Pinterest Marketing: How I consistently get over 1 million monthly views

Pinterest marketing is something I fell into about six years ago. At that point, I had no idea what I was doing. I pinned things, people clicked, and I made money selling digital downloads in my Teachers Pay Teachers store. It was that simple! In the last two years, the change in the algorithm has made Pinterest marketing change drastically.

Some of the links in this post are affiliate links and if you go through them to make a purchase I will earn a commission. I only recommend products that I personally use in my own business.

It’s taken more effort in the last two years, but my efforts have paid off with over 1 million views each month.

What does 1 million views mean? Well, I pin between 80-90% of my own content, so people are seeing my pins around 1 million times. This translates to around 65,000 actual interactions (repins, close-ups, and click-throughs), and about 35,000 clicks to my blog and 4,000 clicks directly to my Teachers Pay Teachers store from Pinterest (most of my pins go to my blog). During back to school, these stats are often double.

So, how did I get here? It’s definitely been a combination of being active on Pinterest for so long and some very specific strategies I’ve taken over the last year. It’s important to note that Pinterest in general takes time to grow, but it’s totally possible to build up your traffic from Pinterest substantially in just 60-90 days.

Pinterest SEO (Search Engine Optimization)

Pinterest’s “Smart Feed” algorithm is becoming increasingly similar to Google’s. Have you noticed that when you search for a certain topic or repin pins related to a topic, you get many more of those pins in your regular feed? That’s because Pinterest serves up the pins it thinks are most relevant.

How does Pinterest know what’s relevant?

Pinterest pays attention to the title, description, and even image name. You should be creating pins that are optimized for SEO just like you optimize your blog posts. I use the plugin Tasty Pins, so I can control what text/keywords are in my pins when other people pin from my site. I use what I’ve put into my Yoast SEO plugin for the post to help me determine how I want to rank for keywords on Pinterest.

Not sure which keywords should be included in your pin? Hit up the Pinterest search bar and put in the keyword that you think is most relevant to see what most people are searching for related to that keyword. Include the phrases that match your blog post or product best in your pin description.

And, I always use 3-5 hashtags. They are used sometimes by Pinterest users, but my main reason for using them is that they are another way for Pinterest to know what keywords my pins should be shown for.

Visual Quality

The visual quality of your images should always be an important part of your Pinterest Marketing strategy. It takes a while to learn what style your audience likes the best, but it’s worth it to try different types of images for the same blog post or product. Keep track of the data using Pinterest analytics and use the one that does the best as a template for future pins.

Here is what I’ve found does best with teachers on Pinterest:

Clean, uncluttered pins
Pins with eye-catching colors, no more than 3 different colors and 2 different fonts
Action photos of paper resources with easy-to-read descriptive text
Stock photos with a catchy headline

Always use the optimal pin size. This used to be long pins, but they are now cut off in the mobile feed. I now use Canva to design all of my pins, and I use their Pinterest graphic size of 735 x 1102.

Freshness

Adding new pins each month is SO important. I’m always in a cycle of creating and adding new pins for old blog posts.

Here’s my process:

New Blog Posts or Products

Create 3 pinnable images
Do keyword research
Optimize title and description for the keywords
Upload to my content board and add to applicable SmartLoops

Old Blog Posts

Each month, create 3 new pinnacle images for 3-5 of my old blog posts.
Do keyword research
Optimize title and description for the keywords
Upload to my content board and add to applicable SmartLoops

See any patterns? Consistently adding new pins, even when I don’t have new content I’m blogging, tell Pinterest that my profile is fresh with new content about the topics I write about. It also gives me more content for my customers to find.

Consistent Pinning

My strategy has always been quality over quantity, but consistent pinning is still important. I pin about 15-20 pins a day using Tailwind‘s SmartLoop. I no longer pin organically or schedule anything to my Tailwind Queue.

It isn’t a requirement to use Smart Loop, I just prefer to spend my time making new images and not having to pin organically.

About 85-95% of what I pin is my own content. I think when you have enough content to do that, it’s wonderful. When you’re first starting out, it makes sense to build your profile by pinning a larger percentage of other people’s content.

Consistent pinning tells Pinterest what kinds of content you pin, so it’s also important to pin within your niche as much as possible.

Niche-Targeting

When I first started out, I pinned everything. I even participated in “pinning parties” with kindergarten teachers, high school teachers, and lifestyle bloggers. I pinned their content to my boards, even if it wasn’t related to my niche.

With the Pinterest Smart Feed, I know I need to be careful about what I tell Pinterest my account is about. I no longer pin anything that isn’t targeted to my audience.

I’ve found a group of 3rd-5th grade teachers who create high-quality content on their blogs, and we pin each other’s content. If you participate in Tailwind Tribes, where you can add your pins for other people in the group to pin, choose a Tribe that only includes content related to your niche. The more specific you are, the better.

I see my own pins come up in my feed that were pinned by other people directly from my blog. This tells me I’m targeting my niche properly because Pinterest knows I’m interested in that topic! This means that they’re also showing my pins to other teachers (my audience) who search and repin for pins like mine. This is exactly what I want Pinterest to do.

Main Pinterest Marketing Takeaways

Pinterest marketing takes work and patience, but it is absolutely worth it if you want traffic from customers who are ready to buy!

You should focus on creating pins with quality images and descriptions that lead to great content.

The more great content you have, the more views you will get on your profile!