While I don’t think of myself as a Pinterest expert, over the last few years I have definitely upped my Pinterest game. I have listened to what the real experts have to say, improved my photos, and taken other steps in order to optimize my pins.
The result has been that Pinterest has become the number one referrer of social media traffic to my blog. I’ve had some pins “go viral,” not with repins, which are nice but don’t necessarily drive traffic, but with click-throughs. Sometimes I will get an extra thousand or so pageviews in a day because one of my pins has become popular.
Today I want to share some of the tips that I have learned that have upped my Pinterest engagement and increased my blog traffic.
5 Tips to Improve your Pinterest Engagement and Increase Blog Traffic
1. Photo Quality
It should go without saying that you should use the best possible photos for your Pinterest pins. Unfortunately, I still see many blurry, poorly lit pictures that really won’t do much to increase repins or pageviews.
Please take the time to take the best picture you can. You don’t have to be a great photographer, you don’t have to have an expensive camera. Just do the best you can and use editing software to improve the lighting or color if necessary.
2. Vertical Images
You may have heard that vertical images do the best on Pinterest, both for repins and for increasing blog traffic. That is basically because a vertical pin takes up more space on Pinterest boards, which makes it more visible.
So what size? On a board, the image size for each pin is 238 pixels wide. The vertical length is then scaled, so it will be as long as you make it. When you click on a pin, the maximum width is 735 pixels while the vertical length is scaled.
What that means is that the recommended pin size is 735 by at least 1106 (that’s a 2/3 ratio). That will take up more territory on a board, making it more attractive for repinning. You can go longer, though, if you want, remembering that the maximum viewing size on mobile is 2061. Taller than that and it will get cut off.
3. Add a Caption
You can have a great vertical photo, but without a caption (on the photo), many potential pinners and readers may just pass it by. Captioning your pin with your intriguing post headline or a brief, description title will drive more traffic and pinners.
4. Add a Description
Unless you write your own description, either as you’re pinning or using the Alt text for your pinnable image, chances are the description of your pin will either say something like “photo.jpg,” or possibly, the title of your post.
That will not enhance your pinnability. Make sure that you either write a description when you are pinning your post or, even better, change your Alt text to the description that you want to see on your pin.
5. Use Keywords
Generally speaking, hashtags are not used or necessary in your Pinterest description. Keywords are important, though, so include them in your description. For example, in my pin description for this post, I used the words Pinterest, pin, and blog traffic within the sentence in a natural way. Those keywords will help your pin show up on searches.
The Ideal, Most Re-pinnable and Clickable Pin is…
A long, vertical pin, with a variety of DIY or decorating projects that contains mulitple images of those projects with an intriguing title and description. The pin itself attracts attention, then, to get more information about the projects, one must click through to the post.
If you don’t write a DIY blog, don’t despair. Simply follow the tips above and you will see an increase in both your repins and your blog traffic.
For more Pinterest tips, check out these posts:
Are You Making these 10 Pinterest Mistakes?
Why Blogger Should be Using Rich Pins on Pinterest
Do you see a lot of blog traffic from Pinterest? Would you like to share your best tip with us?
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Those are all very important things to opt your Pinterest Game!! Never underestimate key words!
I cannot wait to up my Pinterest game. I always thought Pinterest was overrated until one of my posts blew up thanks to Pinterest! I’m not sure what I did that was so enticing but I want to make the magic happen again.
I love pinterest and these are great tips. I still can’t figure out why some pins take off more than others. There is still a lot to learn especially about promoting pins.
Fabulous tips, thanks! I look forward to trying them!
I do a lot of work on Pinterest for myself and for others. I think my best recommendation for gaining lots of Followers is to build some really big, really popular group boards. I get probably 600 new Followers per month and I think most of them to come me from my 8 group boards, mostly for bloggers. It’s a certain amount of work to maintain them, but I think it’s worth it for the Followers they attract. SITSSharefest
Thanks for your input! As I said, I’m definitely not an expert. I’ve never created a group board. Any tips to get followers, especially at first when there aren’t many pins or pinners? Can I convert one of my boards to a group board?
Sorry, this ended up in my spam folder. Yes, you can convert any of your existing boards to a group board. I just did that this week with my crafts board. To add people, I just clicked the add collaborators button and then I typed craft – that brought up any folks I was Folllowing who had craft in their title. I invited all of them, the I did the same thing with DIY, then I started with the letter A and picked various bloggers that I recognized and so on. You want to start out with 50 or so invitations. Then the Followers will come naturally from being on 50 different profiles. Hope that helps.
I need to up my pinterest game by like 2394893248932 this year!!!! That’s my next avenue!!! 🙂 Thanks for these tips Debbie!
Thanks for the tips! I tend to leave pinterest ’til last and then never get it done.
These are very helpful tips, Debbie. When I first start pinning, I didn’t have ANY of your recommendations in place. Now, I’m working on updating all of my pins and really focusing on using keywords in a natural manner in the descriptions.
One thing that I’ve noticed with a lot of inexperienced bloggers is that they may have several images included with their post but only update the alt text for their main/pinnable image. What I’ve learned is that is a really good idea to have a checklist to work with when prepping a post so that nothing is overlooked or forgotten.
Yup I am building on my Pinterest slowly and completely agree with all of these tips! Great post 🙂
Foirell | http://www.citygirlrell.com
Your post will be featured on Friday because it was the most clicked on the Bloggers Pit Stop. Congratulations.
Kathleen
Bloggers Pit Stop
I’ve never used Pinterest before, but after your compelling post, I think I need to start! Thanks for the insight!
Ken,
Blogger’s Pit Stop
Great info! I am working on my photography skills and this info was really helpful.
Thanks for writing this wonderful and informative post 🙂 I’ll be reading the posts that you linked. As a new time blogger, I get pretty overwhelmed at times and it can get a little discouraging but I’ll definitely look into using more of Pinterest.