Is this you? You’ve just started your travel blog or perhaps you’ve been blogging for a while but just haven’t taken advantage of Pinterest for your website.
In this post I’m going to give you a beginners guide to using Pinterest for your travel blog.
It’s the place to be especially with the rise of users booking travel using Pinterest. 69% of travel pinners are using this platform to discover what travel options when looking to book.
That’s a big number and if you implement what I teach you then you will be in a good position and have a solid foundation.
*Part of this original post appeared on heatherfarris.com*
This blog post contains affiliate links. Learn more.
Starting A Pinterest for Business Account
When you start a brand new Pinterest account you will see on the first page the ability to create a business or personal account.
Choose Business and fill in your details.
Now that you’re all signed up and you have a brand new business account you need to fill out your settings.
At one point you could customize your profile name to have keywords but Pinterest is starting to take that capability away.
Fill out your settings the best you can and make sure to pay special attention to your bio and use keywords there.
You can see what I did below. You may not be able to fill your name in like I did because Pinterest is always changing their settings. Do the best you can with your keywords.
Once you have completed the basic profile settings you can move on to claim your websites.
Claim Your Websites
This is the best part of having a business account. You can claim your website as well as Etsy, YouTube and Instagram handles.
This is important because it provides analytics for your website, but it also provides an extra layer of data on your miscellaneous accounts like YouTube.
Next we are going to talk about optimizing your newly established account.
Optimizing Your Pinterest Account for SEO
Now that we have the boring part out of the way we need to dive into making your profile SEO optimized.
In this example, we are starting with a brand new business account but you can use my techniques to actually optimize any profile on Pinterest.
Now you are going to want 2 Pinterest windows open so go ahead and open another window for Pinterest. Leave window 1 on your profile and window 2 can just be the smart feed or your profile.
We are going to use 1 window to create new boards and we are going to use 1 window for SEO research.
Head over to your profile window and click to the boards tab and click create a new board.
Now toggle over to your second Pinterest window and let’s do a bit of research.
I’m going to use my Pinterest account here for the example so follow me for a second…
I want to create a new board around virtual assistant work. So research time…
I typed in “virtual assistant” and Pinterest has given us a variety of keywords we can choose from that people are searching for.
You are going to do this a number of times to get 3-5 long-tail keywords that you will be able to use in your board descriptions as well as your related pins.
You should even use these keyword phrases in your text overlays on your Pinterest images.
Once you have a profile with solid keywords in place you’re ready to start automating your pins using Tailwind.
Sign Up For a Free Trial with Tailwind
Automating Your Pins
Obviously, I will always recommend Tailwind as of your Pinterest marketing strategy. If you are using something else and ask me why your Pinterest strategy isn’t working I’ll likely not have an answer.
I require all of my clients to use Tailwind as well.
It’s just one of those things… like my choice in coffee or tea. It’s always the same answer no matter what!
So let’s talk about automating those pins and why you should do this.
First, there is no way you can be on the platform pinning when your pinners are on. It’s just not possible if you want to have a life.
That’s where Tailwind comes in.
But why do I want to be pinning when my pinners are online?
Well it’s simple right… Your content is more likely to be seen by those who are looking for you if you’re pinning content during those high traffic times.
Tailwind allows you to figure out those best times based on their smart schedule. Their app connects to your Pinterest account and reads your data. They can see information you can see and can give you those times.
With Tailwind you can create board lists, see analytics based on pins and boards and even utilize their Tribes and SmartLoop features.
It’s really a no brainer.
You create the content, use Tailwind to automate and distribute without you having to be online to do it.
My favorite Tailwind features are:
- Tribes
- Board Lists
- Pin Inspector
- Board Insights
- Smart Loop
Do yourself a favor and automate! For $119 per year its a serious no-brainer.
What Can I Pin?
I get this a lot when I consult on Pinterest accounts. It’s a bit of a different answer depending on who I’m talking to but here is a general rundown of what you can pin.
- Products
- Lead magnets
- Videos
- Blog posts
Pretty much anything with a link can be pinned to Pinterest.
Do you have affiliate relationships? Create high-value content around that product and make a pin to put on Pinterest.
This goes for anything you create. If you are creating it you should consider the ways you can repurpose your content for Pinterest.
Our Results
We have a lot of work to do so the screenshot below isn’t anything to compare your blog to. You may have a lot more traffic than we do or a lot less.
These results span from April 2018 to July 2019
You can see that our traffic has gone up and down which is to be expected, but overall it’s done nothing but go up! Nearly everyone who has visited our site has come from Pinterest. Like I said I have work to do on Google SEO but this strategy takes me an hour a week to implement so I am pretty proud of the results.
In March 2019, we started using Tailwind.
To come into a new space like RV living on Pinterest and take a giant chunk of the traffic is a feat. Pinterest marketing is what I do for a living. This is my job so I only expect to see growth from this platform.
Keys to be Successful
When I have clients that tell me they haven’t seen great success from Pinterest it kind of breaks my heart. Honestly, with a few key ingredients you can see great success from Pinterest.
Here are my thoughts on what those keys are:
- Consistency
- New images & content
- Keywords
With all of the above each week you will be surprised at just how quickly you will see success on Pinterest.
When you do see that traffic start coming in pay attention to your data and learn what it all means.
If you get to the point of not being able to handle your strategy on your own or just need a little help then we are here for you. Just reach out and let us do the heavy lifting for you!
Pin It!
