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Become a blogger they said! It’ll be fun, they said! They were right, it’s awesome! It’s also alot trickier than any of us thought, right?
Thank goodness for Pinterest! It actually does what all the social media’s promise, sends traffic to your blog. You can get traction! You will have readers, followers, an audience!
But, you have to master Pinterest first!
Fear not!
Not only are you going to ‘get it’ quicker than you think but, by the time you do, you will have fallen in love with it!
Pinterest is the absolute BEST thing for your blog! It WILL send you readers and customers. You will be part of a community of like-minded bloggers who WILL SUPPORT YOU. The support will be tangible not just feel-good, though undoubtedly that too!
Excited yet?!
Good, because you should be! It’s way more fun than feeling lost and like the president of the slow learners club!
There is a lot of great information out there about Pinterest. I read an absolute ton of it and continue to stay up to date with what my fellow bloggers are discovering works best. But most of it went over my head initially. So many articles assumed a level of understanding that I didn’t have yet.
There wasn’t much info for a complete newbie like me. I had never used Pinterest before and had no followers. I needed someone to hold my hand, talk slow and not laugh when I asked: “What exactly is a Pin?”
I’m sure all bloggers would agree, no matter how successful they are now, that when you first start you have NO IDEA what’s involved. Nor the amount of new information and skills that you need to learn just to get that first post published.
Regardless of how competent you are in the area that you are blogging about, starting your blog can make you feel completely out of your depth. There’s the tech stuff to learn-
SEO
PLUG-INS
HOSTING
THEMES
plus the marketing
BRANDING
AFFILIATE MARKETING
LIST BUILDING- your head can spin at times.
Everyone else already knows the lingo. Other bloggers look super confident and are getting thousands of views, it seems.
I had heaps of questions that I needed answering, but too embarrassed to ask, I muddled through and wasted a fair bit of time doing so.
One of my pet sayings, I get an eye roll from my man every time, is “Time is as valuable as money.” In other words, I don’t like wasting time!
That’s why I’m writing this post. Once I finally “got into my groove” with Pinterest, I’m utterly obsessed with it now and more than doubling my page views every week; I couldn’t help but feel that getting to this point could have been a whole lot simpler, not to mention quicker!
I’m going to start with the absolute basics so skip over the parts that you already understand.
What is a Pin?
“Pin” is just a quirky name for the images that you find on Pinterest. When you save the picture, it is called “Pinning” it. You can upload your photos and save them to your Pinboards. Or you can search on Pinterest and Pin ones other people have uploaded. As a blogger, you will be doing a lot of both.
How to Create A Pin
To create a Pin, or board, from within Pinterest, press the + symbol next to the search bar at the top of the page. You will then be asked to upload an image. After that, you will need to give your Pin a title and a description.
Both are important and need to be keyword rich- meaning filled with words people use to search for your subject matter. If you are promoting your blog post, you will already have the catchy title of your post to use. Then sell your post with energy and a call to action in the description.
Some people make 5 different Pins per piece of content. I start with 2 or 3. My Pin design has changed over the last month.
Many people talk about branding, which is choosing a color scheme and design and sticking with it. The theory is it makes your content immediately recognizable. I’ve played around with different styles and gone with the ones that worked best.
You will have to master SEO- Search Engine Optimisation. Write in a way that increases your blog posts’ chance of coming up in searches. Both on Pinterest and via search engines. Yoast SEO is the plug-in I use. It tells me whether my posts are SEO and reader-friendly. If you haven’t installed it yet, do it now!
My other secret weapon for writing, particularly with SEO in mind, is Grammarly.The World’s Best Grammar Checker
I never have to worry about mistakes or grammatical errors and it prompts you to adjust overly long sentences or overused words. The best blog writers are concise. Writing for an internet audience is different than writing for someone reading a book. The latter is done in a more leisurely, relaxed way. Blogs need to be catchy from the start and have a style that people can digest easily. While still providing quality information and value to the reader.
As a lifelong book lover, I’m a bit of a snob when it comes to bad grammar or spelling errors. If I’m going to be judgey then I better make sure I’m not making those mistakes.
The bonus with Grammarly is that once you have it on your phone or computer it assists you with everything you write, not just your blog. The app is free, though I pay for upgrades. A bonus is that you never have to worry about being accused of plagiarism either as it detects that also.
Before I move on to creating your Pinboards, I want to add that, as a blogger, you aren’t uploading any old image to Pin.
As you can see in my example Pin above, I created a pin that has the title of my blog post and my domain name over a photo that I took.
You will be creating a lot of your pins to advertise your blog posts and link them to your site. Pinterest users who click on them can then read your post. YAY! Traffic!
There are plenty of graphic design apps you can use to create your pins. I make all my Pins for free on https://www.canva.com
*Canva and Pin creation is another one of those things I had to muddle through to figure out. Tech stuff doesn’t come as quickly to me as it does to my 8-year-old son. I got the hang of Canva pretty quickly though. If you have any questions, about creating your Pins, let me know in the comments.
Your Pin Boards
I recommend that you have at least 7-10 boards to start. Save Pins relating to subjects contained in your blog but also a few that reveal a little bit more about yourself. This way, your potential followers and readers can connect with you.
My blog is about manifesting your best life using the Law of Attraction, the Power of Intention and balancing your energy.
I have a board showcasing my blog posts at the top; then one focused on manifestation, where I pin fellow bloggers Pins that compliment my work.
I also have a board where I save Pins of beauty – landscapes, European architecture, the board cover is a photo of my kids- called ” Beautiful World.”
I have a board for photos of my spiritual home and favorite place in the world, Hamilton Island.
“Inspirational Quotes” is another of my more personal boards.Unexpectedly this board is one that I get heaps of repins from. Out of the nearly 500 quotes on my board, this one below is the most engaged with. It must really speak to something in people.
I’ve started adding my own quotes to my boards. Speaking to that need in people for some cheerleading.
You will learn so much on this blogging journey. Daily it is a thrill.
Some people have 50 plus boards, with thousands of Pins on them.
*It’s essential that in the beginning, when you have so much to do and learn, you want everything up and running as quickly as possible, so figure out the most critical tasks of the day and do them first.
If you can only think of 5 subjects for boards, right now, that’s fine.
Create your boards. Add insightful descriptions and make sure your profile photo is professional but warm. Your story about yourself must be engaging. Ideally, it has a call to action.
Don’t worry about followers or following others right now, Pinterest differs from Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter.
Pinterest CEO Ben Silberman describes Pinterest as “a catalog of ideas” that inspires users to “go out and do that thing,” rather than as an image-based social network.
Followers and unique viewers will come. In just a few weeks, while I was still trying to figure it all out, I went from 0-10k monthly unique viewers. Now, after blogging for almost 4 months I have 50k monthly unique viewers. I know of new bloggers reaching 100k+ views in the first months.
The best thing about Pinterest is that you can quickly gain traction- views, followers, traffic to your blog- which boosts your confidence and motivates you to Pin more, write more, post more. Then, guess what? You are a bonified blogger, killing it on Pinterest! Yeah, baby!
Tailwind
Pay attention; this is a biggie!!
Tailwind was the game changer for me! It introduced me to blogging “tribes”- like-minded bloggers, in all niches, who actively promote each other’s blog posts. Like I said-game changer!!
It’s free to sign up to, though I pay for added benefits. As a Tailwind Plus member, with Power Up Max, I’m given extra monthly submissions to my tribes.
What you get with the free version is enough in the early days of building your blog. Once you’ve signed up to Tailwind,search for tribes in your niche and request to join them.
My niche is smaller than others like DIY, Home Decor, Mummy Bloggers, Foodies or more traditional “Lifestyle Bloggers.”
I still found quite a few tribes I could join. There are also tribes that are open to bloggers of any niche. Look for them under the search term ’Blogging.’
Then you can draft your Pin within Tailwind and add it to your tribe’s board. Generally, for every Pin you add, you must share another tribe members content onto one of your Pinterest boards.
The beauty of Tailwind is that you can create your Pins, add them to your tribes and schedule them to your Pinterest boards all in the one place. You queue your tribemates Pins too so that within half an hour you can have a week’s worth of Pins organized.
Pinterest rewards an active Pinner. With the convenience and efficiency of Tailwind, plus manually Pinning from your group boards and searches, you can get into a dynamic flow. Through which your content will be shared a lot too.
As a bonus, Tailwind has comprehensive analytics so you can track best-performing Pins, your follower growth, and your activity. You can empower yourself with the knowledge that increases your chances of success exponentially.
Click on the Tailwind banner above and it will take you straight to their sign-up page and don’t worry, it is one of the easiest tools to get the hang of even though it does so much!
Both Tailwind and Grammarly offer an affiliate program through shareasale.com.
Once you have your blog and Pinterest posting organized, you can start monetizingyour blog. Help your reader’s by promoting products and services that align with your brand and can genuinely benefit them. Click the banner or link below if you are ready to get started!
Find a sponsor for your website. Get paid for your great content. shareasale.com.
Group Boards
What I had read about Group boards, on Pinterest, freaked me out!
Every post made it seem like trying to join them was akin to standing in front of the doorman of a nightclub hoping he thinks you are cool enough to be let in!
If you’ve gotten that impression too, don’t stress! I’ve not found that to be the case at all! If you go to my Pinterest profile, you will see I’m a member of quite a few group boards, and I try and join at least 1 or 2 new ones each week.
I’ve read of bloggers having 50+ group boards and with Tailwind allowing you to schedule to them all with one click, can you imagine the reach of their posts?!
Once again, my niche is small, but the spirituality based group boards, I’m a part of, are integral to the traffic I receive and are brilliant support. As are the blogger group boards, that allow posts of all niches and are set up precisely to create a community of support and get us all promoting each other’s blogs!
As of writing this, all of the group boards you see on my profile are accepting new members. Click on the boards and find the specifics of joining them and get started.
Most will require that you follow, not only the board but the creator of the board, which will be the first profile photo in the line of collaborators under the board title and description. Some will prefer an email request.
I generally introduce myself, in a few words explain my blog focus and ask politely to be added to their group board. You needn’t write more than a paragraph. Many bloggers are happy to increase their board numbers and are quick and very sweet in welcoming you to their boards.
About a third I’ve approached haven’t gotten back to me, and there are group boards that already have a large number of contributors, so they aren’t accepting any more.
In the early days when you only have a couple of groups or tribes and not too much content, it’s easy to keep track of everything. Later on, when you aren’t adding any more tribes or groups and are up to date with having posted all your content, everything will be more straightforward too.
In the middle, while you are added to group boards regularly and resubmitting your content to new audiences, it can be a lot to juggle and remember. Tailwind has all the information stored, but for me, it’s helpful to have a handwritten checklist on paper right next to my computer.
I created the checklists, below, for my Group boards and Tailwind Tribes, so I know what post I have added, where and when. Re-adding your content to your boards is standard and recommended but unless you leave a month or so in between it’s considered spamming. Check the rules of boards individually on this; each has its own policy.
Hopefully, you have quite a few blog posts to add to your groups or tribes, if so these checklists can really help you out.
How often should I be creating new content?
I saw this question being asked a lot on my blogging course’s Facebook page. Newbies gasped in horror when one of the more seasoned amongst us, with 100k+ views/month, mentioned she was pinning 80 times a day. A third of which was her own content.
In the beginning, you just can’t fathom how that would be physically possible, to create that much content.
The longer you are at this, the more content, groups, and tribes you accumulate and then you can see.
She would Pin her new content to 20+group boards and 20+ tribes on Tailwind and then manually go back and Pin her peers’ content from each board as is required. She’d been at it long enough to be looping a lot of older content too.
One of the best things about blogging is that the content you create, even posts that you wrote a year ago or more, can find a new audience every day.
For example, I wrote my book 5 Simple Steps to Manifesting Your Life Partner: Featuring the work of Marisa Peer, Alison Armstrong and Christie Marie Sheldon
in early 2017 and it continues to make sales daily. You can refresh or update older blog posts to give them new life and repost them to Pinterest then too.
in early 2017 and it continues to make sales daily. You can refresh or update older blog posts to give them new life and repost them to Pinterest then too.Monetizing your blog with e-books and e-courses and other digital products is a brilliant way to create a passive income stream for the future. You create it once and, if you’ve optimized your content for SEO, it works for you every day.
I write one piece of new content each week because I have my 17-month-old daughter at home with me and that’s simply as much as I can, happily, manage at the moment. Many bloggers create 2/week at least.
I find the content creation process consuming. The ideas and words swim around your mind until you’ve gotten them out. You go over them again and again, editing, polishing, contemplating and tweaking. You feel relief only when you’ve hit ‘publish’. Even if I had more time, one post a week is as much as I can manage energetically.
Finding your own rhythm and work/life balance will be as vital a part of this journey as anything else you learn.
Hopefully, after reading this and printing your checklists, you are feeling better equipped and excited to start growing your traffic with Pinterest and Tailwind. I wish you the very best.
I love blogging and Pinterest, and there is nothing better than feeling like you are doing the thing that you were put on earth to do, that brings you fulfillment and joy. So lastly and most importantly, keep persevering and make sure you have fun!
I look forward to seeing your Pins on Pinterest and reading your blog!
This post was proofread by Grammarly
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