Are you a blogger, entrepreneur or even a small business owner? This post will help you with getting started with Pinterest for beginners and maximize your results.
Not familiar with Pinterest? We will look at some statistics to understand why Pinterest would be a great tool for bloggers, and how to get started to with creating a proper Pinterest profile.
Getting Started With Pinterest For Beginners
The beginners guide to using Pinterest will help you understand the platform, and quickly get you started.
My introduction to Pinterest was pretty simple. I had a friend who suggested I follow her account and I would be able to see the things she likes and is planning for.
So I started my own personal account and began following her. I had no clue about how to use Pinterest for marketing and I didn’t do much with my profile. As a matter a fact I did nothing.
Everyone has their own reasons to get started, hopefully this post will help you with your new journey.
Have you started your blog? A blog is a great place to share your thoughts and creativity.
You can even use your blog with a business and make money. Our FREE start your profitable blog guide is a go at your own pace course that will help you establish your presence online with your very own website.
Ready to start your blog, let’s get it!
Pinterest Explained
“Pinterest is the place to plan the most important projects in your life” Ben Silbermann Co Founder and CEO of Pinterest
- Pinterest would be similar to having an online vision board to save your ideas.
- It’s also a social media channel where you build followers, get likes and shares.
- Most Importantly, Pinterest is a search engine, just like Google. Pinterest uses an image based search and Google uses a text based search.
How To Use Pinterest For Beginners
People use Pinterest to collect different ideas, and interests then bookmark them to a online board and read them later.
When it comes to bloggers or businesses they learn how to use Pinterest for marketing, drive traffic to their websites, build email lists, and generate sales.
If you use Pinterest search to find information it’s pretty simple. Just visit the site and create boards of your interest.
Search for different ideas such as wedding ideas, side hustle ideas, or best camping supplies.
Each idea or pin image you like, save it to one of your boards and read it at your convenience.
Getting started with Pinterest for beginners and learning how to use Pinterest for marketing your business will be totally different.
You will need to understand a few basic strategies like: how to gain followers, how to gain more traffic to your website, creating great click worthy pins, and crafting SEO optimized descriptions.
Pinterest statistics
- Pinterest now has more than 330 million active online users.
- It displays near 200 billion pins
- The average number of monthly searches is 2 billion.
- 71% of Pinterest users are females
- Pinterest is the 2nd largest search engine next to Google
See more Pinterest Stats here.
What is Pinning
Pinning is a individual exercise where users search for ideas and pin them (save them) to different boards.
Boards have themes like best DIY hacks, raising kids ideas, or side hustle ideas. The categories are countless.
If you are a casual user, a blogger, or have an online business there is a huge market on Pinterest.
What is A Pinterest Pin
A pin is an image, basically a visual representation of the information it relates to. This is the only way to share your content on Pinterest.
A Pinterest pin has three elements;
- An image/picture.
- A link to the website/blog.
- A short description
Clicking on a pin will open the pin in a new tab, you will be able to read the pins description and even click on that pin.
Once you’ve clicked on a pin you will be redirected to the link it is associated with.
You can also click on the pin and save it to one of your boards.
You will be given an option to select from your available boards or Pinterest will make a suggestion to create a new board that is relevant to that pins description.
Do you have a brand or business that you want to grow online? Using the Pinterest platform would be beneficial to your brand.
What Are Pinterest Boards
Pinterest boards display your collection of pins. It compiles all your ideas into one board.
You may have a board for ‘sidehustle ideas’, ‘blogging tips’, ‘making money’, ‘my projects’, ‘favorite desserts’.
Boards are owned by the individual pinner, whereas group boards or shared boards are boards that are managed or owned by different owners.
People create Pinterest group boards to collaborate, grow their reach, and connect.
Group boards can give you more exposure to a new audience, however with the 2020 algorithm changes Pinterest has stated their focus is on fresh pins from individuals.
This seems to add more importance to your personal boards and fresh content you create.
Pinterest Marketing Strategies
Manual Pinning
Manual pinning is simply saving a pin to one of your boards.
You do this buy clicking the pin it button on an a pin image from your website, or you can upload the pin image from your computer to Pinterest.
I have read many posts on the subject of manual pinning. I would say its 50-50 as far as bloggers recommending manual pinning over schedulers.
From my experience and with the recent changes Pinterest has made to there algorithm, I would recommend manually pinning fresh pins to relevant boards first.
Then use an approved scheduler like Tailwind, to schedule those pins to relevant group boards.
Start yourScheduled Pinning
With scheduling tools like Tailwind you can schedule pins at a specific time and to particular group boards.
Tailwind uses best practices that are in alignment with Pinterest to ensure your account is not abusive or spammy. It will definitely save a lot of your time.
Comparing Pinterest life span to other social media platforms, Pinterest pins have a longer life than a tweet or even an Instagram post.
A user can save your pin to one of their boards, then some of their followers will see your pin and can save it to their boards.
Their followers can do the same and this can help to extend your pins life span.
That means your content is getting exposure to new audiences all the time.
The pinning process can bring you increased blog traffic, more page views, new leads and finally, a bigger email list, and more sales!
A very popular trend for business and bloggers is promoting products for online sales.
If you are new to blogging you can create pins for affiliate products and make money online.
Make sure to review the affiliate terms and verify the best method for advertising.
For example with Amazon Affiliate Marketing you will want to create pins that lead back to a page on your website with the affiliate product link and descriptions.
Related Reading: What is Affiliate Marketing
Getting started with Pinterest for beginners its important to understand just how Pinterest works. Many bloggers and businesses use Pinterest as a means of driving traffic to their websites.
One of the best ebooks online that teaches step by step how to use Pinterest for marketing is Making Pinterest Possible.
If you want to learn proper account set-up, basic pinning, and actionable strategies to drive massive traffic to your website/blog-grab your copy of the Making Pinterest Possible ebook.
Getting Started With Pinterest 2021
Follow these steps to start using Pinterest for your blog, brand, or business.
Is Pinterest Free To use
If you’re using a personal Pinterest account, convert it to a FREE business account. Inside your Pinterest account go to settings and click convert to business account.
You can have more than 1 account with Pinterest. Some users decide to keep a personal profile and start a new business profile.
That will be your decision, but you will definitely need to set up a business account to take advantage of analytics and tracking information.
Create your own Pinterest business account here.
Verify Your website
- Select your username. Keep it relevant to your business name.
- Write your bio and make sure to use keywords related to your business.
- Get verified with Pinterest/Claim your website
- Apply for rich pins.
How to use Pinterest
Understanding who reads your blog post will not only help you to write good content for your readers but also help you choose pin designs that are more interesting to your audience.
Getting started with Pinterest for beginners will require a bit of patience to understand how to use your profile to drive traffic to your website/blog.
You will have the opportunity to test out the platform and begin learning best strategies for your business.
Keywords
Always use Keywords in your pin descriptions. Your Bio, and your board descriptions.
As an example, if you were in the Harry Potter niche. You could go to the Pinterest search bar and type in Harry Potter.
If you look at the words directly under the search, these are additional queries that searchers have.
So to build your BIO, profile, and pin descriptions in a couple of sentences create your descriptions using the keywords you found.
When writing out descriptions you will want to make them human friendly and not so robotic sounding.
This is the best way to tell Pinterest what your profile is all about.
Pinterest SEO
When writing your blog post a good SEO practice is including the main keyword in the URL.
Using the same keywords in your Pinterest descriptions will help your content to be understood and found by Pinterest.
Create your first board. Make sure to use keywords to describe your board.
When creating boards you will have an area to write in the board title and board descriptions.
This will tell Pinterest what your pins are related to.
Pin Design
Create multiple pins for the same blog post. Making multiple pins (2-3) for a single post gives you a chance to do an A/B testing and discover what designs are giving you better results.
Each pin should link back to the same post. Pinning more often means the potential for more repins and more people who may see your pin.
When it comes to pinning multiple pins check the Pinterest best practices tips here.
Its a good idea to review Pinterest best practices so you can stay in alignment with the current pinning practices.
Pinterest Tips and Tricks
I have personally began creating 2-4 new pins per blog post. You can do 1-2 or 3-5 its up to you.
As an example If you create 5 pins for your new blog post do not pin those to the same board on the same day.
Because they each have the same URL you will want to use a time interval when pinning.
This helps your profile to not be marked as spammy. Pinterest has a no tolerance for spam, so protect your account by using best pinning practices.
You can add an interval of 2-3-or even 7 days in between each of your pins with the same URL.
I Manually pin images with the same URL to the most relevant board, using a time interval of 1 pin every 7 days.
This strategy has been working for me as I am seeing steady growth in all areas of my profile.
You should test different strategies to determine what will work best for your situation.
The main take away here is Pinterest likes content creators who are active and use the platform. Create your strategy, and stay consistent with some level of daily pinning.
A good practice to use is including hashtags in your pins descriptions.
Keep them to a minimum, usually 2 or 3 per pin will do. Make sure there relevant to your pin.
Create great looking pins
Creating beautiful click worthy pins is our goal as bloggers. Look at the pins that show up on your feed.
Usually the 1st 2 rows are the most popular. Look at these designs and take inspiration. You will see pins with bright colors, clear descriptions, and big bold text.
Pinterest has a focus on fresh pins, so taking inspiration will help you to create your own unique pins.
PRO TIP
As you go through your blog journey and begin building relationships with fellow bloggers, you will easily recognize there pins because they do a great job at creating the brand recognition.
Pin size
Pinterest has guidelines for pin size and what’s recommended is a 1:2 or a 2:3 ratio.
A long pin with vertical dimensions work better than pins with horizontal dimensions.
Creating pins that are long or vertical in dimension are recommended for best results to be found in search.
See Pinterest guide to creating pins here
Create Click Worthy Images
If you are like me and have no graphic design skills you an go to UNSPLASH.COM.
This is one of many websites that allow you to download free and copyright free images.
You can go to CANVA.COM create a free account and use canva to add text, overlays, and really style your pins.
For most bloggers just starting, the free version will do just fine.
It’s loaded with some great features that are useful for creating pins, social media flyers, posters, and all sorts of graphics.
For additional options when it comes to images you can use PicMonkey to design logos, blog post images, custom fonts, and ton of other design related ideas.
PicMonkey offers a trial subscription to there service which is perfect to test the service and get your feet wet.
You definitely want to go back and look at your pins analytics.
Tracking your clicks will give you the data on how many people are actually going to your website.
Using your google analytics, or even the analytics in your Tailwind account you can easily track your success.
To have repeat success we need to know which designs our audience favors.
Reviewing your account to find popular pins is key!
When you find pins that are popular or seem to have more views you can take inspiration from them to create more pins for other posts.
These are just the basics to help you get a better understanding of using Pinterest.
If you are just getting started with Pinterest for beginners this article will help you get your account up and running.
Social media takes time and consistency. With your continued efforts and commitment to learning you will become a pro and discover how to setup Pinterest to explode your blog traffic.
Now its your turn
Active bloggers leave us comment and share your tips and tricks on using Pinterest.
Are you new to Pinterest? Ready to learn how to use Pinterest for marketing?
If you are new and have questions about getting started with Pinterest for beginners send us an email getblogtips@gmail.com. We love hearing from our readers.
2 Responses
Great article for beginners (that is me 🙂 Thanks for all the information! It really helps. I think the only bit of advice I could give is to use Tailwind to help grow your Pinterest account. It is also a great way to connect with other bloggers in your niche.
Tiffany, ACreativeLearner.com
Hey Tiffany thanks for the Tailwind recommend. I’m glad you stopped by!