Pinterest: Pinning Your Way to Higher Traffic to Your Blog

Do you want to increase traffic to your blog or business website by utilizing the most popular forms of social networking tools available at your disposal? If you have not done so already, you must add the immensely popular tool that is Pinterest to your social networking arsenal. What exactly is Pinterest? It is a pin-board-style photo sharing website that allows users to collect, disseminate and manage themed images. Among the most popular image themes that can currently be observed on it include fashion, beauty, home decor, food, fitness and inspirational items. Its users can interact with fellow users by following their boards and leaving comments on pins.

According to Fortune Magazine, Pinterest has become the fastest growing website ever. Over 17.8 million users visited it in February 2012, which marked a significant increase from the 11.7 million visitors to the site in January 2012. Bloggers and business owners worldwide should tap into Pinterest’s phenomenal potential.

You may be curious about how you can effectively use Pinterest to drive traffic to your blog or business website. I have some answers for you.

Become Acquainted With the Typical Pinterest User:

The very first step you should take to determine if Pinterest is even an appropriate marketing tool for you is to understand who exactly the typical Pinterest user is. Due to its overall content nature, Pinterest primarily attracts a female audience. In fact, 80 percent of Pinterest’s user base is female. Currently, it would not be a viable strategy for you to utilize Pinterest to appeal to a male audience. Would any component of your blog or business website appeal solely to women? If so, you should definitely make the decision to add Pinterest to your social networking arsenal.

Just Play Around Some:

In order to effectively use Pinterest as a marketing weapon, it is important for you to register or receive an invite to the popular social networking site and just gain some familiarity with the Pinterest community. Play around with Pinterest by creating your own virtual pinboards and following users who share similar tastes and interests as you. This will allow you to understand exactly how this networking tool functions.

Create Eye Candy Pins:

I will let you in on a little secret about Pinterest that you will eventually come to learn and understand on your own. Pinterest is very addictive and rather superficial. Women tend to be drawn to colorful, eye-catching pins, which means that you must create eye-candy pins that will appeal to women. Dull and technical pins will not really appeal to most women. It may be in your interest to hire a graphic designer who can create some dazzling pins for you.

Take Advantage of the “Pin It” Button Plugin:

As your website establishes a strong presence on Pinterest, it is important for you to add the “Pin It” button to your site. This will allow Pinterest users who visit your site to easily “re-pin” images to their personal pinboards. The “Pin It” button will really work for itself in no time and help increase traffic to your blog or business website.

Follow the Right Users:

It is important for you to follow users, brands and companies on Pinterest that share similar tastes and interests to the niche you are marketing. If you are marketing a home decor service, for example, follow other brands involved in the same niche. This will increase the likelihood that your pins will be “re-pinned,” which is essentially the same as backlinking.

Remember to Diversify:

It is crucial for you to pin a variety of items and image themes to your pin-boards. This increases the chances of drawing in a greater number of Pinterest users to follow your boards. Also, remember that pins do not have to be restricted to images. You can create text and video-based pins to appeal to a greater number of users. You could create a text pin based on a customer testimonial or a video pin showcasing a client using a product you are marketing.

Monitor Your Analytics:

After traffic starts pouring into your site from it, closely monitor your analytics. You should understand what exactly led users to visit your site via Pinterest. Whatever seems to be increasing the traffic to your site, do more of it.

Have you used Pinterest to increase traffic to your blog or business website? How were your results?

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