How To Drive Screaming Traffic To Your Blog Using Pinterest!

By now most everyone knows about Pinterest but in case you don’t, or have come late to the party, you’re about to find out how you can drive massive amounts of traffic to your blog using Pinterest!

What is Pinterest?
(just in case…)

 As defined by the company’s website: It’s a “Virtual Pinboard that allows you to organize and share all the beautiful things you find on the web”.

 History

 The company has been around since March of 2010 and for the longest time, they operated as an invitation only platform; but it wasn’t until mid 2011 that it really took off!

As of January of 2012, the site had 11.7 million unique users and averages 11 million visits per week! Currently Pinterest holds a Google Page Rank of 7.

Those are some pretty impressive stats for a company less than 3 years old.

Two Interesting and Important Facts about Pinning and Repinning 

1. Pin

To add or pin an image to one of your boards on Pinterest, it can be done one of two ways. You can upload an image from your computer or you can use their “bookmarklet” via your web browser. For instructions on how to use the “Pin It” button see: http://pinterest.com/about/goodies/

Depending on which browser you are using, the site will display the relevant video. It’s super simple and the image below is for Safari’s browser.

2. Backlink*

This is the secret ingredient to using Pinterest! Each time you add a pin using the “bookmarklet”, it links back to the site it came from…  Read that again because what I am going to explain next is golden!

This is how you can drive screaming traffic to your blog using Pinterest!

Earlier I mentioned Pinterest has a Google page rank of 7. This is huge for SEO because the more authority websites linking back to your site, the more “Google Love” your article and site will receive.

This technique works extremely well but keep in mind,  it’s more dependent on the image you chose than any other factor. People repin interesting, beautiful, funny, or controversial images all day long, so be sure and look for an image that really stands out!

You can add a short headline to the image in order to capture the readers attention. There are several free services out there which will allow you to add copy if you don’t have access to a program on your computer. wigflip.com/roflbot works great. (The image below was created with wigflip in less than 2 minutes.)

Now, this probably goes without saying but I will say it anyway. Be sure an use a royalty free website where you can purchase a web ready file for a nominal fee to keep yourself from getting into any copyright issues.

Royalty free isn’t always “free” due to the restrictions enforced. Normally if you download an image with no watermark and want free usage, you’ll be required to give credit and link back to the site and artist.  Most sites will sell images at 640 x 480 pixels for around 5 bucks. Free Digital Photos.net is just once source, there are many to chose from.

The Finishing Touches!

Once you have decided on an image, created and published your blog post we are ready for the next step.

Open a new tab in your web browser and visit the new post on your site. Hit the “Pin it” bookmarklet you created earlier and you will see a page displaying all the images on your site, click the image you want to pin, in this case, the “Woman Screaming” image.

Next you will be taken to the “Edit Pin” page where you can add a description, link, and board to pin it on, along with a thumbnail of your image. In the description box the first thing you type should be the URL to your main site, (or wherever you want to direct the reader). Add a short description of what the article is about and include your keyword with the # hashtag as shown below. Hit “Save” and that’s it…

You have just created a link back to your blog!

The whole idea and ultimate goal behind this strategy is for other Pinterest users to see your image and repin it, thus creating even more traffic back to your site. If your image is strong enough, and with any luck, this will go viral, leading to hundreds or thousands of unique visits to your site.

I would also announce your recent “Pin” using the Facebook and Twitter links on your board to drive even more traffic to your site.

One word of caution prior to using this strategy. Make the time to create your Pinterest account and have several boards created with other images you have pinned first! Be sure to actively repin other users images as well. You don’t want to come off looking like a newbie spammer with only one or two boards, mostly of your own work… It looks a bit self-serving!  Another tip on what NOT to do, don’t use a URL that goes directly to a “buy” page. Its against the rules and Pinterest can shut down your account.

In closing, with all the changes Google has made the last few months regarding their algorithms and how they are ranking sites these days, ( see my recent post about the social vote: http://workwithrichardp.com/what-is-social-networking-coming-to-its-all-about-the-social-vote/ )This strategy is very powerful and effective method for your SEO.

Something else to consider, if you’re trying to get more traffic to an affiliate or capture page, this strategy is very effective. You can do all the above and link it directly to your capture page.  If  it’s a sales page with a buy button, then create an article about your product, within the article have your link to the sales page and those interested will find what your selling that way.

If you found some useful tips here on how to drive screaming traffic to your blog using Pinterest, then here is my “Call to Action” - Please do one or all of the following: Share this article with your friends on Google+, Facebook, Twitter and Repin it!

Tagged as: affiliate, page rankings