ByWould you like to use Pinterest to drive traffic to your website?
According to a report, Pinterest drives more website traffic than Reddit, Youtube, Linkedin, Google+ and MySpace. This was around January 2012 when Pinterest just had 11.7 million users. Now the network has over 70 million users and it continues to grow. You should be able to drive more traffic with all these users. So get active and use the tips in this article to drive more website traffic with Pinterest…
First we will discuss how to generate website traffic directly from Pinterest itself…
1. Add your website:-
The simplest way to drive Pinterest traffic to your website is by adding your site URL to your brand page. When you do this your website will be displayed right at the top.
It will be one of the first things people see on your brand page and will encourage them to check out your website to learn more about you. So don’t forget to make this simple and important step.
2. Verify it:-
Verifying your website will get a lot more people to click on it, as when you do this, a tick mark will appear beside it, indicating that the site definitely belongs to you. This is because, the only way people can verify a website is by uploading a unique file provided by Pinterest. The tick mark which appears when you verify your website adds a lot of credibility and people will be more likely to click on it as they can be sure that it’s yours. You can learn how to verify your website by watching this free Pinterest Marketing Video Tutorial.
Verifying your website will also unlock Pinterest’s free analytics tool which can be used to check how much traffic you are getting from Pinterest and how you can get more. You can learn how to use this tool, by reading the post The Complete Guide to Using Pinterest’s Web Analytics Tool.
For e.g. when I visit the Tailwind Pinterest brand page, I know that the website on it definitely belongs to them as the tick mark that appears beside it indicates that it has been verified. This encourages me to click on it.
3. Add the URL to the pin description:-
Pinterest automatically adds a link to your image, but to visit this website, the user needs to click on the pin first, wait for it to expand and then click on the expanded pin. This process can be simplified by just adding the link to the same page (where the image is located) to your pin description. When you do this users won’t need to expand the pin to visit your website, they can just see the image, read the description and click on the link in the description.
This way of simplifying things for your followers by cutting out the step of expanding pins will get you more traffic. If Pinterest doesn’t let you post shortened URLs use the full one as shortened URLs are considered as spam.
4. Add a call to action in your pin description:-
What would be even better than a URL in your pin description? – A call to action. If you want to get more people to click on the URLs you share on your pins, ask people to do it. As this infographic shows you call to actions do work on social networks. So right before the URL to the page (in your description) add a message like ‘Check out this page now’ or ‘Visit this page now’ or ‘Click the following link to learn more’. This should generate more traffic.
5. Pin at the best times:-
An important factor that can get you more website traffic is timing. If you share your pins at a time when more people are online – more people will see them and click on them. This will get you more traffic.
According to Bit Rebels the best time to share on Pinterest is between 2 PM to 4 PM in the afternoon and 8 PM to 1 AM in the night. Try and post your pins between these times.
You could also post your pins at less popular times and see how that works for you. Sometimes posting at the least popular times could turn out to be a lot more effective as fewer people will be pinning and there will be less competition.
A great tool that can help you find your best time and day to pin is GoPixel.
6. Add board categories:-
A simple way to get more people to see your pins is by adding categories to your boards. When you do this, your pins will not only appear in the feeds of people who follow you, but also in the same category the board has been connected to.
Even people who are not following you can see your pins when they are browsing through that category or through the ‘Everything’ section.
This should give your pin a lot more exposure, thereby helping you drive more website traffic.
7. Contribute to popular group boards:-
Another way to gain more website traffic is by contributing to popular group boards. Popular group boards which already have a loyal following can be a powerful source for Pinterest traffic. Spend some time looking around for popular group boards and ask their owners to invite you to contribute to them. Once you are in, begin contributing – share both – articles from your website and others. This should help you see a huge boost in traffic. It can also help you attract followers.
Now we will discuss how to optimize your website to get more Pinterest traffic…
8. Add images to your website:-
The only way someone can share something from your website is if there is an image which has the minimum dimensions of 100 X 200 pixels.
If there is no image on the webpage, people won’t be able to share it and it will be very hard for you to drive website traffic with Pinterest. So make sure you add several images on your webpages to give your website visitors options. They can share their favourite images with their followers and drive traffic.
9. Add the ‘Pin It’ button:-
You can get more people to share to share the images you add to your website by adding the ‘Pin It’ button.
A study by BrightEdge shows that webpages that have share buttons get seven times more shares than those without. So adding the ‘Pin It’ button should get you more shares and traffic. You can find this button on the widget builder page.
You could also create a scroll over image ‘Pin It’ button to images as seen on Social Marketing Writing where a ‘Pin It’ button appears when you scroll over an image. You can try it out by hovering over any image on this post with your mouse. You will see a Pin It button appear at the top of the image.
10. Use taller images:-
According to this study, taller images receive more repins on Pinterest, therefore it could be highly beneficial for your website, if you add taller images.
As pins from your website will be repined more it could lead to more website traffic.
11. Add website address or company name to images:-
You can get images to generate more traffic by adding your website address or company name to them. This way when people see your image on Pinterest, even if it has been re-published on another website and shared from there, they will always know that you created it and can learn more about you by visiting your website. So make sure you add your website address to images like quotes and infographics which people tend to re-publish on other places.
KUSHANDWIZDOM add their name or website address to their quotes (images). When people see the quotes on Pinterest they will know who originally created them even if they have been pinned from another website. Using this information people can easily find and visit their site.
12. Place text on images:-
Images and pictures with text that describes the image or the page perform really well on Pinterest as people will know what they will learn on clicking the pin even if it doesn’t have a good description. This will be highly effective, especially on blog posts where you can create a cover image with the title of the blog post on it. For best results use a clear background and easily readable font.
The post, Nutella Brownies by Karly Campbell on Buns In my Oven, has the above cover image. As you can see, it has a clear photo of the brownies, the name of the post and website address. They are all easily readable. This should encourage people to share it. If you visit the post you will notice that it has been pinned more than hundred and fourteen thousand times (114k+). This must have helped drive tons of traffic.
When people see this photo anywhere (even on my website) they can easily find the post by searching for it online. This too will help drive some traffic
13. Label images:-
Another step that could play a key role is labelling images, where you label the actual file on your website with relevant names, instead of labelling with names like ‘image 1’ or ‘image 2’ or something that’s a combination of random words. This works because the name of the file appears automatically in the description when you pin it. So if you add the image to a blog post – name it with the title of the post, if it is the image of an employee – add their name and bio, if it is the photo of a product – add the name of the product and write a description and so on. This will help all your pins have really good description.
If you pin the cover image of this post you will notice that the name of the post automatically appears in the pin description. This is because I labelled the image with the same name as the post.
14. Measure results:-
This is an important step you shouldn’t forget as measuring results will help you weed out things that are not working and find things that do. As I mentioned earlier in the article, verifying your website will unlock the analytics tool which will help you gain insights on how Pinterest is helping your website drive traffic. You can use this to see what is working and what’s not. More details on how to use the analytics tool can be found on the post The Complete Guide to Using Pinterest’s Web Analytics Tool. Once you start getting more traffic from Pinterest and would like more detailed information you can begin using a better tool like Tailwind. To learn how to use Tailwind for Pinterest, read this review.
Use all the above tips and you will drive more website traffic with Pinterest.
For more Pinterest marketing tips, watch our Free Pinterest Marketing Video Tutorial which can be accessed by Signing Up to our blog updates.
How do you use Pinterest to drive traffic to your website? Have you got some Pinterest tips you would like to share with us? Please leave your comments below.
