Rachel
Pinterest has become one of the fastest growing social media sites over the past few years. What started as a digital bulletin board to save websites and ideas has now turned into a platform you can use to drive traffic to your business!
This social media platform also regularly ranks high on search engines, especially when users are searching for images related to your topic. Knowing how to use Pinterest to drive traffic to your website can be an ultimate game changer for your business, and lucky for you, we have come up with Pinterest marketing tips to help do this!
First, You Need a Pinterest Business Account
This is easy. If you have a business email address, website, or any other social media account related to your business, you can easily set up a Pinterest Business Account. Once your business account has been created, you will have access to promoting advertisements, viewing the analytics, and analyzing audience insights.
Next, Claim Your Website
Once you have set up your Pinterest Business Account, you will need to claim your website by copying and pasting the Pinterest HTML into your website’s body. This will allow Pinterest analytics to access how often your website is accessed through Pinterest. This will also show users your website information when they pin content from your website onto Pinterest.
Now You Need to Set Up Some Pinterest Boards
You can pin content on Pinterest in one of two ways. One, you can pin content directly from a website onto Pinterest. Two is the most common way to pin content, which is by finding pins on the Pinterest website itself and pinning the content to your personal board. Therefore, you should go ahead and set up some boards on your Pinterest Business Account for users to find and re-pin.
These boards should contain pins that are directly connected to your website. You should also create some captions that are directly related to your website, too. These captions should contain hashtags or keywords that are commonly found throughout your website. This will generate the most traffic from Pinterest to your website or blog.
Use Cover Photos for Your Boards
Uniformity, design, and functionality is key when it comes to creating your website, and this same concept applies to social media platforms, including Pinterest. Have you ever visited an Instagram account where the account owner uses the same cover photo design for each category of stories? There is something about this uniformity that takes the account from blasé to brilliant.
Use this same concept for your Pinterest boards. It will immediately take your Pinterest account to the next level.
Use Quality Images for Your Pins
The first thing users see on Pinterest is the image that encapsulates what the pin is about. These images need to stand out from the rest and draw users to want to find out more about your post. A combination of words overlaying pictures is the perfect Pinterest pairing! And infographics work really well on Pinterest, too!
Pro Tip: If you can create a custom image for each pin that relates to your business, Pinterest users will begin to recognize your images as your “brand.” This will funnel more traffic to your Pinterest site and hopefully to your blog.
Start Following, Commenting, Liking, and Pinning
One of the quickest ways for your Pinterest to drive traffic to your website is to put your Pinterest account out there by following, commenting, and liking. This strategy means a user will be more likely to follow you if you follow them first. Show a little love and you can easily get love in return.
While you are showing other Pinterest accounts some love, you should also be pinning new pins of your own. Statistics show that you should pin at least 30 pins a day to stay ahead of the competition.
These pins should contain captions and descriptions that are accurate, engaging, and actionable. Users on Pinterest should feel like they are missing out if they don’t immediately click your pin after reading a call-to-action phrase in the description of your pin. These descriptions should also contain keywords related to your website to drive the most traffic.
Start a Pinterest Advertising Campaign Promotion
Ture on your Pinterest Business Account. There is a specific “Traffic Campaigns” feature built right smack dab into the Pinterest Ads section. Simply click “Create Ad” and it will take you to a section where you can choose which advertisement to run. These promoted pins can also rank higher on a search engine result pages.
Since we are focusing solely on using Pinterest to drive traffic to your website, we are going to discuss using this built-in campaign.
Step 1 – Create an Audience
In this step you will go through and select interests related to your website that your audience is also interested in. Think about your niche and use this to develop your marketing strategy. This gives you a greater chance of reaching Pinterest users who will be interested in your brand.
You will also select the gender of the audience you wish to target (men, women, or both), the geographic location of the audience, the age range of the audience, the language of the audience, and the web device the audience is using (Android, Apple, or desktop).
Advanced options at this stage include choosing where the ad will be placed (search results or home screen scrolling), and if you want to use a third-party system to track impressions and clicks.
Step 2 – Budget and Schedule
You can choose your budget and schedule one of two ways.
- Daily Budget – This method means you will pay the same amount each day for the Pinterest advertisement for a set time period you decide.
- Lifetime Budget – This method means you will pay no more than a certain total lifetime amount to run the Pinterest advertisement for a set time period you decide.
Step 3 – Optimization and Delivery
This is the step where you decide how quickly your budget is spent. You can choose Standard (which is the recommended method) or Accelerated.
Pin it to Win it
You can absolutely use Pinterest to drive traffic to your website, and it is a fairly easy process to do so.
Create “pinworthy” (yes, that’s a word) images that will make it impossible for users not to click and a description that is catchy and full of keywords. If you need a little help with those clicks, create a Pinterest Ad to reach those 60 million (give or take) users all across the world!