The Ultimate Pinterest Strategy for Bloggers in 2023

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Make your traffic skyrocket with my Pinterest strategy for bloggers

If you want to drive traffic to your blog in 2023, you need to focus on 3 key areas: search engine optimised content (SEO), social media marketing and having a successful Pinterest marketing strategy.

I’ve been using Pinterest as one of my main marketing strategies for my blog since 2016.

Pinterest has gone through many changes since then, and as a result I’ve had to change up my Pinterest marketing strategy in order to continue attracting as much traffic to my blog as possible.

Pinterest is responsible for 30% of my traffic. That’s a pretty big chunk considering I only spend a few hours a week on Pinterest every week.

At the end of the day, traffic = money.

While it can take months for your SEO strategy to start sending traffic to your blog, Pinterest traffic is attainable for anyone- even brand new bloggers.

Yes, that’s right. With my Pinterest strategy for bloggers you can drive traffic to your website right away. Today, in fact.

Pinterest can even give you a helping hand with your SEO as it is a ranking signal for Google. I always notice my blog posts rank higher and at a much faster pace when I do some social media and Pinterest marketing.

Pinterest has also come out and said each Pin has an average lifespan of 105 days.

This is much longer than social media shares on Facebook and Twitter, which usually die off after 24 hours.

So in conclusion, Pinterest is awesome, anyone can use it and everyone should use it.

But in order for it to work correctly, you need a kick-ass Pinterest strategy.

Luckily, I’m going to share my 2023 Pinterest strategy for bloggers.

I’ve spent years studying Pinterest and developing this strategy that has worked on my blog and for many businesses I work with.

I’ve also created my 10-step Pinterest marketing strategy you can download for free.

If you’re anything like me, trying to digest an entire article full of information and then figuring out the action steps necessary is difficult and time-consuming. So this is why I’ve simplified everything in this article into a 10-step process that you can use whenever you publish a new post on your website.

These are the 10 steps I personally use to drive traffic from Pinterest to my blog and clients’ websites. My 10-step strategy breaks down everything in this article into actionable steps so you can start increasing your website’s traffic within 24 hours.

This will help you because it has helped me and many of my clients increase their website traffic.

Most people charge for this kind of information, but I’m giving you my secrets for free, so make sure you download it now.

Make sure you read this article in full so the checklist makes sense, however!

Make sure you bookmark this post because I am always updating it whenever I discover something new that works well or whenever Pinterst release an update.

Without further adoo, let’s supercharge your traffic!

Pinterest Marketing 2023: How to use Pinterest to promote your blog

This guide isn’t going to tell you how to set up your Pinterest business account, so if you haven’t created your Pinterest business account yet, do that now.

Make sure you’ve claimed your website and have ‘Rich Pins’

Claiming your website allows you to access Pinterest analytics and your profile picture will appear next to any pins you upload.

Claiming your website is easy. Simply go into your Settings, click Claim and follow the prompts to claim your website. You can also claim your Instagram, Etsy store and You Tube accounts (if you have them).

Rich Pins help content like recipes, articles and products stand out even more. They add a bold title and a description to anything you pin from your website. To enable Rich Pins, you will need to have a business account on Pinterest.

>> Read more: 5 common misconceptions about Travel Bloggers

Create quality pins using Photoshop

I subscribe to Adobe Creative Cloud which comes with Photoshop. Photoshop is great because you can create Pinterest templates to make creating your pins easier.

All I need to do is drop a photo in and change the text and hey-presto! I’ve created a new pin in a couple of minutes.

When creating new pins, make sure you are using the recommended pin size- 600 x 900 pixels is optimal – or any 2:3 aspect ratio.

Ensure you are using good quality images. Don’t be afraid to use stock images if you aren’t able to take quality images. Unsplash and Pixabay are great websites that provide free stock images you can use.

I also recommend coming up with consistent branding for your pins. Choose 2-3 different fonts and 2-4 different colours.

This is important so that people recognise your blog or website as a brand. If one person clicks on one of your pins and enjoys reading a blog post you’ve written or likes a product on your website for sale, your branding will stay with them, so if they stumble across more of your pins, they’re more likely to re-pin and save any new pins you create.

You can view my pins to see an example of pin branding.

If you’re not willing to subscribe to a service like Adobe Creative Cloud,  you can try free graphic design websites like Canva or PicMonkey.

Do Pinterest keyword research 

Just like SEO, you can also find out the search volume for certain keywords on Pinterest with this nifty trick.

What you need to do is pretend you are going to buy advertising on Pinterest. Click on Ads in the top left corner and then Create Ad. Enter random information and click next to go to the second page.

Scroll down until you get to the Keywords section (see below).

You can type in keywords that are related to your blog post and Pinterest will tell you roughly how many searches that term gets every month.

It will also give you an idea about the exact terms you should use (for example, ‘free things to do in X’ may get 1M searches per month as opposed to ‘cheap things to do in X’ which may get less than 1000 per month).

Another way of finding popular Pinterest keywords is to start typing your topic into the search bar.

For example lets say you have a blog post about Las Vegas.

When you type in ‘Las Vegas’ and you’ll see some suggestions pop up below.

You can use both of these methods to either help you with the creation of your pins or for blog post inspiration.

Write your Pinterest descriptions like this

Now that you know what keywords are popular on Pinterest, you’ll need to write a kick-ass pin description for all of your pins.

Here is an example. The words in bold are Pinterest keywords I’m targeting:

”Are you planning an Edinburgh vacation? Make sure you tick everything off this list of things to do in Edinburgh. From the best Edinburgh bars to ancient Scottish castles, this article will help you plan the perfect trip to Edinburgh.”

It’s a little keyword heavy, but you get the idea!

Use 2-3 hashtags at the end of your descriptions

In an update in 2018, Pinterest decided to introduce hashtags to the equation.

There is a lot of debate around the use of hashtags, but my thought on the matter is that if Pinterest made this an option, then surely they will rank pins with hashtags over those that don’t.

It takes an extra few seconds to add hashtags, so use them for now. 2-3 is enough.

Create niche group boards that target Pinterest keywords

You’ll want to create both broad term Pinterest boards and niche boards.

Why? Because Pinterest searches show boards as well as pins.

If you can encourage users to follow your board (or even your profile) whenever you post a new pin to that board, they’re more likely to see that too.

For example, I write a lot about hiking in Scotland on my blog, so I’ve created a Pinterest board called ‘Hiking in Scotland’ which is pretty niche, but I’ve checked and a lot of people do search for this term.

I also recommend creating board covers for all of your personal boards so your followers can differentiate between them and your group boards.

Create at least 3 pins for every blog post or product you sell

You may have written an amazing blog post, but if your pin doesn’t capture anyone’s attention, no one will read your post! Create at least three pins per blog post. This works because it means you can play around with different headlines, styles and fonts. I’m often surprised to see which of my pins is the one that really takes off (often it’s the design I like the least!). Here is a good example of why you should create many pins for your blog posts and products:

Both pins link to the same article ‘How To Hike The (Illegal) Stairway To Heaven’. The first pin has had 419 repins. The second has had only 78!

Imagine if I’d only created the lower performing pin- I would have lost out on a whole lot of traffic to my website.

Learn what pins work well on Pinterest, and create even more

A strategy I find that works really well is checking to see what my best performing pins are and creating even more pins for that blog post.

You need to have the mindset where you are constantly creating new pins. Not every pin you create will be popular and most pins will eventually lose momentum and die off.

And Pinterest loves new content.

Not all blog posts or products will work well on Pinterest either. Very specific pins such as a hotel review won’t fare well on Pinterest (you’re far better to focus on SEO for something like this).

Examples of pins that do well on Pinterest include:

• ‘Things to do in X’ type articles (which are often hard to rank for on Google)
• Packing lists (especially visual packing lists)
• Arts and crafts

I will sometimes create up to 50 pins for blog posts that I believe will do well on Pinterest. I’ll test different fonts, headlines and colours to see what works (from my research and experience, Pinterest prefers bold and bright colours).

Something to be aware of is that Pinterest prefers you to pin from your blog post or website directly.

I pin directly from my blog post to Pinterest for the first 3 pins I create that sit at the bottom of my blog post.

However, I don’t upload all of these ‘extra pins’ directly into each blog post- I’ll upload these pins directly to my Pinterest account, otherwise this method would take forever! Just remember when uploading directly to Pinterest you’ll have to type in the description manually.

Occasionally I’ll swap images around on my blog posts if one pin really takes off.

Join group boards on Pinterest

When I first joined Pinterest I had 0 followers. No one was going to see my pins unless they searched a key word that resonated with my pins.

To allow people to see my pins, I joined a few group boards.

Group boads, as the name suggests, allows multiple people to post to one board.

They tend to have a large following because they are very active.

If you share a pin, hundreds or potentially thousands of people subscribed to that board can see it, share it, and visit your website!

To find group boards to join in your niche, use Pin Groupie.

My recommendation is to join around 20 group boards, including a mixture of groups with a large following and a medium following.

On large group boards, your pin may get swallowed in the heap, or it could be shared by hundreds. Medium sized groups mean your pin is more likely to be seen, but not shared as often. Experiment with both.

Join ‘Re-pin’ groups on Facebook

This is the number one Pinterest marketing strategy that drives traffic to my webstie.

It’s also a great way to announce to the world that you’ve published a new blog post.

A Re-pin group is basically a pin sharing group. Most of these groups run daily threads where you can post a link to your most recent pin.

You then re-pin every other pin in the thread to your Pinterest profile (I have a generic travel board on my Pinterest account where I post all my pins) and everyone re-pins your pin you posted.

So, if 50 people post a link to a pin, your pin should get 50 shares.

Find Facebook Re-pin groups in your niche. You want bloggers in your niche to re-pin your pins so the people following them also follow you.

I am a member of Travel Bloggers Guide to Pinterest, Pinterest for Travel Bloggers and Ultimate Pinterest Group for Travel Bloggers.

You can search Facebook for Re-pin groups in your niche, or search for a general business Re-pin group.

Make sure when you participate in a Re-pin thread that you don’t re-pin all the pins in the thread all at once. Space them out, otherwise you’ll land in Pinterest jail for spamming, which is a place noone wants to be.

If you do end up in Pinterest jail (this has happened to me once) you just need to email Pinterest and explain you’re not a spammer and to please reinstate your account.

How I use Tailwind for Pinterest

Tailwind really deserves its own section, because there are many things you can do with this sceduling app to increase your Pinterest traffic.

For a long time I was skeptical about paying for a pin scheduling app, but once I did a whole lot of research into Tailwind I realised it was so much more than just a scheduling app.

Firstly, Tailwind is a Pinterest partner (and Instagram too, but that’s another post for another time) so if Pinterest likes Tailwind, then it has to be a good thing for your account, right?

Tailwind also has technology that figures out when your audience are most active and posts your selected pins during that time so they get as many eyes on them as possible.

Since I’ve subscribed to Tailwind, I’ve saved countless hours. Any blogger or entrepreneur will understand how much time you need to spend on your business (especially in the beginning) and the seemingly never ending list of things to do. So I am all for paying for a service that is going to save me money, and send more traffic to my website (which results in making me more money!).

So for this very logical reason, I am on team Tailwind, and I highly recommend you use it too.

They even have a free trial so you can test it out before subscribing. You can schedule your first 100 pins absolutely free!

There are 4 ways I utilitse Tailwind for my Pinterest marketing strategy.

1. Install Tailwind Publisher 

Make sure you have installed Tailwind Publisher on your toolbar. This makes pinning to your profile a lot quicker, and will allow you to auto-publish to Tailwind in seconds.

This simple toolbar has been a game changer for me.

Follow these directions to install the Tailwind Publisher in just a few minutes.

2. Tailwind scheduling

The most common feature of Tailwind is their scheduling service.

Lets say you’ve just published a blog post and you’ve uploaded your 3 pretty new pins to said blog post. You want to post these pins to multiple boards across your Pinterest account, and the easiest way to do this (in a neat, spread out kind of way) is by scheduling them using Tailwind.

As I mentioned before, Pinterest knows when your audience is most active, and will set these pins up to post during that time.

You can even create board lists that allow you to schedule one pin across multiple boards in one click.

3. Tailwind Tribes

Tailwind Tribes are essentially groups on Tailwind you can join that will share your pins. Each tribe has its own set of rules, but how it works is basically you add a pin to the group, and then share a couple of other pins in the group.

Other members will do the same, and hopefully share your pins.

It works kind of like an honesty system, however each tribe member has a number of how many personal pins they’ve added, and how many pins from other members they have shared. So if you add a whole bunch of your pins and don’t share others you may be removed from the group or other members just won’t share your pins.

4. Use Smartloop to continuously republish your most popular pins

Once you have figured out what your popular pins are, you can add them to SmartLoop which re-pins these pins to any boards you choose.

You’ve spent time designing these beautiful pins, so you want to get the most shelf-life out of them and SmartLoop is the way to do this.

Because there is a limit to how many pins you can add to SmartLoop, you want to save this feature for your most popular blog topics on Pinterest.

I hope you’ve enjoyed reading my 2023 Pinterest Strategy for bloggers! Don’t forget to download my 10-step strategy so you can put the above into practice!

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