Pinterest for Bloggers – Is Pinterest Still Relevant?
Last Updated on November 1, 2022
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What is the best Pinterest strategy for bloggers?
Would you recommend Pinterest for bloggers after all of the changes?
I know these are the top most searched for questions bloggers are asking about Pinterest right now, and for good reason.
Let’s have a chat about whether Pinterest is still relevant for bloggers and what the best Pinterest strategy is to drive traffic to your blog using Pinterest.
In 2020, bloggers especially saw a huge drop in their Pinterest analytics, and many decided to completely give up on the platform. Here’s what happened.
A few things were happening all at once that meant a lot of people’s traffic was seen as much lower.
What Changed About How Pinterest Works for Bloggers
If you’ve been blogging for a while, you are probably aware that over the last few years, a lot has changed about how to use Pinterest for bloggers. The entire landscape shifted.
Here are the main factors that affected how things on Pinterest for bloggers changed.
Global health crisis
This is an obvious one but certain niches such as travel saw a huge drop in Pinterest traffic because everything was so uncertain, and travel was locked down.
But other niches such as food climbed higher than ever before since people were stuck in their homes.
It makes sense that while Pinterest for travel bloggers saw a decline, Pinterest for food bloggers was having a Renaissance.
What you can learn from this is to keep an eye on trends, especially if you blog across multiple niches.
Measurements changed
Pinterest changed the way you measure your account. I saw a lot of people freaking out that their monthly views were declining big time.
This is because every time someone saw a pin on their screen that you had pinned onto any of your boards, it was previously counted as a view.
However, Pinterest decided to get a lot more accurate about that and stop counting other people’s pins in that category (only pins leading to your websites are now counted).
So, the good news is that you may have not seen a huge decrease, just the measurement changed!
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The Pinterest spam filter
Oh yes, you’ve probably heard all about this one before. The infamous Pinterest spam filter accidentally knocked a whole lot of contests off the platform including accounts.
I was caught in the spam filter. I had the shock of my life when I woke up with an email from Pinterest saying that my account had been deactivated because I was posting spam.
15 days later I got an apology email that it was all a mistake. But I lost about 10k followers and my engagement took a while to get back up again which was a pain.
If you’re seeing a decline in traffic, check with Pinterest that one of your pins hasn’t been caught in the filter. You can do this by comparing popular pins within google analytics.
If you see a drop off of a particular pin, then check to see if your pin is still on Pinterest.
Fresh pins changed the game
On top of all that, Pinterest made some big algorithm changes to the platform. A majority of the strategies bloggers use are no longer relevant and some can be hurtful for your account.
We saw a huge push for fresh content and a stop for focusing on repining others’ content. Pinterest was clear that you are the focus of your account and to just focus on creating content.
This is actually a great thing because it means that now we don’t have to worry about repinning, and we can just get onto creating.
New formats on Pinterest
Another reason some bloggers may have seen a change in traffic from Pinterest is because new formats were introduced such as Pinterest video pins and idea pins.
For these new formats of pins to be shown, Pinterest had to create a new algorithm so that a percentage of each format was shown to any user.
This meant that if you were to just create standard pins, you are going to show less in the feed. So make sure you’re creating all 3 formats!
Okay so now we have gone through some Pinterest algorithm changes, let’s get onto how to use Pinterest for blogging right now.
How to use Pinterest for blog traffic – Your guide to Pinterest for bloggers
Let’s get into some key things when it comes to Pinterest marketing for bloggers and how to use Pinterest for business.
Seo is king
If you would like to market on Pinterest, you need to learn all about how Pinterest SEO works.
SEO, which stands for Search Engine Optimization, allows your content to be seen by your ideal audience and lets it be categorized in a way that leads to blog traffic.
Some things you need to optimize include your profile, pins, and boards. And to optimize in the first place you need to know what your ideal audience is typing into google.
If you know those keywords you can then include them in your content. To know these keywords, you need to do some keyword research on Pinterest.
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Stick to your niche
You must be clear on your niche, so you don’t confuse your audience and Pinterest algorithm.
Who do you help and what do you help them with? Always come back to that question when picking a niche. Your blog shouldn’t be all about you.
To grow a blogging business, you need to solve some problems and answer some questions!
Post less
Yes, that’s right! Gone are the days when you have to post 20-50x per day. Pinterest likes you posting less so now the recommended is 2-5x per day.
This makes it much easier to keep up with posting content on Pinterest.
The content you post should primarily be yours and not everyone else’s. Pinterest likes you just focusing on your content now.
Even though you only have to post 2-5x per day now I would still use a Pinterest scheduler like Tailwind (get $30 credit here when you sign up) so that you can make sure you’re being consistent with posting on Pinterest, which leads me to my next point…
Read my full review on how Tailwind works if you’re new to the program and scheduling.
Consistency is key
Whenever someone asks me, Exactly how does Pinterest work for bloggers or businesses? The number one thing that I recommend is consistency.
If you’re not consistent on Pinterest, you can kiss goodbye to seeing good results. Pinterest favours accounts that are using their platform regularly and posting good quality content.
If you’re not doing that then you cannot expect to grow on there.
That’s why I always say use a scheduler like Tailwind so you don’t have to be on Pinterest 2-5x per day because as a blogger myself, I know how many hats we wear on the daily.
Instead, I recommend batch creating pins and then batch scheduling. Pick 1 or 2 days per month where you sit down and do all your Pinterest content.
To post this much, let’s break it down. All you need is 60 pieces of content if you’re posting 2x per day or 150 pieces of content if you’re posting 5x per day.
Now that might seem overwhelming but it’s not. Let’s say you put out 1x blog post per week and you create 2x pin for each blog post and pin to 2x relevant board with a 15-day interval.
That’s 16 pieces of content you will publish for your new blog posts.
Then I recommend for the rest of the content to create fresh pins for already published content based on seasons and trends and any holidays coming up.
Let’s say that it’s 2-3 months before the European summer, which would be the perfect time to publish European travel content because people will be searching for it, and it gives it time to rank for the upcoming season.
Always plan your content 2-3 months in advance to take hold of the best season in your niche!
Forget about Facebook threads
Facebook threads where bloggers pin each other pins are DONE. Please do not participate in these threads anymore as they can bring more harm to your account.
Instead, just focus on creating and publishing your quality content.
Get a business account
When you sign up to Pinterest make sure you have a business account or convert your personal account to a business.
Business accounts allow us to be categorized better and we get more options to market our business. Also, you get access to Pinterest analytics which is incredibly useful.
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Claim your website
You must claim your website with Pinterest. You can do this by going to settings > Claim and then add a website.
You will then need to add an HTML code to the head section of your website.
But if you’re afraid to touch the backend of your website like me then download this plugin here and you can easily add the code within.
It can take some time for your website to be claimed but once it is you should see a small icon of a world next to your website in your profile.
Enable rich pins
The next thing to make sure you do is to enable rich pins. Rich pins allow extra information to be stored on our pins which help the pinner and make us look way more professional on the platform.
Read my blog post that outlines how to set up rich pins for your blog.
If you don’t know if you have this enabled yet, click here to be taken to the rich pins validator and pop in a URL from your website (not your homepage, pick a blog post URL) and if it’s green it means you have set it up.
Do more of what’s working
If you’re not frequently analysing and tracking your Pinterest account, you will have no idea what’s working.
Make sure you are checking your analytics and see what kind of content, topics, layouts, colours, and titles are working the best for your account.
Once you know your best pins and the most popular topics then DO MORE OF WHAT’S WORKING! You do not have to reinvent the wheel here.
Learn how to create pins that convert
Since Pinterest is a visual platform visuals are everything. If you’re not creating pins that are inspiring pinners to click, then you will not find many outbound clicks.
You need to learn more about the phycology of pinners and how to create that piece of content hats going to make them think ‘Oh my gosh I need to know this right now.
Once you know this you will have all the success in the world!
This is something I teach inside of passive profit with Pinterest with my students.
We can set up our account and optimize everything to oblivion but if you’re not creating clear, clickable pins then you won’t see many results.
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Lean into all forms of content
There are 3 types of content on Pinterest right now as I’m writing this blog post.
Standard pins, video pins, and idea pins. To see your results skyrocket I recommend you lean into all 3 types of content.
Standard and video pins are easy to create but idea pins cannot be scheduled yet.
You should aim to post 2-5x per day using a mixture of standard and video pins and then publish 1-4x idea pins per week.
With idea pins, I would experiment with how many you may put out.
Bloggers on Pinterest are seeing huge growth when implementing these into their strategy and there are ways to do them so that they link to products you mention and even to your blog.
And the good news is that bloggers are seeing outbound clicks increase with idea pins even though you are not able to link quite yet.
There are ways to implement idea pins easily too.
For example, I always repurpose my content from Tik Tok and Instagram for idea pins because I just don’t have the time to create content and why not repurpose some awesome content I already have?!
But there is a good way and bad way to do that so make sure you read this post all about how to repurpose content for video and idea pins.
Audit your account 3 months after posting consistently
After 3 months of posting consistently on Pinterest, that’s when you should be doing an audit of your content.
Look at what content is doing well, where most of your clicks are coming from, which content do pinners like the most, and how are your pins ranking?
Every 3 months you should audit your strategy and know exactly what’s working and what’s not, then ADJUST.
Within the blogging sphere and as a blogger of 10 years myself, I know that sometimes we can get so caught in the new strategies and not necessarily sit down and do a business audit of our blog.
Schedule it in asana and make sure you do this audit!
Pinterest strategy for new bloggers
If you’re a new blogger and you don’t have too much content, then this is the Pinterest strategy I would use.
1. Create your account and optimize it correctly. Make sure you have everything done even your board descriptions!! Have it all set up so you can just focus on creating content.
2. Start posting the minimum 2x per day. Now you may even struggle with this because you don’t have too many blog posts but also think about where else you can lead people.
Do you have any products you sell or freebies to give? Because you can lead people to those too.
3. Lean into idea pins. Create as many idea pins as you can because this will grow your account and you don’t have to have a lot of content.
You could make a blog post on let’s say ‘5 ways to bake bread’ and create an idea pin on each way. Then you could also create a recap of the 5 ways, different techniques, tips & hacks, etc!
The important thing for new bloggers is that you’re not posting about the same blog post every day all in a row.
I would make sure you have for standard pins and video pins a 7-day interval before posting to the same URL again otherwise you’ll minimize your reach and possibly be caught in spam.
I hope this Pinterest for blogger guide was helpful and inspired you to either get on Pinterest or refresh your account and get back to posting.
If you want to dive in deeper then make sure you join Passive profit with Pinterest. We have some bloggers who are smashing Pinterest and seeing huge growth in their blogs.
Frequently Asked Questions
Pinterest has over 400 million active monthly users. Engaging with that pool of potential new viewers can have a huge impact and help make more people aware of your blog.
Pay attention to SEO and use Pinterest keyword research. Be consistent with your Pinterest content so as not to confuse the Pinterest algorithm, and post 2-5 pins a day.
The USA is by far the most active Pinterest-using country. Targeting your Pinterest content to engage with the largest demographic is a smart strategy.
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