10 Mistakes Bloggers Make on Pinterest

Pinterest is an incredible tool for bloggers in any niche!

It’s fun, it’s imagery driven, and best of all – you can automate traffic from it!

You can read about how I started getting Pinterest traffic with all of the analytics or how I got back my suspended Pinterest account in 2 days in the linked articles.

But this one is about the mistakes most beginners make on Pinterest.

Note: this blog you are reading is my second one. My first blog is yourartpath.com – an Art Blog for artists. And if you want to steal the Pinterest Canva templates I use on it, you can do so below…

Also, you can start your own blog (or blogs) today for just $3.95 with Bluehost (the same hosting platform I use). Need more help? I also have a step-by-step how to start a successful blog article, 10-Day Free email Course, as well as a 30 Day Guide + Video Course.

Pinterest for Bloggers: 10 Beginner Mistakes You are Probably Making…

Mistake #1: Not Checking Your Audience

Bloggers use Pinterest mostly to get lots of free traffic to their blogs. I feel you!

But is it the right traffic?

According to an article on Hootsuite written by Page Cooper:

• Pinterest reaches 83% of US women ages 25-54
• 34% of Americans ages 18-49 use Pinterest
• 50% of new sign-ups in 2018 were men

Sounds like your avatar hangs out in there? Then you got yourself the perfect place to grow your blogging biz!

You should definitely read the article for yourself, as they also write about how about 55% of Pinterest users are there to shop!

Which means that if you are selling your own products, or are an affiliate for others – you will benefit from the platform and make your first $100+.

Mistake #2: I’m a Blogger, not a Business

I like to think of my two blogs as my blogging business. Some folks – not so much.

It doesn’t really matter what you call yourself, but when the time comes to Pinterest – you NEED a Business account!

Here is why:

• Advanced Analytics
• The ability to create ads

If you are just at the beginning – don’t worry about creating ad campaigns. Instead, focus on all of the awesome information you can receive from the Pinterest Analytics!

If you don’t have a Pinterest Account yet – create a Business one right away.

If you do have a personal Pinterest account already, you can easily convert it to a Business one by going to the pinterest.com/business/convert/.

Then you will be prompted to fill some extra information and connect your website.

When that’s done, you will be able to enjoy all of the different tolls within Pinterest Analytics:

Mistake #3. You Just Gotta Be Serious

Blogging is all about serious business, right?

Nope. At least not always! Otherwise,I wouldn’t include the silly GIFs in my articles 😉

via GIPHY

Point being, your profile image should look as if:

• You are a real human
• You are kind (a.k.a. smiling vs grumpy)

Unless you are building a brand without a face, there is no good reason to use a logo image.

People are on Pinterest to look for ideas and help. Most often than not, we don’t want to buy from brands without a face that we know nothing about. But, we tend to trust people we can relate to.

Here is one of my examples:

You don’t have to show off your teeth, but you shouldn’t crop a photo of you with a hand on your shoulder cut off…at night…at a bar…taken from 50 feet away.

Mistake #4. S.E. What?

SEO stands for search engine optimization. I’m sure you know of it already and even tried to optimize your content a bit.

After all, checking Google Analytics and seeing your traffic grow is so much fun!

So what does it have to do with Pinterest?

Well, actually, Pinterest is a search engine just like Google and NOT a social media platform!

Shocking? Maybe. But also exciting!

This means if you spend some time optimizing for this platform, you will be ranking at the top of the search results. Which means more saves and clicks 🙂

Let’s look at an example.

If I search for “figure drawing websites” on Google, we will see 1 top result (they showcase one sometimes), and then 9 others.

Whichever articles rank in the top 3 are the ones that get the most clicks!

Yup, that’s my art blog over there ranking at #1. Mostly because of proper SEO keywording and a helpful long-form content!

And Pinterest works the exact same way!

Except the results are not text links, but rather image links.

Pinterest is easier in a sense because people tend to scroll a bit before they click on a pin. So if you are not ranking one of the first 3, it’s still OK.

As you can see on the screenshot, the first result is an image from the same article that ranks on Google.

The second pin by me however, takes the viewer to a different article that is just closely related to the search.

Having 2 articles ranking for the same keyword is AWESOME! You can do it too!

Just make sure you do your keyword research and then include those keywords inside of your bio, board description and pin description.

Mistake #5. I’m Gonna Pin It ALL

Okay guys, so we just talked about SEO, and that’s all great, but…

Did you know that the content you create, and the keywords you use affect how your entire website and profile are perceived by Google and Pinterest?

I know that there are many wonderful successful lifestyle blogs out there, but it’s been said many times that niche blogs can actually grow more over time.

If you constantly write about one topic and everything related to it, then after a while you become the authority on the topic in the eyes of search engines and readers.

If you write about or pin content about art, traveling, money, family, movies, dogs, etc. – you are sending mixed signals. Not good.

So make sure you only have pins and boards relevant to the content you want to be know for.

Saw a recipe on Pinterest that you want to pin, but you are actually talking about finances? Pin it to a secret board!

Mistake #6. I’ll Do It When I Can

Being a blogger means having 100 million tasks you could be doing, and instead focusing on the ones you should be doing.

Pinterest is one of the things you have to focus on if you need traffic, but it’s also the one you could be doing every day, but don’t have to.

Let me explain.

Most of the regular pinners on Pinterest pin whenever they find something inspiring. Which means, they could pin 20 pins in 5 minutes, and then don’t sit on the platform for days or weeks.

Then, a lot of bloggers go and do the same thing. Do you think it’s a valid way to grow your profile and start getting that free juicy traffic to your articles?

Nope.

You can’t just go and pin whenever you remember or have time for it. With Pinterest, like with everything else in blogging you need to have a STRATEGY!

Best practices show that you should be pinning 20-50 new pins every day spread out. And let me just tell you – that’s a lot of time!

I tried to pin manually at the beginning and it was OK. But the results were rather sad.

Then, I had a realization that every blogger will have at some point in their journey:

You can’t expect to make full-time income online without investments.

Don’t agree with me? That’s ok. You will get it later.

Essentially, you are investing from day 1, when you first choose an awesome hosting platform for your site.

Then, the number of tools to help you grow your blogging biz grows. But so does your income! (hopefully).

And I had such a realization, which pushed me to look for automation tools.

I found two automation softwares for Pinterest that would allow me to schedule pins to pin to my boards automatically.

I cheaped out and when with a less expensive option – Boardbooster.

The results? Awesome! See for yourself…

However, that didn’t last long.

They weren’t partnered with Pinterest and didn’t follow their terms of service. So… Pinterest helped shut them down by warning bloggers about consequences.

I was pretty sad to be honest. But one thing I knew for sure – I am NOT going back to pinning manually!

So I made one of the best decisions for my blog – I invested in Tailwind Pinterest scheduler.

The results?

Absolutely incredible!!!

As you can see, I went from 0 – 8 million reach on Pinterest, and all with the help of this awesome scheduler.

There are not a lot of tools that I can 100% recommend for every blogger, but here is a list of 3 tools that I firmly stand behind:

• Tailwind (Pinterest Scheduler – free automated traffic)
• ConvertKit (Email Marketing Software – building a tribe, getting traffic and making money)
• Elementor Pro (WordPress Page Builder – designing a unique website from scratch)

So how exactly do you use Tailwind to get free traffic?

Here is what I do:

• Create a daily schedule (how many time a day and when I want the pins to go off)
• Schedule Pins from other people
• Create & schedule pins that lead to my own articles

That’s all you do, really. But the results are incredible!

Mistake #7. This Is The One

Another mistake I see most beginner bloggers do is to NOT create any special pins for your articles, or creating only ONE pin.

Here is the thing – not everyone will see, like, click on the one pin you created for your blog post. That’s why I always suggest creating a few pins for each article while changing things up a bit.

For example, you already saw 2 pins I created for this article (inserted above) AND here are a few more that I created:

• 

• 

I will end up saving all of these to Pinterest to boost up my chances of getting seen, or even having one of them go viral.

More images = more chances, right?

Now, that doesn’t mean you should go create 100 pins for each article. Let’s not get carried away here, they take time. Having 3 for each post should be a great start!

• Note: save my pins to your Pinterest boards if you liked this content and found it helpful! (thank you!)

Mistake #8. I Know The Content is Awesome

“C’mon just click me! I’m awesome, I promise…”

This is what I imagine a pin saying that has no call to action or a benefit apparent.

The reason why we are creating pins is to, in most cases, get free traffic!

BUT even though YOU know that your article is incredible, Pinterest users don’t know it just yet.

So you need to make sure your pin:

• Provokes curiosity
• Shows what benefit they will get from reading your content

Either way is great! This will get you clicks.

So if you see that a pin was shown to a lot of users, but you didn’t get any traffic, ask yourself – did I show a reason WHY they should click?

Mistake #9. Throwing Spaghetti

Throwing things out there and seeing if they stick is a great practice in most cases.

You should do it when trying out new content, lead magnets, products, etc. But when things come to Pins, you should know WHY you are creating a specific pin.

• You might want to get traffic – then create pins that ask to be clicked.

• If you want to get re-pins (saves) – then create pins worth saving (such as infographics).

Mistake #10. I Just Want Traffic

The last, but not least mistake on this list is using Pinterest just to get traffic to your blog.

I mean when you use Pinterest + Tailwind = you have yourself a very powerful tool to grow your blog! Why waste it?

The thing is, you probably want one or both of these:

• Making money with your blog
• Growing your own tribe

To get both of these things you only need to focus on one – GROW YOUR EMAIL LIST!

It’s so important that I dedicated an entire article on the 5 reasons why growing an email list is crucial. In short, money is in the list.

And you are in luck, because Pinterest is also an incredible tool for that!

You can:

• Create pins that lead to articles filled with effective email opt-ins
• Create pins that lead to opt-in landing pages (most effective)

I use 2 tools on both of my blogs to achieve the most results and get new email subscribers every day:

• Elementor Pro
• ConvertKit

Elementor Pro is a page builder, but it also includes very powerful tools for building your own opt-ins.

You’ve seen some of mine already at the top of this article, throughout the text and probably some pop-ups. This is how I was able to grow my email list to a few thousand engaged subscribers!

Here is an example of one of my pop-up opt-ins created with Elementor Pro:

ConvertKit is an email marketing software created by a blogger (!!!).

You need to be able to collect email subscribers somewhere, and send out emails from somewhere – that’s why you need an email marketing software.

I’ve used a few in the past such as MailChimp and GetResponse, but they weren’t even close to as good as this one.

Mostly because of the powerful automation tools, easy non-techy interface and their laser focus on making bloggers successful.

They also have the ability to create landing pages and forms, so you don’t necessarily need Elementor Pro if you use them.

Here is an example of one opt-in I created using their service:

To get started with ConvertKit, you can sign-up to their free 14-day trial (no credit card required) and just play around.

I also suggest grabbing:

• This free book (digital) to get started with email marketing.
• And this free book (physical) to learn how to make money online with the power of email marketing + funnels.

Note: I heard that a pretty good option for email marketing on a budget is the MailerLite software. I haven’t used it myself, but from my research, it seems to be better than MailChimp.

The takeaway from this point: don’t get traffic from Pinterest just for the sake of traffic. Use it to grow your online biz!

What’s Next?

I hope you found these 10 Pinterest Mistakes helpful. Some of them might seem obvious, but others – not so much.

It takes time to figure things out and all I want to do is save you a bit of the learning curve I had to go through.

If you have a Pinterest tip that you don’t mind sharing with other bloggers, please leave it down in the comments! I would love to read them 🙂

Also, you can grab a special checklist I created for you for this article below. Fixing your Pinterest and checking things off feels so nice, so why not combine the two?

Thank you for stopping by!