I know what you are going through. Right now!

You were excited to launch your brand-new blog. But your excitement soon turned to despair when you realized that your website is a ghost town with no visitors, despite having great content.

So, you sign up to the email list of all the marketing and blog traffic gurus to learn how to fix this, but for the life of you, your traffic won’t go up no matter which strategy you leverage.

What you’re feeling right now is very common. Not only have I experienced it, but when I started this blog, I even took out Facebook ads that didn’t quite work, to put it mildly. So, I thought I would do something a bit different in this blog post – give you a proven, shockingly easy, step-by-step strategy that works.

Create Pinterest Account to Drive Tons of Traffic

I am going to show you how to create a Pinterest Account that drives tons of high quality traffic to your blog with a shoe string budget.

Here’s the reality: It is commonly accepted that Pinterest is creating more traffic for their websites than YouTube, LinkedIn, and the ill fated Google+ combined! That makes Pinterest:

• A massive traffic powerhouse; and 
• One of the most effective traffic generation tools you will ever use.

If you haven’t jumped on the Pinterest express, it’s not too late. You can make your website Pinterest friendly and start pinning in a few simple steps. The reality is this: You can easily generate large amounts of high-quality traffic with minimal effort on your part.

Let’s get started. 

Step 1

Create a Pinterest Business Account. You can do that by clicking here. Click on “Join as a business.”

Step 2

Next, enter all your information into the box: email address, password, business name, business type and website where it says: “Grow your business”. 

When you’ve have entered all your information, click: “Create Account”

Step 3

Here you will need to choose 5 interests which pertain to your business. Once you have your account set up and you start pinning, Pinterest will suggest topics in your feed.

Step 4

Next click ‘Done”

Step 5

You will see your home feed. You can use the search button to find other interests to follow. 

How to Convert your Personal Pinterest Account to a Business Account

If you already have a personal Pinterest account, and you’re not keen on registering a new Pinterest account, it’s super easy to convert it into a business account. Simply follow the following steps:  

Step 1

Sign in to your personal Pinterest Account either by clicking “continue as____” or by clicking “Log in” in the top right corner.

Step 2

Once you are logged in, go to your home page, and click on your name at the top right hand corner. 

Next, click the three dots at the top of the page. 

Next, a drop down menu will appear. Click on “Switch to a Business account.”

Step 3

Next the box below will appear. You will need to enter all your business information, and click “Done”. 

How to Create Pinterest Account: Confirm Your Website

Next, you’d need to confirm your website. Confirmation is very important because:

• It enables you to look at the pins that have come directly from your website, impressions, re-pins, and tell how many people clicked through the post to your site.
• With this information you can see what pins your followers are responding to.

You must have set up your Pinterest business account to get your website confirmed.

See how my site is bolded, that is because it has been confirmed through Pinterest.

Step 1

Log into your Pinterest business account. Next, go to the “Analytics” tab, which is located on the top left corner of your home feed. From the drop down menu click on “Overview”.

Step 2

Click on “Confirm website.”

Next copy the meta tag. You will need to come back later to click on the “Finish” tab.

Step 4

Now open a new tab. In your new tab, log into the back end of your website. This example is with a WordPress site. From the WordPress Dashboard on the left of your screen, scroll down and click on “SEO”.

Next, from the drop down menu, click on “Social”.

Now, you will need to click on the tab labeled “Pinterest”.

Next, paste meta tag that you copied from Pinterest, and paste it in the box that says “Pinterest confirmation” and click “Save changes”. 

Go back to the tab with your Pinterest open and click on the “Finish” button! Give the verification process 24-48 hours and then check back to make sure your website is verified! In reality, it shouldn’t take more than an hour to complete.

Once verified, your website or blog will appear in bold on your Pinterest Business account home page.

How to Create Pinterest Account: Enable Rich Pins

Rich Pins are pins that have extra information, like your website, below your pin image. They help get your more traffic and make you look super professional! As you can see below, the pin on the right does not have rich pins enabled and the pin on the left does. It stands out more with bold writing and as you can see, has many more re-pins than the pin on the right.

The great thing about enabling rich pins is that you only have to do it once.

#1: If you don’t have the Yoast SEO plugin installed, do that now. The Yoast SEO plugin will automatically enable meta tags for you, which is what Pinterest requires.

#2: Once you’ve installed and activated Yoast SEO, click on the Yoast SEO icon on your WordPress dashboard and then click on the “features” tab.

#3: Make sure that the “advanced” settings tab is set to “enabled”.

#4: Go to the Pinterest Rich Pin Validator, pick any URL from your blog (preferably a blog post), copy and paste it into the box that says “Enter a valid URL”, and click on “Validate.” 

#5: You should see a message that says, “Your Pins have been validated! Apply to enable your Rich Pins.” 

Next, click on “Apply now.”

• To access the Rich Pin Validator, log into your Pinterest Business account. Next open a new tab and click on this link.

#6: You should receive a confirmation email from Pinterest approving your application. It can take up to five days. But it usually comes within a few hours. Mine took less than 30 minutes.

How to Create Pinterest Account: Pinterest Boards

The very first board on your page should be solely dedicated to your business. This board will also show up at the very top of your page. This way your followers will see what you do when they first click on your page.

To change a board cover:

Go to the board and click Edit (or open up the board and click the pencil button)

Click Change Cover and pick a new cover for your board.

Adjust the picture to the frame by clicking and dragging.

Click Save Changes to save the cover, then Save Changes to save the board.

How to Create Pinterest Account: Create a Perfect Pin

What is a perfect pin? Well, the perfect pin is going to be vertical, and long. Why? Because it helps them stand out and be noticed! The perfect pin, won’t be too busy or too wordy. If they are, they tend to be hard to read and people will scroll right by them.

Let’s learn about making the perfect pin, a pin that will be sure to be re-pinned over and over and over!

The two programs I use for creating my Pinterest images are Canva and PicMonkey which are both FREE!

One of the things that goes into making the perfect pin is using the right key words in the description. Since Pinterest is one big search engine, you are more likely to pop up on a feed if you are using the right key words in your description.

Ensure that your pins and boards have key words and phrases someone would be searching for. Words and phrases like: ‘Work from home’, ‘Grow your email list’, ‘Make money blogging’. By using these key words for my pins and my board covers, my boards are more likely to come up when someone searches something with those key words.

It is quite simple and once you get Pinterest figured out, your numbers will grow and grow and grow!

How to Use Pinterest Group Boards to Drive Traffic to Your Blog

Here, we will learn how to use Pinterest group boards to get our pins out there and increase blog traffic!

Pinterest Group boards are boards that multiple people can pin to and collaborate on. Group boards are huge when it comes to getting your content out there. When you create a pin, you can pin it to each board. And that way more and more people will see it! Some of these boards have 20,000+ followers! Think about that many people seeing your pin!

Don’t know how to pin to group boards? It’s super easy!

First you are going to upload your pin or go to the pin you created and click on it. Then you are going to click the red “save” button.

Once you click ‘save’ a popup box will appear and on the right hand side will be all your personal boards and all your group boards. How do you know it’s a group board? There will be a little icon to the right of the board that has two little people next to it.

To get the most out of the Pinterest group boards, you need to be pinning a lot! Like 100 day! You may need to consider a tool like Tailwind which helps you to schedule pins and which can also help you determine when best to pin. 

Tailwind: The Smartest Way to Schedule on Pinterest & Instagram

• Save Time: Bulk image upload, drag-and-drop calendar, multi-board pinning, Pin looping, hashtag lists and many more shortcuts built with your busy schedule in mind.
• Maximize your Reach: Automatically optimize your Pinterest and Instagram schedules based on when your audience is most engaged.
• Measure Success: Deep analytics and insights so you can see what’s working and what’s not.
• Schedule like a Pro: Our Browser Extension lets you easily create multiple posts from any site with one click – even repins on Pinterest and regrams on Instagram!
• Be More Informed: Reach more of the right people by having the best Instagram hashtags automatically suggested to you by our Hashtag Finder.
• Be More Efficient: Post all of your visual marketing content to Instagram and Pinterest from one tool with a single workflow.
• Affordable for Small Businesses, Extensible for the Enterprise

Understanding Tailwind’s Free Trial

Tailwind have a couple different types of free trials:

If you’re a blogger or small business, chances are you’ve started a Free Trial of the Plus plan. 

After you synchronize the related social network, this trial lets you schedule and publish up to 100 Pinterest Pins and/or 30 Instagram Posts before you need to decide if you want to pay for the Plus plan. This free trial also includes 5 Tribes to join and 30 Pins to submit to those Tribes. Whether that lasts you 7 minutes or 7 months is up to you! Usually, once you’ve used up the given Posts, it’s pretty clear how Tailwind can help you out. 

During your trial, you’ll also have free access to the following Pinterest Reports:   Brand Profile Performance, Pin Inspector, Board Insights, and Monitor Your Domain and following Instagram Reports: Brand Profile Performance, Post Inspector. At the end of your trial (or earlier, if you so choose), you can upgrade within your dashboard to start your paid subscription to Tailwind.

Click the “Get Plus“ button to get started with either or both networks! 

If you’re a large business, you’re likely trialling one of their Enterprise plans. 

These trials are time-based and let you access Tailwind for 14-days without any financial commitment. Tailwind will be in touch throughout your trial, and one of their Tailwindos will reach out to see if you want to continue and be invoiced for the service. 

How to make Tailwind pay your monthly subscription.

With Tailwind’s referral program, you can virtually use Tailwind for free. That’s because the referral program gives you and the person you shared Tailwind with a $15 credit, or a month free, of Tailwind. 

So, to give a tangible example, let’s say 20 people signed up for the monthly plan and 10 sign up for the annual plan using your link. That breakdown would be:  $450 in Tailwind credit, or 3 3/4 years of Tailwind.

To start earning, simply click on your  referral link in your dashboard and start sharing with your tribe.

How to Create Pinterest Account: Join Pinterest Group Boards

To join any group board, you have to first follow the boards. Most group boards will have a way for you to be invited to a group board. This may be in the form of an e-mail or users may request that you leave your request on one of their pins.

Where an email is required, here is a sample email you can send for an invite: 

Hello!

My name is [_______] and I blog over at [____________________][.

I came across your [group board name] group board on Pinterest and I would love to join it!

My website is: [____________]

My Pinterest account is: [___________]

My Pinterest email address is: [________________________]

Thank you so much for your consideration! I look forward to a favorable consideration. 

Best regards,

_______________

Pinterest Group Boards Directory

For a full directory of Pinterest Boards click here. However, to get you started, here is a section of Pinterest Group Boards that you may be interested in joining. I have included the links to the Boards, and the email address to write to:

• For an invite to the Family and Parenting Group Board, click here to follow the Board, and email: thecoffeemom0617@gmail.com
• For an invite to the Best Mommy Bloggers Group Board, click  here to follow the Board and email: seasidesundays@gmail.com
• For an invite to the Blog Tips and Tricks and Blogging Resources Group Board, click here to follow the Board and then click here to apply 
• For an invite to the Blogging Pro’s Group, click here to follow the Board and email: sue@successfulblogging.com
• For an invite to the click here to follow the Board, and email: jadeandoak@gmail.com
• For an invite to the Create, Market & Sell Online Courses Group Board, click here to follow the Board and follow directions on the Board.
• For an invite to the Promote Your Blog Group Board click here to follow the Board and email: eazynazy@gmail.com
• For an invite to the Business/Entrepreneurship Group Board click here to follow the Board and email: mugen@boroughkings.com

Now Your Turn

Do you have a Pinterest Account? Would you create a Pinterest Account? What is your traffic generation strategy? Click here to leave a comment