Are you wondering why your pins aren’t going viral on Pinterest? No need to worry cause I am here to help! This blog post has been a long time coming but I wanted to wait a little and be absolutely sure that all of the information I had was good and valuable!
When it comes to blogging and Social Media, Pinterest often gets overlooked. People think that it’s only for pinning recipes or home decor ideas. And while all of that is amazing and I also do it, you can use Pinterest for so much more! It’s an amazing tool no matter if you’re an experienced blogger or if you’re just starting out!
In this blog post I will share all of my Pinterest tips and tricks with you in a way that it’s easy to implement them yourself! Over the past year I read a ton of articles on Pinterest and unfortunately a lot of them contain a lot of fluff. A lot of promise in the title and a lot of clickbait, but not really a decent explanation on how to exactly go viral on Pinterest!
Well I can guarantee you that after reading this article you will hold all the tools to become a master at Pinterest!
Other articles that might interest you
- 15 Tips on how to Stand Out as a Travel Blogger
- 9 Mistakes I Made in My First Year of Blogging
- How To Double Your Blog Traffic Through Instagram
How To Create Viral Pins on Pinterest and Maximise Your Website Traffic
Knowing how to make your pins go viral can be really challenging at first. Especially when you’re just starting out as a blogger you’ll get bombarded with information. It took me a lot of trial and error to finally figure out how to create viral content for Pinterest.
What is Pinterest and why is it so important for a blogger?
Let me start by telling you a little about the wondrous world of Pinterest. Pinterest is a Search Engine and just like Google it will show you results based on keywords. But the most important feature about Pinterest is that it’s a visual platform.
When you’re doing research on Google you’ll be attracted by a specific title and click on an article or website. But when you’re using Pinterest you’ll be bombarded with hundreds of images and you’ll end up clicking on the one that entices you the most.
So, there are two things that we need to learn:
- How to create an image or pin that people will click on
- How to get that image at the top of the search bar
When I just started blogging I didn’t pay too much attention to Pinterest. It was another channel to worry about and I didn’t think it really mattered. I can tell you now that that was a very stupid decision!
When used correctly, Pinterest can drive a ton of daily traffic to your website. For example, I had a pin of mine go viral in December 2019 and within 1 month that blog post was read over 25.000 times! Not only did this 1 pin make it possible for me to apply for Mediavine (and get in!), until this day it still brings in a ton of daily traffic to my blog!
How to set up your Pinterest account
Just like with Instagram, you don’t want to use a personal account. Switch your Pinterest account to business so that you can get access to all of the analytics.
Profile Settings
- Name your Pinterest account – Use your Instagram handle or the name of your blog. Don’t use your personal name if you don’t do that on the other platforms. This would just confuse your readers and make them click away from your profile.
- Set up your Profile description – Tell a little about yourself and what your website/page is about.
- Choose your Profile picture – Choose a photo where you can clearly see your face. This way your readers/followers will recognise you. Plus people are way more likely to follow a person than a brand.
- Claim your website – Per Pinterest account you can claim one website and it needs to be a second-level domain. By claiming your website you get access to analytics for the Pins you publish from your site and analytics on Pins that other people create from your site.
Dashboard Settings
- Create Relevant Boards – Make sure to create enough separate boards about the topics you talk about. Don’t just drop all your pins in 1 board cause ain’t nobody gonna click on that :). Later on in this article you’ll find a detailed description how to set up the perfect Pinterest board.
- Create a Best Of Board – This board will always be featured first on my page and holds all of the pins I created for all of my blog posts. This way if anyone wants to see my best articles they simply go to this board et voila.
- Set up Featured Boards – When you click on someone’s Pinterest profile the first things you see after their profile information are their featured boards. Make sure your ‘Best of’ board is included and then choose 4 other boards!
How to set up your Pinterest Board
Once you’ve created all of your different Pinterest Boards it’s time to optimise them! Do not skip this step cause this will help your pins rank later on.
- Choose a Board Cover – When it comes to choosing a board cover you can choose. Either select one of your favourite photos to be the cover image or create one in Canva! Canva is an amazing design tool that I always use for designing my pins, blog graphics and stock photos.
Make sure that when you create your board cover that you use high quality images cause you want it to capture the attention of the reader. Be honest with yourself and make sure your photos aren’t too dark or blurry. If you don’t have good images yourself simply use a stock image from Canva.
When designing your board cover you can also put your board title on it. This way everyone will immediately see what your board is about without having to read the title below.
- Name your Board – Make sure that the topic of your board is immediately clear
- Board Description – This is were a lot of people (including me) get lazy but this step is very important! Having a good board description will help Pinterest in identifying what your board is about and thus help rank the pins included in this board higher. The description of your board is keyword sensitive so make sure to include as many relevant keywords as possible. Later on in this article I will also tell you my secret trick to finding the best Pinterest keywords in just a few minutes!
How To Create a Viral Pin
As I said before Pinterest is a visual search engine where high quality images perform the best. I create all of my Pinterest templates myself in Canva but when I was just starting out I always used some of their pre made templates. I use the PRO version of Canva which gives me access to all of their features, stock photos, symbols, fonts and templates and is only $119/year.
Design your Pin
- Vertical Pins perform better – There are hundreds of new pins posted every single day so you have to make sure to get noticed! I prefer to make my pins a little longer and instead of the standard 1000 x 1500px I go for 1000 x 1700px. These longer pins will stand out in someone’s Pinterest feed and people will be more likely to click on them. The more people interact with your pins the higher the chances that it will go viral on Pinterest
- Use High Quality Images – I told you before and I will tell you again, if you want a pin to become successful you need to use high quality photos or images. If you’re a photographer I am sure that you have a ton of beautiful photos that you can use. If not you can make use of the Stock Images in Canva (all of them are included for Canva Pro).
For instance, sometimes I am also not completely happy with the way one of my photos turned out. For these pins I also use a stock photo simply because I know it will perform better. - Use Bright Colours – An important factor to include in your pin design is that pretty much 90% of Pinterest users is female. And apparently we are way more inclined to click on an image with bright colours. So if you’re adding text and graphics to your pin design make sure to opt for colours that will brighten your image!
- Use Large Fonts – When designing a viral pin make sure not to write too much information on it. Whatever you have to say needs to be clear in the blink of an eye while people are scrolling through Pinterest. If the font is too small no one will be able to read what your pin is about and you’ll lose a ton of possible website visitors.
- Add a Catchy Title – Pins with captivating titles get more saves and clicks, that’s a fact! And remember, the more people interact with your pin the higher its chances of going viral on Pinterest! When you’re writing a new blog post you should come up with at least 5 different Pinterest titles. Often these won’t be exactly the same as the original blog post title. But within the time span of a second you have to attract the attention of the scroller.
- Stay On Brand – If you have a logo make sure to include it in all of your pins or write down the name of your website at the bottom. By staying true to your own brand people will recognise your pins after a while and be much faster to save them and click on them. After trying out different fonts and colours you can check your Pinterest Analytics to see which ones performed best. It’s then up to you to decide if you stick to that design.
- Be Original – It’s always a lot easier to copy someone else’s ideas or designs and it happens A LOT on Pinterest. But I strongly advise you not to do this. Not only is it very obvious for every blogger who spends a decent time on Pinterest but your pin is also way less likely to stand out. Don’t let your design get lost just because you’re too afraid to try something else. Just try out different things and see what works best for you and your audience!
- Be Cohesive – To create to cohesive look for all of my pins and to make all of my photos match perfectly together I always edit all of my photos with one of my presets in Lightroom! This makes a collage pin look so much better and professional and it’s a must if you want to take Pinterest seriously!
Optimise your Pin with Keywords
You can spend hours and hours trying to perfect your pin design and don’t see the desired results. This is what happened to me many times over and over again. I would spend an entire day redesigning pins and uploading them but with no result. And you know why? Cause I was too damn lazy to put in the work of researching keywords.
If you want your pins searchable in the Pinterest search bar then you need to add keywords! When you add the right keywords to your pins they will pop up more often in people’s feed. This will lead to more monthly views, saved and website clicks!
How to make your Pin searchable and increase its chances to go viral on Pinterest?
All you need to do is follow a couple of easy steps and your pin will be good to go!
Step 1 – Use the Pinterest Search Bar to find your Keywords
Just like in Google the search bar in Pinterest will autocomplete your search with the most searched keywords. This means that people are typing in these words to find answers in that particular niche.
Step 2 – Use the Pinterest suggested keyword boxes below the search bar
After confirming your search you’ll be transferred to a new page, one filled with pins in regards to that specific keyword. But right underneath the search bar you can see a ton of keyword boxes. You can use these to create some long tail keywords for your pin description!
From one quick search I already get the following keywords:
- Italy travel photography
- Italy travel aesthetic
- Italy travel tips
- Italy travel guide
- Beautiful places to travel in Italy
Let’s try a subject completely unrelated to travel now!
And again, within a couple of seconds you find a group of the most searched keywords on Pinterest!
The key to getting found on Pinterest is to use long tail keywords by using words that people actually use on Pinterest to find the content. Pinterest SEO is about using the most searched keywords.
Where do I put these keywords?
- Pin Title – Make sure to use the most important keyword here!
- Pin Description – Your Pin description can hold up to 500 characters. Make sure to include at least 3 long tail keywords and add a couple of relevant hashtags at the end.
- Pin Image – Make sure to properly name your image before uploading it.
How To Post Your Pins and go viral on Pinterest
I hear you thinking… well Charlotte, I simply hit the post or upload button and that’s it right?
Wrong!
There are a few tips and tricks that I need to share with you so you can get the desired result!
How to Pin your Blog Post and go viral on Pinterest?
As a photographer I like to include a lot of photos in my articles and I make sure to pin every single one of them. Yes, even the horizontal ones! However, I don’t do this manually! I use a schedule service called Tailwind. And I can honestly say, using Tailwind has been an absolute lifesaver!
So every time I publish a new blog post I will schedule all of these photos and pins within Tailwind first. When selecting my boards I make sure to pin all of them first to my most relevant board. For instance my blog post “The Perfect Fairytale Road Trip Through Germany”. I will first schedule all of the photos and pins to my Germany board, then to my road trip board and then to my Europe board. I don’t schedule all of the photos to my ‘Best off’ board, here I only post the pins!
When scheduling my pins I tend to choose a 7 day interval and within the description I put the collection of long tail keywords that I previously looked up.
Now, before the first actual pin (not photo) goes live on Pinterest I make sure to manually pin it to my most relevant board. After doing so I participate in a Pinterest thread on Facebook so that pin immediately gets a ton of saves and views. My favourite Facebook group for doing this is Travel Bloggers Guide to Pinterest. The Pinterest threads in this group are pretty big so it’s worth the time and effort.
By launching your pin in a thread like this, chances are higher that it will go viral. Do know that Pinterest threads take up a lot of time cause you need to repin everyone else’s pin as well! When done correctly it usually takes me around 40 minutes to complete a thread.
I hope this article will help you on your Pinterest journey and I can assure you that if you follow all of these steps and tips that you’ll manage to go viral on Pinterest in no time!
If you have any additional questions feel free to ask them in the comments below!
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