Drive Traffic to Your Blog and Increase Your Income with Pinterest!
In this episode, Bree chats with Taylor Stanford, a full-time blogger who attributes a lot of her success to her Pinterest strategy! Tune in and learn her strategies for using Pinterest and what she's done to build a six-figure blogging business!
LEARN MORE ABOUT THE TOPICS DISCUSSED IN THIS EPISODE:
"I stumbled into blogging because I am not the girl who likes to go on Instagram or Tik-Tok, and make video content and put her whole life out there. I've just never been the center of attention, and I don't really like being the center of attention. Blogging allowed me to create that side income while also being true to myself."
Discussed in this episode...
How can I leverage Pinterest for brand colaborations?
Taylor doesn't have a huge social media following, because that's not where she has spent the most time. She found that she could absolutely make a full-time income from blogging by leveraging Pinterest. The way that she has been able to collaborate with brands is by finding brands who see the value in long-form content such as blog posts and in Pinterest-driven traffic and understand that it converts better than Instagram stories, YouTube videos, or Tik Tok.
You have to take the initiative to reach out to the brands that you want to work with and be clear on what you can bring to them. Brands won't likely reach out to you directly unless you have that big following on social media; where they can see that you actually have a large audience. When your traffic isn't out in the open brands can't see that you have a lot of followers on your website! That is not a metric that's available to these companies unless you share it with them.
How Taylor got started on Pinterest
Taylor's Pinterest journey started like most others; she needed inspiration! She was looking for decoration ideas for her new place. It was by happenstance that she ended up seeing a plan about how to start a blog. When she started her blog, Pinterest was the only social media channel in her wheelhouse.
She made a pin image that was similar to the ones she was seeing on Pinterest, using Canva. (She still uses Canva to make all her pins!) After she posted it and saw zero results, she dove into learning the ins and outs of Pinterest. She ended up learning all that she could about Pinterest, she changed my major in college to digital marketing and she dove into learning how the algorithms worked.
She started seeing that the more information she gave to Pinterest, the better that her pins would do. Her Pinterest strategy in a very condensed nutshell is:
- Include as many keyword phrases as possible!
- In descriptions
- In board descriptions
- On pin images
- Make sure that Pinterest understands the exact type of content that you're putting on there.
How to write really great pin titles! And just how important are they?
Taylor's first recommendation is to make all of your board titles very specific, with no extra fluff. You want to make it very easy for Pinterest to index. So if you have a board that's all about vegan dinner recipes, then you would just make the board title "Vegan Dinners". You don't want extra stuff in your title because it's going to confuse Pinterest and they're not going to know who to show the pins that you're putting on that board to.
Next is actually putting descriptions on your boards. It's so easy when you go to pin something and you don't have a board that goes with it, to just like create a new board and give it a title. Taking the extra step and adding descriptions to all of your boards really helps Pinterest understand who to show this content to. So in that "Vegan Dinner" board, for example, you might have "dairy-free, gluten-free, vegan, easy 30-minute dinners" and all these different keyword phrases.
Once Taylor changed all her board titles and descriptions, she started to see a lot more engagement with her pins. With virtually no followers on Pinterest, she started to get 500,000 views every month, and then a million views every month. This was really something that really changed her blog's trajectory was just making that small change.
How much SEO research goes into those Pin titles to increase traffic?
The further you get into it, the less research that you need to do. In the beginning, keyword research is definitely necessary, but not in the way that you would for your blog. You're going to find out how to make this post as good as possible! When trying to make sure your pin does really well or ranks high in the Pinterest algorithm, just search right there on Pinterest.
Let's say you just put out a blog post about mental health. You want anybody that's interested in improving their mental health to see that post. First, you want to search for mental health tips on Pinterest. Look at what the first few pins say. Do they have text on their image? What are those pin titles? How long are the descriptions? Do that research inside of Pinterest because that's where you're trying to do well. If you don't really understand the strategy, search on Pinterest for what you're going to be posting about and look at the top results because that's where you want to be.
A few more things we discuss:
- Should we use pins with text or image-only pins?
- Taylor's top pin design tips.
- When does it make sense to run Pinterest ads?
- Will running ads make your other pins not perform as well organically?
- What is the biggest mistake bloggers are making when it comes to Pinterest?
Resources Mentioned
- Tailwind
- The Profitable Blogger Society
- The Thrive Blogging Community on Facebook
More about Taylor Stanford:
Taylor is a full-time Disney adult and blogger. She started a blog in college once she realized the nine-to-five life wasn't going to be for her. She talked about everything from dorm decor to discount fashion. During the whole first year, she felt so confused and lost. She promised herself that if she ever found success she'd share how. Now she splits her time between blogging and helping other people learn to grow blogs or their online businesses.
Check out her website: Taylorstanford.com
Read her blog: bytaylorstanford.com
Follow Taylor on Instagram!
