Practically every time I read a blog post, I see a Pinterest button somewhere that gives me the option to pin the post.
I started to wonder why Pinterest is so closely connected to blogging.
It’s likely because Pinterest is useful for education. Users create boards to save things like inspirational quotes, recipes, home decor ideas, blogs, and even future purchases. It makes sense that helpful blog posts are an excellent choice for pinning.
If you’re not already blogging for your business, there are plenty of reasons to get started.
- 55% of marketers say blogging is their top content marketing priority. There are few areas of marketing that do not benefit from blogging.
- Websites with blogs tend to have 434% more indexed pages.
- B2B marketers that use blog get 67% more leads than those who don’t.
- Marketers who prioritize blogging are 13 times more likely to achieve a positive return on investment in their efforts.
- Companies who blog receive 97% more links to their website.
All of these things translate to more potential for your audience to discover you, higher potential for better ranking in the search engines, and ultimately the potential for more revenue.
If you want to get started blogging or you’re already doing it, let’s take a closer look at how to use Pinterest for blogging.
Overview
Set Up A Pinterest Business Account
This is a free account. Unlike the personal account, you’ll get access to Pinterest analytics to give you detailed information about how your pins are performing. The Pinterest business account also gives you the option to apply for rich pins, which is an upgrade from the standard pin. There are five types of rich pins – movie, place, recipe, products, app, an article. The article rich pin is the most effective option for blogging. Article rich pins provide tools that allow you to add a larger logo image, and it has lines promote your post as well as a link to your website.
Using Pinterest for blogging allows you to promote posts, product offers, send traffic to your blog, and ultimately engage with your followers.
Getting Started
When considering how to leverage Pinterest for your blog, think about how you want your users to find your account and what you believe they want to see. Pinterest should be a compliment to your blog and reflect your brand.
Create And Name A Board After Your Blog
It’s crucial to keep things consistent with how you name your boards. It helps not only SEO but organization and readers. Both search engines and readers will have an easier time finding your blog on Pinterest if it has a similar name. Use your blog board to highlight posts that don’t fit into other categories as well as making Roundup pins for a week’s worth of posts.
When you pin to this board, group your posts that are similar to one another to keep things organized. For instance, if someone wants to find posts about protein powder, they should be able to find that in the supplements section of your board or something similar.
Ideally, your pin should have one to two sentences about your post in the description, such as a quote from the blog, a featured image, and a link back to your website. Pinterest business handles the link back to your website for you
Structure A Winning Pin
Pinterest says pins that earn high engagement are optimized, branded, well written, and, most importantly, structured the right way.
Optimized
Describe your blog post or use a quote that tells pinners what they will gain from the pin.
Branded
Include your logo and ensure the featured photo has to do with the product or service you offer. This way, users will know its your brand they’re looking at before they even open the pin.
Well Written
Always include a call to action. Even something like click this link to see more will do the trick. Use sensory-related words to connect with users emotionally.
Structured The Right Way
Pay attention to Pinterest aspect ratios for photos, and make sure you’re taking advantage of the linkable options on standard pins to increase your traffic.
Check The SEO On Your End
Make sure your Pinterest account is set for public search within your privacy settings so that search engines can find the account.
Remain consistent when it comes to titles of your pens, boards, and blog posts. Keeping consistency makes it easier for Google to understand Pinterest.
Use as many relevant keywords as possible when naming your boards. Provide all text for Featured images in your pens to tell the search engines what your image is. Describe it using keywords if and when possible.
Create Related Pinterest Boards
As you create different boards, categorize them by your blog post categories. You can also make new boards that relate to other areas of your audience’s interest. Think about what your buyer Persona would be interested in seeing and make boards accordingly.
Going back to our protein powder example, you should create boards that have to do with other areas of health and fitness, such as cardio, nutrition, and accessories. These can include recipes, tools for working out, etc.
Create A Staff Board
This provides a wonderful opportunity for fostering emotional connection, so you may wish to consider creating a staff board. This helps you to show the faces behind your brand. Seeing those faces will help consumers feel more like they know the business, which makes them more likely to follow.
Create a staff pin with a headshot as the featured image of the employee. Use a short bio that’s engaging for the descriptions and have each employee link to their favorite or newest blog posts to get you more traffic.
Ensure Your Blog Is Pinnable
Using Pinterest means your blog has to be pinnable. You need to have buttons with the Pinterest logo that allow users to pin a blog post from your website. This will enable viewers to explore your blog, find posts they want to read later, and save them to their Pinterest account to find later. This gives you more traffic on your blog and Pinterest.
Engage With Your Followers
To keep your profile welcoming and active, interact with followers to make your Pinterest more targeted towards your audience. Follow new followers back. Conduct a little market research by looking through their pens and board. This can help you make targeted content later.
Repin posts that have to do with your blog. If you see that one of your followers has an awesome pin that would fit well into one of your categories, engage with it. Like, comment, and repin. Repinning is essentially the same as retweeting or reposting it in general. Users can save up on their page or to one of their boards.
Take time to follow influencers and Industry leaders as well. Doing so demonstrates your interest, support, and knowledge of the industry to make your Pinterest look credible. Repinning influencers’ posts allows you to begin building a community around your industry
Include Interesting Visuals
Your images must entice the reader to open the pin. Choose photos that are in the correct aspect ratio of either 2:3 or 4:5. If you’re cropping things manually, you should have a width of 650 and a height of 975 pixels.
Images are the most crucial part of a pin, so they have to fit Pinterest as much as possible to catch a reader’s eye. You can use templates from Canva and other services to help you get started on the right foot.
Post To Pinterest On A Regular Schedule
Keep to a schedule as you post on Pinterest. You don’t have to make it as consistent as you do on your other social channels, but it does need to be repetitive. Research suggests that Pinterest posts get the highest amount of traction between 8 p.m. and 11 p.m. Eastern Standard Time.
Because you don’t need to be as frequent with pinning, you have more time to make sure the pens you do post are of the highest possible quality. Use your Pinterest account to focus on quality rather than quantity, and your frequency goals don’t need to stress you out.
You can use Pinterest for your blog as a resource for showing off your new posts or create a bridge between e-commerce and blogging. Regardless of which path you choose, Pinterest remains a powerful distribution channel for your content, and ignoring it means missing out on an opportunity.
