How Can You Increase Website Traffic with Pinterest?

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Want to learn how to increase your website traffic with Pinterest?

Pinterest is a total game-changer when it comes to driving targeted traffic to your site!
Guest post by Ana from TheSheApproach.com

(***Note: This post may contain affiliate links, but I would never link to something that I don’t 100% believe in or use myself….because that’s bad business karma, and ain’t nobody need none of that)

So you just built your website, you posted some content, added your offerings, start promoting it on social media and you’re waiting for the leads and the views to pour in.

But what do you do when that doesn’t happen?

And how do you drive targeted traffic to your website (for free) while still having time left to run your business, take care of your clients, post consistently on your blog, and so on?

Just like the lyrics go, sometimes the best things in life do come for free. And in this case, I’m talking about Pinterest – a free social media platform and search engine that you can use at no cost do drive high-quality traffic to your website and blog.

And I know that it’s possible because I’m doing it! In fact, over 90% of my monthly traffic comes from Pinterest and I have my system running almost entirely on autopilot. (I even wrote an ebook about how I do it!)

So, whether you’re just getting started with Pinterest, or want to maximize your effort on the platform and create a strategy that will get you found by your target audience, here are a few steps you need to take to drive traffic to your website with Pinterest:

1. Create an SEO rich Pinterest profile

The first thing you need to do when it comes to Pinterest is to realize that much more than a social media platform, Pinterest is first and foremost a search engine.

That means that your pins, your boards, and your profile all show up in search results (that are highly used by Pinterest users) for specific keywords or key phrases.

But for that to happen, you have to optimize your profile for SEO and include things such as:

A well-written title (or name) that includes at least one keyword about your niche
A keyword rich bio (or profile description) that clearly explains what your profile/website is about using searchable terms
Clever board names that contain words that your target audience will be searching for
Useful board descriptions that include more keywords to help Pinterest determine what your boards are really about
Well-thought-out pin descriptions including both specific keywords and broader keywords to get your pins showing up in search results for a multitude of searches

Because Pinterest SEO is not as exciting as creating beautiful pins, a lot of pinners don’t pay attention to it, or only do it half-heartedly. But this is the very foundation of getting high-quality leads from Pinterest and generating traffic that will turn into loyal readers and customers.

If you’re just getting started on Pinterest, don’t forget to switch to a business profile, confirm your website, and enable rich pins as well.

These are more technical aspects of setting up your profile that you can find more information on in my Free Pinterest Guide For Bloggers or in my Pinterest Ebook.

2. Design stunning Pinterest graphics

The real secret to getting traffic from Pinterest is simple: you have to create attention-grabbing, high-quality, tall, and vertical pin graphics that will lead people back to your website.

If you’ve used Pinterest as a user before, you know by now that almost every single photo and pin that you see on there (from fashion shots to recipes to anything else in between) leads back to the website they were pinned from.

There aren’t any horizontal images at all actually….take a look:

How to Use Pinterest to Drive Targeted Traffic to Your Website

By creating graphics that clearly illustrate what’s on the other side of the pins, you don’t only generate, but you encourage click-throughs which translate into website traffic coming from people who actually want to hear what you have to say.

So, whether you are trying to promote a blog post, a service, a product, or anything else that can be found on your website, all you have to do is to create a pin (or multiple pins) that lead people there.

If you’re interested to find out more about the anatomy of the perfect Pinterest graphic, how to brand your pins to create a consistent Pinterest presence, or how to use free software such as Canva to create some stunning pin designs and templates, you can check out my blog post (and get access to a free video tutorial).

3. Craft a well-rounded Pinterest strategy

Your profile is set up and your pins are in place. Where do you go from here?

The secret to getting massive and recurring traffic coming from Pinterest is to create a strategy that will allow you to spread your pins evenly, create traction for them and grow your account at the same time.

That means you need to figure out how much you want to pin each day, to which boards, how active to be outside of sharing your own content, how to join group boards, and use all the other tools that Pinterest is putting at the disposal of content creators.

Pinning just when you remember you haven’t pinned for a month, sharing only other people’s content, and not being strategic when it comes to the distribution of your own graphics are all deadly Pinterest mistakes that you can avoid with a good strategy.

So experiment with what works for you and keep an eye on your analytics (not just your Pinterest analytics but your Google Analytics that can show you how much traffic you’re actually getting from Pinterest).

Be active, switch things up, be intentional and find out what works for others as well.

If you’re feeling stuck and overwhelmed by Pinterest at the moment, my ebook, The She Approach To Making Pinterest Possible, can offer you a straightforward and step-by-step plan on what you need to tackle first, how to do it and how to adapt my core strategy to your niche.

In it, I also interview 20+ bloggers that are killing it on Pinterest and giving you the 10 strategies I used to grow my Pinterest account to over 10k (14k and counting now). Grab a copy here!

4. Automate and outsource

Now that you have a strategy in place and you know exactly what needs to be done and in what way, there’s no reason to waste hours each day pinning manually.

There’s a multitude of Pinterest schedulers out there (my absolute favorite is Tailwind, which you can totally try for free) that you can use to partially or fully automate your Pinterest presence.

You can read my blog post on how I automated my Pinterest presence here.

Doing this allowed me to focus on improving other aspects of my Pinterest strategy such as creating more pins, optimizing my profile for SEO, and so on.

But the best part about having a bulletproof Pinterest strategy in place is that you can easily outsource those time-consuming tasks to Pinterest VAs, so you can focus on growing your business, taking care of your clients, creating more offers and products, and getting back at doing what you love.

And there you have it! These are 4 easy and straightforward steps to using Pinterest to drive targeted traffic to your website, increase your blog traffic or generate more leads in your business.

About The Author

Ana is a blog growth strategist and Pinterest expert over at The She Approach whose mission online is to help bloggers grow their income and traffic. Her Pinterest ebook is a full guide to mastering Pinterest and using the platform strategically to your advantage. In the words of one of her readers “When Ana talks Pinterest, you listen.”.