How do I use Pinterest to promote my website?

In 2021, Pinterest has seen some great momentum in international ad markets:

• Revenue: $706M (up 76% YoY)
• Average revenue per user: $1.57
• Pinterest now has 478 million monthly active users, a 30% increase year over year.

Generating traffic on your blog can be a tricky or sometimes daunting business. You need to find quality content, promote it and hope to see your traffic increase. This entire process feels like you spend more time marketing and less time blogging. Running a successful blog is about talent, good content and A LOT of promotion. That’s why we’re taking the time to talk about Pinterest today.

If you are here, it means that you noticed that Pinterest has potential. It is one of the best social platforms to promote your content without spending a lot of time there. You can automate some of the tasks related to promoting your content and Pinterest can help you increase your traffic with an hour of work a week. Here are 3 easy tips to help you get started: 

It’s very easy to do, and it’s free!

Simply go to your account settings and click on “switch to business account”. This account is similar to Instagram’s business account. Once you switch from one account to another, you will be able to access the analysis of your account. This is where you can see which pins are the most popular and which get the best engagement.

A business account for your blog is important because it is a great way to understand your readers. You can analyze which pins are really popular with your audience and which ones are not. By studying the data, you can use this tool to refine your blogging strategy and focus on your target audience.

When you search in Pinterest, you can select "Boards" in the arrow on the right side of the search bar. By adding "Group Board" to the topic you are looking for, you'll find collaborative boards. You can ask to join groups that already have a few thousand followers. Once you are accepted, you can post the pins from your blog to grow your audience. Make sure to respect the rules of each group boards.

It’s like a Pinterest influencer hack

You have access to someone else’s group to get visibility for your content. If you are in a board with many followers who already have an interest in your specific niche, it's a huge boost.
It's not always easy to manage. Some group  boards are more VIP than others. If you are not accepted, don’t give up! Once you enter a group with a large number of followers, you will have so much more potential for traffic growth. Follow the group owner and repin from the group.

There are two ways to generate visitors: paid and organic. In the early stage, brands rely heavily on paid traffic and lightly on organic. As they grow, companies should invert this. Pinterest is above all the best visual search engine in the world. But there are not only images in life. It is very important to remember to add keywords to your pin.

Keywords need to show up in your profile as well. There are quite a few people testifying about the fact that Pinterest regulars get a boost. The algorithm tends to favor members who are active on a regular basis. If you take care of your account, your pins and shared content will be shown more.  

Pinterest Expert Annie Picard says you need to include keywords in the following places:

• Your Pinterest Profile description
• The name and descriptions of your boards
• Your pins titles and descriptions

"A good way to find keywords is to simply use the auto-complete in the Pinterest search bar. This will give you a good starting point to see what people are looking for in your niche.", says Annie.

I tested a few things for you when it comes to Pinterest optimizations

Interesting point on my side: I tried to create a pin with a vintage ad from 1850. The content was about dogs and the visual was an old school illustration. Pinterest decided I was interested in 1850's type ads more than in dog content based on my account data. In reality, I had selected that image because there was a dog in it. Granted, I love old ads and stock photos that stand out (with free commercial rights so they have to be old).  

My conclusion? Just like image SEO in Google, you need to follow some trends. You should pick images that look like what Pinterest would expect the item to look like. Let's not reinvent the wheel! This approach helps Pinterest search engine analyze the components of images. It will be easier for it to determine how they relate to other images. 

In 2021, it's all about fresh content. Pinterest will give more impressions to account who share fresh content on the platform. What's that? A pin with a new image or a new description is considered as fresh content event if it points to a url that had already been shared on Pinterest. To use this strategy, make sure that you create new pins for your blog posts and change the description each time you share it on a new boards. Sharing the same pins on multiple boards won't do the trick anymore.  

Do you have any tips or Pinterest tools to recommend?