7 Pinterest Marketing Hacks to Drive Traffic to Your Website

Pinterest isn’t just for planning your dream home decor or looking up quick weeknight meal ideas.

And it isn’t just women using the platform. Male users of Pinterest have risen steadily year after year. 

Because of these misconceptions, many brands overlook using Pinterest as part of their marketing strategy.

Stats that Break Barriers

Here are a few stats about Pinterest that might get you taking a second look at this search-engine-like platform. *Stats courtesy of Pinterest

  • 433 million people use Pinterest every month
  • Male pinners and Gen Z pinners are up 40% year over year, helping you reach key demographics
  • 97% of Pinterest searches are unbranded, which means they are open-minded and undecided
  • 80% of Pinners have discovered a new brand or product on the platform, meaning you can reach new audiences

Why Pinterest?

What makes Pinterest a truly amazing platform for driving traffic is that it is a link-based social platform. While they are experimenting with “Idea Pins” that don’t have a link, the majority of Pinterest users are not only looking for ideas, but are looking for information and are willing to follow links off of the platform to get that information!

So whether you are wanting to increase sales on your retail site or you want to increase readership on your blog, Pinterest creates great opportunities to drive traffic to your site and increase your ROI. 

Here are our top tips for driving traffic to your website with Pinterest.

1 | Create Images that are Shareable

On Pinterest, it is all about the image. You have to create share-worthy images. Photos should check off all the boxes: good lighting and the recommended aspect ratio (2:3 or 1000 x 1500 pixels). Bright and colorful images tend to get more pins, but that doesn’t mean dark and moody won’t work. Create unique images that stick to your branding. For graphics, be sure that your image is readable and eye-catching. Text should also be easily readable. 

2 | Link to Valuable Resources

Once you have caught your target audience’s eye, you want to have the content link to valuable resources. This requires knowing your audience and what problems they need solving, or in other words, know what your target audience is searching for and how you can fill that need. This valuable content could be a blog, educational information, business information, or product information. 

3 | Use Relevant Keywords

Keywords help your pin get discovered. Just like optimizing your website for search engines, you should optimize your post for Pinterest; this will also boost your pin appearing in Google searches! Use relevant keywords in multiple places: your board names, your pin title, and pin descriptions. 

4 | Don’t Forget Alt Data

Filling in the alt and meta data helps get your keywords in a few more times. Fill in the alt description with something meaningful, including keywords or phrases. Your image file name should also contain relevant keywords whether you are pinning it directly from your site or uploading it to Pinterest. Think of this step as additional search engine optimization (SEO). 

5 | Pin Consistently

While evergreen pins have a long life on Pinterest in comparison to other link-based platforms, it’s still key to pin consistently. This means pinning on a daily basis. Each day you should pin content not only from your own site, but other relevant and helpful resources for your audience. Why do this? Pinterest rewards people who pin consistently!

6 | Rich Pins

Apply for and use rich pins. These are pins that contain extra information and it helps them stand out more in a feed. Rich pins are perfect for articles, products, recipes, movies, places, and apps. For blog posts, this can also mean that the metadata for the blog always displays in the description area when a person clicks on your pin and this description can’t be changed by another user who repins your pin. For retail, it means that the price shows up in the pin as well. You’ll need to go through a validation process to get and use rich pins. 

7 | Pinterest Ads + Bonus Hack!

Finally, Pinterest ads can be a great way to help you cut through the online noise. However, even if you don’t want to pay for advertising, there is a nifty trick to searching relevant and current keywords through Pinterest ads. 

Go to your Pinterest account and go to Ads. Click Create Ad (don’t worry, you aren’t actually going to create an ad, just see keywords). 

Click New Ad Group then select any category (it doesn’t matter which one you choose). 

Next click on Keywords & Interests then Add Keywords. Type in a topic you want to pin about from your site. In the search results, Pinterest will automatically show you related keywords and their monthly search volumes. This can really help you in adding keywords to your pins! 

A Helping Hand

Still need help developing and deploying your Pinterest marketing strategy? Tintero Creative would love to help you meet your marketing goals! Our innovative team is ready to help you get your story out to the world. Schedule a free consultation today.