Hey there and welcome! You have probably heard that Pinterest is the major source of traffic for many bloggers. It can

be a wonderful way to gain traffic quickly with the right strategy.

With so many bloggers competing for the same traffic on Pinterest, you need to make your pin

stand out in the crowd. Given that there are so many posts written about the same exact

subject, how can you make sure your pin is the one that gets clicked?

In the last 3 months, I’ve grown my blog traffic from 0-35,000 page views by researching what

works and what doesn’t on Pinterest. After trying tons of different theories on the best pins,

I’ve found the secret recipe for a viral pin that drives traffic and I want to share it!

XO Gemma

My first pins were bad. Don’t believe me?

Why your pin matters

Although many users don’t realize it, Pinterest is really a huge database of blog posts. It is today’s version of a magazine, full of different articles to browse. Pinterest users love scrolling

through for ideas and inspiration.

Pinterest is an awesome way to showcase your blog and get in front of readers but you need to

make sure the right people are seeing your content.

It all starts with the pin.

What makes a pin “pinnable?”

The best thing to do is spend some time on Pinterest. Do some random searches for topics in

your niche and see what catches your eye. You will notice that some pins stand out more than

others. They entice you to click or save them while others get lost in a sea of similar pins.

You can bet your bottom dollar that the best bloggers out there, the ones that have a ton of

traffic and great incomes, all have something in common; great pins.

What makes some pins worth clicking and others easy to

pass over?

It boils down to 5 main things:

A pin-worthy image that reflects your pin

topic

A catchy headline that pulls the reader in

Readable text, especially for mobile users

The right shape and size

The perfect pin description

Let’s go back to my amazing (ahem) pin from the beginning and analyze it:

- Pin-worthy image? Meh. It’s just ok. Could have been cropped better for sure.

- A catchy headline? Not really.

- Readable text? Nope. The writing is a bit small and the overlay is in a terrible

position, right in the middle of the image.

- The right shape and size? The best pins are vertical and much longer than

they are wide. This one is vertical but very small.

- Perfect Pin description? Not horrific, but there are not many key words in

here that would help it get ranked in the search engine.

Size Matters

Sorry guys, but when it comes to Pinterest, size definitely matters. Your pins needs to be

longer than they are wide at a ratio of 2:8 (width: height)

To create your pins, you can use one of the free services like Canva or PicMonkey. Personally I

use PicMonkey and am very happy with it.

You can try making your pins in two different sizes and testing which one you prefer.

PicMonkey has ready-made templates under the “design” section if you select “blank canvas”.

I would recommend either the medium or long pin sizes (not the short one). Do not use short,

square pins whatever you do, long and lean is best.

For reference, the two pin sizes I work with are:

564 x 1475

And

735 x 1332

(The second size is a preset option on PicMonkey when you crop an image)

I love experimenting with different sizes though and seeing which one gets more repins.

Use your words sparingly but effectively

The key to making the most of the text on your pins is to use keywords that Pinterest users

might be searching. One way I do this is to actually search for the topic of my blog post and

see what other words come up in the “suggested words “below the search bar.

You can see below that “summer crafts for kids” pulls up things around the keywords “preschool, beginning of, toddlers, fun” etc. so those are ideas for keywords in your pin and

your pin description.

You can also start to type in a phrase and see what else is suggested to give you some ideas:

Another option is to use http://www.pinterestkeywordtool.com/

You want to make sure that your headline is catchy and above all, readable.

If you want to see how catchy your headline is, you can use the free headline analyzer from

Coschedule.

You don’t want to squeeze too much text on your pin but you need to get your point across. I

try and stay around 8-10 words total but you can add a small subtitle if the topic needs to be

expanded on in order to make sense.

Remember that 90% of Pinterest users are on mobile and are just scrolling by your pins and

quickly reading.

As you saw in my “bad pin” example, I used to use fancy script fonts but I now stick to the

basics as I have found them much easier to read when I am on my cell phone. You are better

off using clearer fonts and jazzing up your pins with different letter sizes, boldness or color than

using lots of flowery fonts.

I recommend picking a font or two and sticking with them. You want to create a brand for your

blog so that readers recognize your pins when they browse Pinterest.

Some bloggers that do this wonderfully on Pinterest:

Mommy on Purpose

Women Winning Online

The same goes for colors. I normally stick to the same 2 colors for both my blog and pins so

that the look is cohesive and recognizable.

An image is worth a thousand words Did you know that Pinterest pulls up search results from the images as well as the words on

your pins? That’s why you NEED to have images that actually go with your pins and “tell” the search engine what the pin is about.

For example, if you have a pin about babies, make sure you have a photo of a baby in it or at

least something that will tell Pinterest what your pin is about.

This pin barely needs any text to explain what it’s about!

Make sure your image is bright and clear. If you are not a good photographer, there are tons of

great free images at https://unsplash.com/ and https://pixabay.com/.

Dark, grainy images do not make your pins scream “click me, click me!”

Test your “pinnability”

One way to test how good your images and text are is to pin something then look at the

“related pins” underneath your pin when you click to enlarge it.

You can see in the example below that my pin “Ultimate fertility smoothie” pulls up related pins about conception and health.

With this next pin, I see we have an issue. The pin is about products that help you get pregnant

but the related pins are all about couponing and making extra money. It could be the word

“product” in the pin title or it could just be that the pin is too new (less than a week old) and hasn’t been properly indexed yet.

Nevertheless, I will keep an eye on it and change the image or text overlay if necessary.

Is your Pin Description is “en pointe”?

When you are browsing your home feed on Pinterest, you will notice that you can only see the first couple of lines of the description. Bear that in mind when choosing what to write as you want something that entices the reader to click and save your pin.

You want your main keywords to be at the beginning of the description.

Although everyone agrees that a keyword -rich description is essential for your pins, there are a few schools of thought on how the description should be written:

Some people recommend writing like a super fan of the pin like this:

Or you can do a more salesy, call to action pitch like this:

You could also just list keywords. You can separate the phrases or words by a comma, dash or

line:

The way you write the description will really only affect the pinners who are looking at your content on their feeds. As long as you have a ton of keywords, it shouldn't really matter how your description flows. For example, if you have a handprint craft, you might try and use keepsake, DIY, gift, baby memento etc. as keywords.

Again, you can find key words on http://www.pinterestkeywordtool.com/

Very Important Tip – You can write up to 500 characters in your Pin description. I suggest trying to go up to at least 400-450 characters to maximize your chances of choosing the right keyword.

NOTE: If you use WordPress and then pin from your blog post, the ALT description of your images will be pulled as your pin description unless you change it when you create the pin.

So, let’s go back to my Hungry Caterpillar pin and see how all this works in practice:

And here is my revamped pin:

You can see my new pin has a clearer image, is larger and longer and the text is much easier

to read than the original pin. You can also see the keyword that I added to the description.

Not surprisingly, the new pin got more repins in the first week than the first pin in 2 months.

To summarize, let’s recap what we have talked about:

Remember that images are included in the search feature on Pinterest.

Your headline needs to entice the reader to click or repin your pin.

Make sure your text is clear, large and easily read on a mobile device

Pins need to be long and tall. Make sure each blog post includes at least one

“pinnable image”

Make the most of all 500 allowable characters in the pin description and use

tons of key words.

A few bonus tips to increase your Pinterest Traffic

1. Create more than one pin per image to A/B test and see which one works better

2. Hide additional pins for free using the following HTML code in your text:

Add <div style="display: none;"> at the beginning of the image code. At the end of the image code, put </div> For example: Before: <a href="http://seasidesundays.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/06/POWERPUMPING.jpg"><img class="size-full wp-image-1567 aligncenter" src="http://seasidesundays.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/06/POWERPUMPING.jpg" alt="" width="735" height="1332" /></a> After (image is now hidden) <a href="http://seasidesundays.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/06/POWERPUMPING.jpg"><div style="display: none;"> <img class="size-full wp-image-1567 aligncenter" src="http://seasidesundays.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/06/POWERPUMPING.jpg" alt="" width="735" height="1332" /></div></a> There are plugins such as Social Warfare that will do this for you but this way is free and very easy to do. If you want more information on pinning strategies and how to get your (now) amazing pins out there, make sure to check out these posts: Optimizing your Pinterest Strategy How to find and join Pinterest group boards How to promote your pins and grow your traffic Pinterest group boards for mommy bloggers