Pinterest is a visual platform and has become one of the most popular social networks online riht now. Can I make money on Pinterest, well yes!….. in various different ways. it focuses on the social element of images. The pinboard style is a visual masterpiece that millions of pinners use to display their pins and orgnaise their favourite images into pin boards.
Its seems too simple, but thats the success behind its rapid growth and they are the fastest growing site in the history of the internet. So we must get on board!
W, as affiliate marketers can utilise this and promote our blogs there as long as we follow a few rules when we pin.
The Pinterest Model
As an online marketer, we can use Pinterest to attract traffic to our website. Using this builds a following to our boards and in turn improves the website ranking with search engines such as Google.
Other pinners will share your pins (repinning) to their boards, and lead to a wider reach for your website.
If you are using pinterest as a source of traffic, you need to build your following, otherwise you miss out on a huge opportunity. But this is something you can build into your daily activities.
PINTEREST RULES OK
Read an Inwardly Digest
Pinterest has a few basic rules to remember when building your followers. These have changed recently, and theyre not rules per se, but more tips to help you get the most out of your hard work on Pinterest. Pinterest is the most rapidly growing social media platform right now, we are visual race, so much more is what we see rather than what we read.
Due to this colossal growth, Pinterest are cleaning up their act, making their platform work better for new information, relevancy. You know how you hate repeats on the TV? well Pinterest don’t like it either !
Pin Tips
How It
Works
Pinterest Favours Fresh Pins
Pinterest is putting emphasis on fresh content, and this is likely to accelerate as the year goes on. ‘Fresh pins’ are pins that they haven’t seen before, whether they are images or videos.
I think this includes….
- New image to a just published post.
- Different image to a post recently published.
- Different image to a previously successful post, to re-engage.
- Same pin but to a different board and more than a week since the last post.
But I think that pins with the same image to the same post, even if you change the title or description, is NOT new and will be penalised.
New images with links to weak or irrelevant content will be penalised.
This is a new feature of Pinterest, since they have changed their algorithms to favour recent, relevant content.
Relevancy Is Key
Forget what you have been told in the past about pinning randomly…. it’s no longer a thing. It’s all about being relevant, with links to posts and pages that enhance the information your audeince is looking for. If Pinterest don’t see the relevancy, it will not rank well… So do not waste fresh pins on irrelevant boards.
Duplication
There were no issues with duplication in the past and you may be used to pinning the same pin to various boards and repinning… This is not the way forward. Whilst it is still ok to sparingly repin, you should be spending 80% of your time creating and pinning fresh, new, never seem before pins.
Quality Not Quantity
Pinterest is focusing more on relevant content which will increase the time involved in creating these pins. Well Pinterest expects us to have a natural pinning model – this isn’t pinning 50-60 a day, that isn’t a natural pinning profile whereas 15-20 pins a day is a more natural pinning practice.
With this new practice, we should see better engagement
Be aware that if Pinterest finds you are flouting the latest regulations, they will suspend your account.
Features of a Good Pinterest Pin
5 features to a good Pinterest pin that will set your pin out above all the rest. Choose your own style for your business by following these 5 suggestions.
PINTEREST BANNERS
How To Make A Pinterest Banner
Pinterest Vertical Banner
Pinterest recommend a 2:3 size ratio for pins. A vertical banner such as the one to the left is the size and shape favoured by Pinterest. As far as pixels – 1000x 1500 is the optimal size. So taller than wider.
Killer Headline
Choose a killer headline…
- A ‘sit up and think’ word – killer/awesome/number 1/altruistic/ubiquitous – you get it, a word that jumps out at the reader.
- Your Keyword/s
I sometimes change the font to make it stand out better and use italics and capitals.
Eye Catching Image
A great image is important. If you can’t take the images you need, use a copyright free website with free images.
Images should be:
- Fresh
- Appropriate for the topic
- Clear and bright
- Crisp
Consistent Brand Appearance
Right from the start, make sure you have a prominent brand appearace, one that is recognisable and stands out on any page. My plan with my business is that they will be immediatley recognisable to my audience on any page throughout pinterest.
Hi Helen,
This is just what I’m looking for. I am still a beginner on this online entrepreneurship and I know I still have a lot to learn. I, myself, enjoy using Pinterest but I do want to know how to make this social media as one of the sources of passive income for me. I am thankful to find your website and see this post. I would like to know more how to design Pinterest posts, hoping to get more tips from you.
Cheers,
Ferra
Thankyou Ferra, I will do an article about how to design the pinterest posts, but its all about having a style for your website and sticking to it.
I understand that Pinterest is one of the best places to get traffic to your site and to ultimately earn money online. I’ve been reading a lot about it and basically, I’m still working on a strategy. I’m focused on search engines and YouTube mostly. But as I said, I would like to add Pinterest traffic to my site as well. What is your Pin strategy? What works the best for you?
Thanks Ivan… right now its a juggle to schedule everything so to be fair I am probably not pinning enough right now. But I pin twice a day and sometimes four times a day with 80% my pins and 20% other pins. I follow the algorithm Pinterest has recently changed and also use smart loops to repin the one that is most popular. Still early days but I will blog about my success in due course.
I have been looking at ways to promote my blog on Pinterest and was very interested in this piece! Thank you for laying it out in a simple, easy to understand manner. I think I will go now and make an account for my website and start playing around with it! It actually looks kind of fun 🙂
Thanks for sharing, however, I will suggest you go through and check some spelling/grammar mistakes I noticed…whoops ;P
Best of luck! I will put this info to use right now 🙂
Vicki
Thanks Vicki…. I get so excited sometimes that I trip over myself when I type !
While I have used Facebook primarily as a platform for my online business, I have yet to really utilize Pinterest to help drive traffic to my site. I know the basics of how to use it, my question and struggle has always been with time-management. I feel like I am so busy trying to create quality content that I am not sure how to maintain the kind of social media presence that seems necessary in today’s world. Do you have any advice on how to do that?
It is an issue that I struggle with too but what I decided to do was schedule pinning into my week. I use Tailwind to set a pinning routine which helps. But I also keep my pinning slots each day to a minimum…. no point setting myself unachievable goals. So I have two a day, most days and maybe one day when i have four. One day, when I can, Ill get a virtual assistant to do it for me but for now I do what I can.
I think Pinterest is great for money making as the more you share relevant imagery and links to your own monetized blog, there’s a lot of money to be made here – especially the more visually pleasing your images are. What are the best online image builders to use? I’ve used Canva in the past, but are there better options?
Good questions Todd. I use Illustrator. My son was taking course in his sophomore year of high school on how to use it, so I followed it too. I cant do everything.. but I can do what I need to do. I also use vector stock for some images, take them to illustrator and alter/retouch. I also use infographic vectors, it means I can personalise them and make them suit my business without having to start from scratch which is time-consuming.
Of late, I’ve been getting hints about the positive impact a Pinterest account would have in an internet marketing business especially given the fact that the social platform is growing at a record pace. Now, even though this sounds like good news, it puts even more questions in my head. But the most pressing at this moment is training. Do you know of any reliable training platform dedicated to Pinterest?
Its a frustrating issue when new stuff comes along and we all need to know what to do! I dont know of a platform to learn Pinterest unfortunately. But I am considering doing my own course.
I am quite new to Pinterest myself and I learned from your post that I have done many things wrong. Your Post is very informative and Good. Iliked your pin tips. The picture of what is a good pin is great and the info on the banner as welll. I have just posted my posts directly from my blog with the pinterest button. I will definitely bookmark your site for further tips. You talked about some new Rules – What are these new rules?
Thankyou HIlde. Tailwind is a great tool to use to schedule pins so you dont have to pin every time. I do this one day a week. The rules they have changed relate to quality not quantity. Its about not pinning the same pin dozens of times and diluting the quality on the site. Pinning some from other writers but most from your self. Having quality images and one important thing, if you change the image on the pin and pin with the same link but a different image, that’s ok!
Although WA has added a few lessons and tips on Pinterest usage, I was never interested in learning more. However with your article and the explanations on how to make the most and create a pin…it has sparked some interest to learn more!
I liked the way you laid out your information to make it similar to the organization of Pins and I started to think to myself “aah…this does keep me engaged and wanting more!”.
I would love to learn more about your strategy on how to drive traffic with Pinterest…but more importantly, what about people that cannot draw or graphic design? I am under the impression what I need to be good at that…please clarify!
Yes of course, if you cant get graphic drawings there are some places you can get images – canva – theyre free, pixabay, in fact I have an article on royalty free images which would be perfect. If you cant do that or cant find a suitable image, you can use word images or if you really want to go all out…. sign up for vector stock, infographics or dreamstime
I have read about Pinterest from several platforms, but I like the way you simply highlighted what I needed. You made it sound very simple and I understand it in details. My attention has been at building content for my blogs, I will use the Pinterest Banner, taking advantage of the eye catching images and killer headlines like you described it
My plan was to make it as simple as possible. There are new algorithms that have come out recently and thats all fine, follow the straightforward instructions, and you will hit the target with your Pinterest market.
Your article gave some great pinterest tips in terms of presentation and content. I am wondering how pinterest works. I have only tried it a couple of times, but it seems complicated with pins, boards, repins etc. Is there a place where I can go, that is as informative as your article, to look at the process or how to use pinterest. I have been told that pinterest would help my business. I deal mostly with fishing equipment so proper presentation is important. Thanks for the encouragement.
There are a lot of courses you could follow to help with Pinterest but as a start off, follow my advice and pin when you can. When you are ready to go further Tailwind is awesome for setting your pins for the whole week. I use this as its easy to do a whole load of pinning in one go.
Hello, I really want to first appreciate your effort in putting this great website together and writing this article to help us with useful information. I have never really explored the opportunities that Pinterest had to offer and I am glad to have gotten these useful tips from your article. Thank you
Glad it was of help, Its an area that we all need to consider now, the world is changing and things are so much more visual.