those boards private. For example, I have a board for recipes which I keep secret because I don’t search recipes on my blog. Keep thinking back to your ideal reader and want they are searching for when creating your boards.

Make sure all your boards have simple straight forward names which are searchable. You can use the Pinterest search function to help you name your boards. Type in the topic of your board to the search bar and Pinterest will generate search options for you. You can also look at trending topics and create boards based on them.

Pin, Pin, Pin

Once you have around 15-20 boards which are relevant to your niche it’s time to fill them up. I like to work on one board at a time. I search for that topic and go on a pinning spree to fill up new boards quickly. I also make sure I follow relevant pinners so my feed is full of relevant content. This makes it easier to keep boards full when you are short on time.

I like all my boards to have at least 50 pins so there is plenty of content for my audience. Remember that you can search for boards on Pinterest and people aren’t going to bother clicking on a board with only 5 pins in it.

You need to be really active on Pinterest to keep attracting people to your profile. There is lots of different advice on how many pins you should be pinning each day. I think it’s up to you how many but I suggest aiming for around 50 -100 pins daily. Now you don’t have to go onto Pinterest every day to do this. Although if you wanted to it’s actually pretty easy to find 50 pins. You could probably do this in about 15-20 minutes. Another option is to use a scheduler like Tailwind or Boardbooster. I use Boardbooster and love their looping feature which repins older pins back onto your boards. This keeps all your boards active even if you don’t have time to add new content.