The 5 Things You’re Doing Wrong with Pinterest

As a blogger we’re always looking for ways to boost our traffic. We want our content to reach a wider audience, and so we’re always chasing new readers, the viral post and healthy page views at the end of each month.

So, Pinterest is a great way to achieve that. The pins are evergreen, always growing and building, and it’s a simple way to build your traffic and boost blog followers. If you’re not using Pinterest to promote your blog then you need to start NOW! It’s a game changer. With over 100 million users worldwide, all of which you have access to, there’s no excuse to not make the most of this amazing platform.

And don’t think it’s just for the craft and food bloggers either. ANY niche can find success on Pinterest, you just have to know how to make the right pins and reach the right audience. I’ve been using it seriously for 3 years, and in the last 2 have gained 1.1 million hits just from Pinterest alone.
I’m going to tell you something you should never forget.
Pinterest is a search engine, not a social media platform.
Don’t think that you need to interact or get thousands of followers. Sure those things can help, but the main way to use Pinterest is through search. This is what its users are doing, trying to improve their lives, and looking for answers to important questions. This is how your pins and blog posts will be found if you’re adopting the right approach and have the correct strategy.
So with that in mind, I thought it would be useful to share some of the common mistakes that bloggers make on Pinterest.

You’re Not Using a Business Account:

There’s nothing scary or official about this, but as a blogger I’d highly recommend setting up or switching to a Pinterest business account. If you make any kind of money at all form your blog, you MUST do it, and even if you don’t, a business account will give you access to the Analytics tool, an essential part of tracking how your pins are doing, and what your audience is pinning.

You Don’t Have the Right Type of Pins:

You’re sharing small, landscape images that aren’t inspiring and you don’t have Rich Pins activated. These are the most common mistakes bloggers make when pinning but don’t worry, they are easily rectified. Ensure you’re sharing beautiful, high quality images in a portrait format. Upload them to your blog, install a pin it button and pin them over to your account.
You’re going to need to set up rich pins too. A rich pin holds much more information, stands out more in the feed, includes your blog name and logo and has better descriptions taken from your blog. Pinterest also gives them higher value in search, meaning if you use them you’re increasing your chances of being discovered.

You Don’t Have a Dedicated Blog Board:

If you don’t have a board set up that holds only your blog pins, you need to get one now. Creating the right kind of boards is all part of showcasing you as a blogger and a ‘brand’ in lots of ways. It tells the audience who you are and what you like to pin. Creating a board for your blog will not only do this, it will give you opportunity to pin your content easily, even if you don’t have other boards suitable. Most likely the pins in here will be repinned more than others pins you share, creating what is called a Power Board. And we all want one of those!

You Aren’t Adding Keyword Rich Descriptions:

If you think of Pinterest as a search engine then it makes sense you need to add long descriptions to your pins. Try and identify some keywords you can use regularly that fit with you and your blog. Add them to the descriptions on your pins in a natural, organic way. Don’t add hashtags, they work differently on Pinterest and won’t give you any benefits really. Descriptions are pulled from the meta description on your post so make sure you fill this in, and complete the alt text for every image too.

You Pin Inconsistently

Another big blogger mistake, albeit a perfectly understandable one when we have so many platforms to manage, is inconsistent or spam-like pinning. You might share your blog pin once or twice a week, and then go and pin 20 repins in one go on a Sunday. Pinning like this won’t help your strategy. Pinterest won’t see you as a valued pinner, and if your pins aren’t repinned by others it gets harder to be found in search. So, my big piece of advice is to use a scheduler. It allows you to spread your pins evenly across the day and night without annoying your followers or Pinterest. There are lots of Pinterest approved ones, although Tailwind is definitely my favourite. Once you’ve got to grips with it, you can spend half an hour setting up your pins for the week and you’re done. Just sit back and admire your handiwork!

If you like these tips and would like to learn more about using Pinterest to promote your blog, I’m currently giving away a FREE, simple-to-follow course for bloggers called 7 Steps to a Killer Pinterest Strategy, where we cover all of these areas and more. It’s delivered by email over 2 weeks so you can learn at your own pace and put all of the ideas into practice. If you want to find out more and sign up, all you have to do is CLICK HERE.

If you have questions, I’d love to hear from you on @lovechicliving
Happy Pinning!

About the author: Jen Stanbrook is an award wining UK home interiors blogger and TV presenter who writes at Love Chic Living. 7 Steps to a Killer Pinterest Strategy is her first digital course and she has 988.2k followers on Pinterest, driving more than 1.1 million hits to her website from Pinterest alone.

Home page image: Natee Meepian, Shutterstock