How To Grow Your Blog With Pinterest

Pinterest and I have become the best of buds over the last year and in that time I've learnt that the power of Pinterest is incredible. It's so much more than just another social media platform, it's effectively a search engine. And with that in mind, although my blog visits are relatively modest, just over 30% of referral traffic to my blog comes via Pinterest. In short, pinning my blogs images to Pinterest drives new traffic and readers to my blog. And whilst I'm still learning, today I'm going to share with you 5 ways you can grow your blog with Pinterest. 
1. Create a business account  First up you need to create a Pinterest business Account. The difference? A business account has features like analytics. And if you already have a Pinterest account no fear, you can convert and it won't affect your boards or pins. It's simple; follow the step by step guide. Make sure you upload a profile picture, write a good about me paragraph and include links to your social networks and blog. Once your profile is created follow a few bloggers and businesses that you find interesting and turn off your search privacy in your settings, as Google likes Pinterest! 
2. Make your blog Pinterest friendly  Next you need to make sure it's easy for your readers to share images from your blog. Now there are a couple of ways you can make your blog images more pinnable including a "Pin it" button which pops up when you roll over any of your blogs images. It's easy to install and easy to use, as within a couple of clicks your image will be pinned and automatically include a backlink to your blog. You can also add a Pinterest widget onto your sidebar, which displays your latest pins. Widgets aside, bearing in mind Pinterest is a visual platform, its key that your blogs images are pin-worthy. Meaning when creating and taking photos for your blog, consider if your readers would pin them. Vertical images, taller images, infographics and how-to images are very popular.
2. Create a board dedicated to your blog This step is simple. Using the title of your blog create a board dedicated to your blog so anyone can find your posts. You can directly pin your images from your blog using the 'Pin it' button, or directly upload from your device. But if you do this, make sure to edit the source, as it will not automatically include a backlink. I've arranged my boards in order of importance and have put my blog board first. And whilst you want to showcase your posts and entice new readers, it's important to avoid self promotion, so don't spam your followers by dumping them all at once as they will become diluted (if not irritating). 
3. Pin like mad (well consistency) On a regular basis, I discover a lot of beautiful images and at one point last year I questioned if I was pinning too much! But in reality pinning too much is near enough impossible. It is however important to pin quality images over quantity. So whilst I pin every day, I always pin and repin images that I love, or are in my niche. A few of my Pinterest boards include; hair, beautiful makeup and eyeshadow (duh!). With your business account, you can refer back to your analytics to see which pins are popular and the more people repin from your Pinterest account, the more influence and reach you'll achieve. And if you're lucky, you may pin or repin an image that then goes viral, meaning it is pinned, then repined again, again, again and so on. And as mentioned before it's important whilst finding inspiration to give a little back to by pinning your own images. You can also pin images directly from Bloglovin'. And don't disregard the basics, share the love; comment, like and follow.
4. Participate in group boards Talking of networking, joining and participating in active and relevant group boards is a great way to promote networking and recognition for your blog. Group boards are simply regular boards with multiple pinners/contributors. You can discover group boards via PinGroupie. And if you're a fellow blogger you can join my group blogger board by dropping me an email (you must be following me and the board for me to send you an invite). Group boards are also a great place start if you don't have any, or many Pinterest followers, as participating in group boards will increase exposure dramatically. As when someone accepts your invite to become a contributor, that board is automatically added to their Pinterest page. Easy promotion at its finest. Just remember to respect the rules. 
5. Apply for rich pins Oh rich pins! I'll be honest in saying that I've only just got my head around this one. So to put simply rich pins are regular pins but include a little extra information on the pin itself and also adds your favicon to the pin. It's not a necessity, but a nice touch (branding and all that jazz). There are different types of rich pins, 6 to be exact: product, place, article, recipe, app and move. As a blogger I use article pins. You can learn how to set up rich pins here. 
Do you use Pinterest for your blog? Let me know your tips and tricks in the comments below and if you have any questions please feel free to ask. 
Happy pinning!  Emily