Five Pinterest Tips & Tricks for Bloggers

Okay, now that I have been blogging for a little over a year, and pinning for even longer, I feel like I can write a post on using Pinterest as a way to drive traffic to your blog, especially when about 50% of the traffic I get on my blog is from Pinterest.  I am by no means an expert, but there are a couple little tricks that I have done in the last month or so that have almost doubled the number of pageviews I'm getting each day.

Here are a few things that have helped:

1.  Size Matters.  Stand back and take a look at your Pinterest home page.

Which photos stand out to you the most from this screen shot?  Don't think too hard, just look for a second.

For me?  Pink lemonade and Cookies.

And those Chicken Rolls at the top, that are probably super delicious but they get kind of lost.

When you are taking pictures for your blog may I suggest that you take at least one vertical picture?  And I would also suggest making it your lead picture on the post.  You might want to even consider heading over to PicMonkey and adding a title so people can really clearly see what it is.  When you throw the words, "Easy Breakfast Casserole" over a pile of eggs, they become more clickable.

I know that you are already doing your best to make your pictures look inviting and enticing, but I would say also make sure that in addition to having one vertical picture to pin, you make sure that picture is bright!  It just draws the eye more.  And on a website that literally bombards you with thousands of images, you want yours to stand out.

2. Making A Great Caption Helps.  A genius, otherwise known as Karyn from Pint Sized Baker, recently clued me in to this amazing little tip.  If you are on Word Press, you probably already know that you can easily add a caption to your photo that shows up when people go to pin it (don't ask me how, I'm on Blogger, people).

But did you know you can also do that on Blogger??

When you go to pick the size you want your photo to be and if you want to add a caption or change where the picture is, that lovely little blue rectangle pops up:

Now write something really clever.  Or if you are me, write something that will make people think you are a total weirdo because they don't know you and can't hear your tone of voice.

You know, either way is good.

Now when people go to pin from your blog, it is the thing that will automatically pop up in the little text box.  And most people don't change that when they repin things.  Be sure to include some key words with a hashtag (more on that in a moment).

And if you have what it is written on the photo, you don't need that to be the first thing you say.  At the very least, make sure you write what it is and the name of your blog.

For the Cake Batter Cheesecake (which, incidentally, you can find here) I wrote:  Cake Batter Cheesecake from Wine & Glue | Almost as good as licking the beaters!  #cheesecake #cake #batter

Clearly I can't follow my own advice.

3.  Group Boards. Group Boards. Group Boards.  Nothing has helped my pageviews recently more than group boards.  What are group boards you ask?  They are boards that a whole mess of people can pin to.  And right at the top of the group board you can see how many followers it has.

So when I pin something to the board Share Your Crafts, 102,479 people have the potential to see it.  And often they will repin it to one of their group boards, and suddenly you have a post that is getting repinned like nuts.

How do you pin to a group board?  A lot of them have instructions at the top that show you how you can get an invite.

How do you find a group board to join?  Look at some of the other bloggers you follow.  Look at their boards, and find the one with the group symbol.  Go take a look at the board and see if it is one that you would like to join.

Want to read more about group boards?  Pinterest has a whole article on how they work here.

4.  Pin Great Stuff at Great Times.  At the risk of sounding like a teenage girl trying to get more homecoming votes by hanging out with the cool kids, I'm going to say it.  Pinning great stuff will ultimately help you get traffic on your blog.  Lately, I've made a habit of pinning great things to group boards, and in the last two weeks my followers on Pinterest have doubled.  So that means, that when I pin some of my own stuff, that many more people see it.

There are two ways I do it, and the jury is out on which way works better.  Method one is to pin right from the source to a group board in the hopes that people will then follow all of your boards.  Method two is to pin something from the source onto one of your boards, say the board, "Cookies Are Awesome."  Then people see the awesome cookie recipe you pinned and they think, "I'd like to see what other Awesome Cookies she pins," and they will click "follow" on that board.  So then when you pin an awesome cookie recipe of yours, that person will see it.

Note that in both methods, you want to be the original pinner!  In other words, instead of repinning something someone else pinned, go to the blog and pin it yourself!

And in the spirit of community, pin from some of your fellow blogger friends.  Seriously, I'm obsessed with pinning some of my blogging buddies things and then seeing them just sky rocket with repins.  I feel such an undeserved sense of satisfaction.

Pin at great times!!  Recently, Carrie from Frugal Foodie Mama said, "Pin smarter not harder."  Such sage advice.  According to Carrie, the peek times for pinning are the afternoon (2 to 4 p.m.), the later evening (like after 8 p.m.), and Saturday morning.  So take advantage of those times and pin to group boards during those peeks.

5.  For The Love of Hashtags Just like on Twitter, hashtags (#) can help people find your content.  From the reading I have done on the topic, what you want to do is make broad strokes with your hashtags.  Let's say that you made a really cute wreath out of felt flowers for Easter.  Instead of doing this "#felt #flower #Easter #wreath" (which may or may not have been my strategy before putting this post together) you would want to do something that would fall under a bigger umbrella like "#wreath #craft."  I will leave you with a picture from the Pinterest page of a master pinner, Nikki from Chef In Training.  Check out some of her hashtags.

What would your Pinterest tips and tricks be?