Have you read a gazillion posts about Pinterest but still haven’t figured out how to drive traffic to your blog? I know it can be frustrating when everyone is tooting that Pinterest is now their #1 referrer and the most you have ever seen in a day is 10.
Well, stress not. I have put together this list of 65 easy Pinterest tasks that you can tackle one by one that will help you grow your followers, increase your engagement and drive traffic to your site. I assure you, this is a complete list of all the things I do that has helped me super-size my Pinterest account to 5,000 followers in 6 short months.
When I joined Pinterest in August of 2015, I had no idea what I was doing. I had crappy images on my blog, I took absolutely no time to write descriptions and I pinned my posts once, ONCE!.
Suffice it to say, my Pinterest account was a Pinterest fail and I walked away from Pinterest, believing it was my niche and not my strategy that had accounted for my craptacular results. But I was so intrigued by other bloggers telling me that Pinterest was driving huge traffic to their blogs that a few months later, I set on a mission to figure out how I could capture some of those results.
I now LOOOOOOOVVVVVVE Pinterest. It is super easy and takes the least amount of time to upkeep. The return in results is phenomenal and I wish I started years ago. If you are where I was, take my word for it, you can see a huge surge in followers and traffic if you take the time to complete these tasks.
65 Easy Pinterest Tasks You Need To Do Right Now
Create your Pinterest Account
- Create/Convert to a business account.
- Verify your website.
- Enable Rich Pins.
- Upload a photo, not a logo as your profile pic.
- Complete your bio. Infuse it with personality and keywords.
- Add a Call to Action, shortened url in your bio.
- Link your Social Media Accounts to your Pinterest profile.
- Create a board for your blog posts only.
- Create a board for your own most pinned/highest traffic posts.
- Create boards similar to your blog categories.
- Create highly, pinnable topic boards close to your niche. eg. fashion, travel, food, DIY.
- Complete descriptions of boards using keywords.
- Include your blog url at the end of each boards description.
- Create board covers.
- Organize your boards.
All about Your Pins
- Create a vertical brand pin using a 2:3 side ratio.
- Create a pin for every post on your blog.
- Complete alt tags for your pics from your blog with keywords.
- Have easy to find “pin it” buttons on your blog.
- Place a Pinterest widget in your sidebar or at the bottom of your posts.
- Pin every post to your blog board.
- Complete descriptions for your pins with keywords and enticing click worthy text.
- Pin your most popular posts to your “best of” board.
- Pin from your “best of” or blog board to your appropriate topic boards.
- Make sure older pins are up to date with a nice pin and good descriptions.
Grow Your Followers
- Join Group Boards.
- Create a group board.
- Complete the description with key words, rules and how to join.
- Follow Key Pinners in your niche.
- Follow boards and interests in your niche.
- Pin consistently and regularly daily.
- Use 1:5 ratio for pinning. Pin one of your own to five of others.
- Pin often to your highly pinnable topic boards. (created in tip #11 above)
- Curate the best content and pins in your niche.
- Promote your pins and profile on other social media platforms.
- Join in Facebook Pin shares.
Create A Pinning Strategy
- Create your own manual system or automate your pinning schedule with Tailwind.
- Create a higher frequency pinning schedule from your “best of” board.
- Pay attention to group board rules.
- Use 1:5 ratio for all pinning schedules/campaigns.
- Make sure every board is pinned to at least once a week.
- Like, comment and share (on other platforms) pins you find.
- Pin from your feed.
- Pin from popular/trending.
- Spread out your pinning schedule to capture different time zones.
- Update pin descriptions using trending keywords and re-pin to appropriate boards.
- Curate and pin to your boards from outside Pinterest.
- Make sure updated posts are pinned to your blog board.
- Don’t forget to add new group boards to your pinning schedule.
Maintenance
- Update profile pic as needed.
- Update description or change Call To Action as required.
- Make sure all pins on your blog boards have proper URL’s and links are not broken.
- If you own group boards, monitor pinner activity.
- Check your Pinterest analytics and your Tailwind Reports often.
- Adjust pinning schedules to capture better results.
- Evaluate effectiveness of group boards you belong to.
- Find new group boards to join.
- Update your “best of” board.
- Update pinning schedules for seasonal content.
- Eliminate or combine your own boards that are no longer relevant to you.
- Create new relevant boards.
- Keep up to date with Pinterest algorithm, smart feed and app changes.
Curate The Perfect Pinterest Feed
- Follow boards and topics/interests as opposed to a pinner’s complete profile.
- Turn Personalization options in your settings on or off to enhance your feed.
- Follow high quality pinners.
- Like and re-pin content that you wish to see more of.
Please do not become over-whelmed with this list. Though each task is easy, it can’t all be done in a day. If fact, I suggest that you do not move forward through the list till you have a solid understanding of each section. Once you have mastered all of the easy Pinterest tasks on this list, you should have already begun to see the benefits of a solid Pinterest profile and strategy.
Good luck and please share your successes or tips in the comments below.
33 comments
What a great list! Thanks so much for sharing this!
You’re very welcome!
Hi Elena
Im totally useless in Social media as a whole, I`m one of the few people I know who never used social media before I started blogging.
Im sure this will help me feel abit secure using Pinterest.Thanks so much for sharing
I have a lot more posts you can check out if you need more help. And yes, I was just like you. I don’t know if I would have ever gotten on social media platforms if I hadn’t become a blogger.
These tips are soo helpful! I love this list because it’s different than most other posts I’ve read online, containing the same few tips about Pinterest, repeating over and over again yet not providing some useful info. This one is actually informative! Thanks for sharing 🙂 I’m planning on editing my Pinterest profile this week and I’m so glad I ran across this article! Definitely pinning it :).
I am so pleased you found it helpful! Let me know if you have any questions in the future.
I loathed pinterest. Then one of my pins magically got shared by someone (I still don’t know who) that must have had a million followers. It drove over 100,000 people to my blog in a single month. That said I don’t know how to recreate this. In any case I have followed your tips so we will see.
Do you have BoardBooster? It is easy to see what pins are taking off that someone else has pinned. I hope you don’t loathe it anymore. lol
Wow, all your posts on PInterest are just too useful. I need extra time to digest them all! I know Pinterest can be a huge source of traffic but I’ve yet to fully tap into it. Looking forward to more of your posts.
-Fabi
Blog Share Learn Link Up
You need to tap Pinterest. It is so easy and you will see results quickly.
Great tips, Elena, thank you. Dropped by from your lovely #BlogShareLearn and visiting others as well. 🙂 Thanks for the great opportunity, hope this week treats you well. 🙂
So great to see you hear as always Donna! Yes, I am a little late with responding to comments this week. lol
Best Pinterest tips out there!
Thank you Jen!
Here is another way to follow through with Elena’s excellent suggestions. Hire her to help you. I did and I am so glad I did! She created a great pin for my brand and set up my boards. It was worth every penny and of course a pleasure to work with Elena. We had some good laughs while we did it too!
Thank you so much Molly! I had a great time working with you and I am so glad you were pleased with my work.
Great tips – I really need to get my account in order. Pinned, stumbled & Reddit
Thank you Cathy!
I’ve learnt so much through your Pinterest tips – you are certainly my Pin guru – and in honour of that accolade, I’ve pinned this post on my most popular Pinterest board. Thank you. ?
#BlogShareLearn
Thank you so much Linda! I remember when you weren’t even on Pinterest! lol
OMG—this is so extensive!! I’m feeling a little slackish reading what I’m not doing right—ha ha!
Can you tell me about how much time you spend on Pinterest? But it’s a good list—I’ll get to it later!!
jodie
Thanks so much for hosting!
Sometimes I go days without being on Pinterest, then I will spend an hour and pin to my secret boards which will distribute the pins periodically for the rest of the week. Now get going slacker! lol
This post is so helpful Elena. I have done some of these points but I really need to work on the images now. I’ll be pinning this and marking off each point as I complete it. Thanks again!
I am so glad you found it useful!
You are so incredibly helpful! I have employed some of these Pinterest tips already and have seen my Pinterest following triple over the last few months. I’m getting hundreds of views from various pins daily (389 from a single pin so far today). Not a bad start! Now you’re telling me there’s more to learn? That’s great to know, because that means there will be more growth that follows. Thanks again. ?
I am so glad you are seeing those kind of results. Good for you!
Good grief this is amazing Elena – I’ve Pinned it (naturally!) and I’m re-reading it and working out a few I can apply to myself without drowning 🙂 I’m a bit like Terri – the pretty pins that are nothing to do with my blog are the popular ones (everybody loves gorgeous designer gowns apparently!) but I still pin them because I love them too!
We live in a visual world for sure. I like quotes too even if they don’t go anywhere.
I do believe you are the Pinterest guru! I have not been impressed with Pinterest and know I could do more. My frustration is (despite following many of your tasks) seeing random pins that I have pinned (not original blog content–just a photo of a wedding scrapbook idea and a decor idea) get re-pinned 5000+ times. They are not even mine! I just repinned them only to see them go “viral” if that is possible. Pinterest really has not helped my blog at all. I haven’t worked out the rich-pins yet. Still having trouble with it. But I pinned your post anyway 🙂
When pins that are not yours get re-pinned, it is good for your profile. You just switched to self-hosted so give Pinterest some time to realize you are awesome.
Thanks, Elena, and I appreciate that you were willing to help me the other day! I actually figured out how to get the rich pins done just last night. Woohoo!
woohoo is right! Rock on girl!