Recently, I agreed to take on a Pinterest client and handle their Pinterest account. I haven’t done that in years because honestly, I have a lot on my plate juggling my own sites. But it was a really good blogging friend of mine who asked and made me an offer I couldn’t refuse so how could I say no.
She has such an awesome blog and I see her missing out on so much potential traffic from Pinterest and I truly want to help her realize that potential.
So my initial assessment of her account had me believe that things looked good and her account only needed some minor tweaks before I set up a pinning schedule. How wrong I was. Upon deeper investigation, I see some blaring errors that need to be corrected ASAP before I move forward.
Namely, most of her pins had no links! You read that right. No links. So they were basically just images sitting on Pinterest. Well no wonder she isn’t seeing traffic from Pinterest.
Use an approved API like Tailwind
I am not going to mention which tool she was using to schedule her pins but let’s just say it isn’t on Pinterest’s approved API list. I am not sure how this tool exactly worked but what I can tell you is that every time it pinned, it added a ton of text to the end of every URL pin link.
And guess what, now that she is no longer using them, they do not work and send traffic to a 404 page. Well that’s not going to help improve her account is it?
I love Tailwind and I use it everyday. I especially like tribes. If you are selective, you can find great communities that will not only be a great source for finding great content to share on your own Pinterest account, but you will have like-minded bloggers that will share your content too. Win-Win in my opinion.
If you would like to check out Tailwind, here is my affiliate link.
If you are already a user, you may be interested in joining one of my tribes.
Manually pin from your blog to Pinterest
When you can, and especially when pinning fresh content, try to pin from your blog to Pinterest.
- First, Pinterest perceives this as a brand new pin and not a duplicate, even if you have the similar pin already on Pinterest.
- Second, chances are the right link will be attached to the right pin. You should check it once it is on Pinterest though. If you are in the habit of pinning from your “best of” board once a pin is there, you can see the problem if you keep repining a pin that doesn’t work right.
- And third, pinning directly from your blog shows you the reader experience and alerts you to any problems. You want to make sure pinning from your site is easy and that the correct description will be displayed with your pin.
Always check pins that are manually added to Pinterest
The latest advice from Pinterest has us all creating multiple pins for each post. Obviously we don’t want to clutter up our blog posts with 5 different pin images so adding pins manually to Pinterest is a necessity. However, there is also a bigger chance for error.
Always double check your pins to make sure the correct link is attached to every pin. I can not stress this enough. It takes like 2 seconds. If you don’t, and it is wrong, it may take you awhile to figure out exactly why you aren’t getting traffic.
You spend so much time creating awesome images that readers will want to share on Pinterest. Don’t let all the time go to waste by not making sure the pin is going to do what it is supposed to do—drive traffic to your site.
Please, please, please check the links on your pins. You won’t regret it and I bet I would get rich quick if all of my readers had to send me a dollar for every defective pin they find.
Let me know in the comments if you find any and I will send you an invoice. Kidding. (maybe)
