Today, I want to talk about ways to increase website traffic and get visible so that your blog gets found by thousands and all your hard work pays off.

Traffic is a biggie for any online business. If you want people to get to know and love your brand (and ultimately, become customers), they first have to know your business exists.

You need a signpost to draw their attention to your business, and in the blogosphere, traffic = signpost.

Truth is, blogging is a lot of work. When you see the rewards from it, you want to roll up your sleeves and keep the momentum going, no?

On the flip side, when your blog traffic plateaus or even goes down, it can kill your enthusiasm for blogging altogether. We don’t want that to happen.

In this post, I’m sharing strategies that have helped me increase my blog traffic so that you can increase the traffic to your website too.

Before I continue, I should tell you the one thing I did that made my traffic plummet.

Nothing.

Yep, I said it. I did nothing. Didn’t promote my posts after I published them. Just let them sit there. And my blog traffic dropped fast. I know this because my traffic was on the rise and I thought Good, I’m able to drive traffic to my website on autopilot now and I can ease up on content promotion. #LessonLearned

Ease up on content promotion = take down my signpost = no traffic. Which is pretty much the gist of it.

There’s a whole lot you can do to get blog traffic without spending thousands of dollars on advertising. You just need to understand the traffic sources available, coupled with these techniques to double and triple your page views every month.

Let’s dig in.

46 Ways to Boost your Blog Traffic

Step 1

Lay the Foundation

1) Build your following

Decide which social media sites you want to lean on and work to build a following on those platforms. Social media will be a huge source of blog traffic if you
approach it right, so spend some time actively engaging on those sites, sharing other people’s content as well as your own. We cover more about creating a social media strategy in this post.

2. Website navigation

This may seem obvious, but your blog should be prominently visible on your website so that visitors can see it right away. Add a link to your navigation, footer, and even the right sidebar of your blog archive page depending on your layout.

3) Social Media profiles

Give your website a boost in traffic by making sure you include your website URL in all of your social media sites. You’ll be amazed at how much traffic you can get.

This works both ways – you should also link to your social profiles from your website, probably in the footer. People who like your blog are going to want to follow you on social.

4) Create Freebies

Your blog is a powerful way to build your email list, and the best way to do it is by including freebies in relevant places within your blog post. These are known
as “content upgrades” because they help your readers take the next step. But you can also promote your freebies separately with landing pages, through guest posting, advertising, and more. You want to have at least 1-2 freebies in your back pocket, ready to add to your blog posts.

5) Post on Social Media regularly

We’re all busy… but posting regularly and frequently on social media is going to make a huge difference in building your following. Of course, you can’t be on social media 24/7, and scheduling tools will help automate your posts so you’re always active without being active, make sense? Our favorite is MetriCool (affiliate link). It can schedule to all the platforms and their free plan is very robust.

6) Post frequently + consistently

The more of your own content you have to share, the more blog traffic you can get from social media and search engines. Updating your blog regularly also helps to build your brand so that people can get to know you, and keeps readers coming back for more.

Related: Get More Traffic to Your Old Blog Posts in 4 Easy Steps

7) Focus on one Audience

It can be tempting to want to blog about a lot of different things, especially if you have a lifestyle blog. The more you can narrow the focus on one specific topic for one specific person, the more success you’ll have with it and the easier it will be to build your audience. Writing about just one topic will also keep you on track with your blog and keep you from spending time on vague or unrelated topics.

Related: How to Choose Your Blog’s Niche and Focus

8) Add social share buttons to your blog

Share buttons are what you see at the end of blog posts, and image share buttons are what you see sometimes when you hover over a blog post image.
If you’re using WordPress, you can use a plugin like Grow Social by Mediavine. This encourages your readers to share with their friends and social networks, and can expand your reach and boost traffic.

9) Tweetable quotes

Adding a “click to tweet” box to your blog post is a subtle but effective way to encourage people to share your post with their followers and drive extra traffic
to your post. A click to tweet is a tweet that you prepopulate with a quote and your link, and people can simply click the button to share it with their followers. The Better Click to Tweet plugin is a good option for WordPress.

10) On-page SEO

When people enter important terms into search engines, you want them to see your blog post. Learning some basic SEO will help you optimize your posts for
search engines and improve your chances of ranking higher. If you’re ready to get your SEO game on, check out this SEO guide for bloggers.

Rank Math is an SEO plugin that makes it easy to optimize your posts. It gives you built-in suggestions for improvements so you can adjust the tags or
content of your post as needed. You can even customize how you want your website to appear in search results.

11) Link to other posts

“Internal linking” is an on-page SEO strategy that helps Google find, index and understand the topics you cover on your website so it knows which search terms are a good fit.

When you add links to your other blog posts within your post, it sends page authority to Google that will help your page rank higher over time. It also helps readers discover content that they may not have been able to find otherwise.

Not only that, readers will likely click on at least one of the links (as long as it’s related) which will give an immediate traffic boost to those posts. So if you have a post you really want to rank, make sure you link to it from related posts on your blog.

12) Related Posts plugins

Similar to the step above, related post plugins offer another form of internal linking, only these show up at the bottom of your post along with your post title and thumbnail (think ecommerce “other products you may like”).

Because they’re visual, related post thumbnails stand out more than text-based internal links, but you want to include both. They’ll give readers more opportunities to stay on your website and click through to other blog posts, and that translates into more pageviews and more traffic.

13) Update older Blog posts

If your blog has been around for a while, there are bound to be posts that need reviving and refreshing. When you update older posts with new information and a new date, you’re essentially republishing them.

Keeping your blog posts up-to-date will give people quality content and a better experience. Your readers will keep coming back because they know they can trust your fresh, current content. And updating older blog posts also helps you maintain and improve your SEO rankings for more traffic. Remember, every day there are other bloggers writing about your topic. Don’t let them outperform you in search!

Related: How to Get More Traffic to Older Posts in 4 Steps

14) Create a roundup post

A roundup post is a collection of answers to a specific question that you ask industry experts and then compile into one mega blog post. Readers love them because they get valuable insights from their favorite influencers and experts all in one place.

Roundup posts tend to bring in loads of traffic because the industry experts you feature will often share your post with their audiences. Just remember to let them know you mentioned them and encourage them to share it.

These types of “compilation” posts are also super shareable and can get a lot of traction on social media, so be sure to follow the promotion tips in this guide once your post is published.

Step 2

Share to Your Subscribers

Email marketing is a powerful way to generate traffic. As you’re getting more and more traffic to your blog, you’re also building your list with the freebies you created (see #4, above). And you can leverage your email list to keep driving more traffic.

15) Share a link to your Blog post

The first thing to do once you publish your post is to share it with your subscribers.

Let them know what it’s about, why it’s an important read, and how the blog post will help them. You can even pull from the first few paragraphs of your blog post if you need help getting started. You just need to include a few bullet points or highlights from your post with a link to read it.

And if your post includes a freebie, let them know about in your email. You’ll be giving them an extra incentive to open your email.

Make sure you use a strong subject line that clearly states the value of your blog post so people can’t help but click. Including the person’s name in your subject line can also help increase open rates because they’ll feel like you crafted it specifically for them, which helps to build relationships and establish trust.

16) Email Signature

An easy way to promote your blog is to add it in your email signature. It’s just another way to let people know about your blog, and if it is set up as an automatic signature, any email you send to clients, vendors, partners, and others will include the link. You can send people to your blog archive page where they can skim through your posts, or to a specific blog post that needs more traffic.

Step 3

Share to Social Media

The next thing to do once you publish your post is to share it to all of your social media accounts.

As a rule of thumb, we have accounts on most platforms but are more active on some than others. Still, more social media accounts means more eyes on your content, so it makes sense to create profiles on as many as you can.

17) Pinterest

Pinterest can be a great source of traffic. It’s actually more than a social media platform – it’s also a search engine. So every time you publish a new post, make
sure you pin it to Pinterest.

Because Pinterest can be such a huge boost in traffic, let’s take a look at some other things you can do to give your posts that extra boost:

Make sure you create a pinnable image, which really just means a vertical blog post image that includes your brand elements (logo, icon, URL)
and the title of your post. This will be the image people see in their Pinterest feed, and as they repin your post, this is the image that they will share.

Add a description to your pin image so that when people share it, the description is there with it. The description should include the title of our blog post plus any other descriptive keywords that people might use to search for your pin. And of course, a call to action.

Here’s an example >>>

See how the title is in there, plus some additional keywords and a CTA? That’s what your description should look like.

18) Instagram

Instagram can be a great source of traffic when you do it right! You can post a simple 1080x1080px graphic to your feed with an engaging caption to get started.

The only downside is that people won’t be able to click through to your blog post because links aren’t available in standard feed posts.

The way to get around that is to use a tool like LinkTree or Later’s Linkin.Bio. These are mini websites or landing pages built into your Instagram profile, and you can add multiples links to posts and pages on your website. In your captions you’d let people know to check the link in your bio to see your blog post.

If you really want to leverage Instagram for traffic, you’ll want to branch out from single-image posts. The algorithm favors carousels, stories, and reels these days, and we give you pointers for each below.

19) Instagram Carousel posts

Carousel posts get loads of engagement and are widely popular on social media.

Carousels are simply multi-image posts, where you pull 3-4 highlights from your blog post and string them together one by one (using a tool like Canva), each
highlight on its own image.

You can even change the dimensions to 1080x1350px to give your carousel more impact. Just make sure that any text or graphics on your first image is vertically centered because Instagram will crop it to 1080px square in the feed.

The best part? Carousels are getting loads of engagement on other platforms, so you can repurpose them on Facebook and LinkedIn.

20) Instagram Stories

Stories are a great way to drive traffic to your posts. Keep in mind that you won’t grow your following with stories because Instagram only shows them to your
current followers. So think of stories as a way to nurture your following, drive traffic to your blog posts, and generate leads and sales.

With Canva, it’s as simple as resizing your pin to 1080x1920px and uploading to Instagram.

The great thing about stories is that they’re clickable! You can add your blog title and a “link sticker” with the URL to your blog post right in the story. So when people click your story they’ll go right to your blog post.

Stories are visible for 24 hours, which is why you want to share a lot of them. We recommend creating multiple stories with different graphics and sharing them throughout the week. Then use a tool like Later to schedule more stories later on to keep driving traffic to your post.

And you can always extend the life of your story by turning it into a highlight on your profile.

21) Instagram Reels

Instagram reels get a loads of engagement, and it’s as simple as creating a quick video with key takeaways from your post.

Keep in mind that reels aren’t clickable so you can’t add link to your captions. But that doesn’t mean you can’t drive traffic!

Use a tool like LinkTree to link to your post (see #17 above). Then mention your “link in bio” with on-screen text, a verbal shout-out, and in your video caption.

Reels and stories together are a powerful combo. Reels are shown to people outside of your following so you’ll reach loads more people than you will with stories.

Think of reels as attracting people to your content and stories as a way to nurture them. Sharing them both can easily double your traffic. As more people see your reels, more people will follow you, which means more people will also see your stories.

22) YouTube

We only have a few hundred YouTube followers and generate traffic to our content every month. So if you really want to drive traffic, turn your blog post into a video!

You don’t need a ton of fancy equipment to shoot a video for YouTube, just the camera on your phone or a webcam for your laptop. And if you’re not ready to go on camera, you can use a video creation tool like Lumen5 or InVideo to turn your blog post into a presentation-style video in a few minutes.

Remember to mention the full blog post in your video and add a link in the description. If your YouTube channel is new, you may not have the option to add a clickable link, so use a tool like Bit.ly or Pretty Links to shorten it. You want to make is super easy for people to enter in their browser.

23) TikTok

TikTok is another platform where you can drive traffic to your blog post with shortvideos. Pull a few tips from your blog post and turn them into as many videos as you can. Better yet, if you can do a separate video for each tip, you’ll have loads of videos out there driving traffic to your post.

With TikTok, you can only have one link in your bio so you’ll need to change the link depending on the blog post (if you don’t want to keep changing the link in your bio you can always use LinkTree to host multiple links).

Remember, you’re not trying to go viral on TikTok just for the sake of going viral – you want to traffic to your post. Don’t forget to include the call to action so people know where to find your link.

24) LinkedIn

If your audience is on LinkedIn and you have a decent following, you’ll want to share a link to your post there. In addition, you can write an article with an excerpt from your post to get more exposure to it.

You can also add links to your most important blog posts in the Featured section, which sit right below your about information.

And you can post a clickable picture or video with a “link sticker” to your blog post (similar to Instagram stories). Make sure you add a caption to let people know they can click on the link sticker to get to your blog post.

25) LinkedIn Groups

LinkedIn has groups much like Facebook where you can share your posts.

You used to be able to “bulk share” your post to all of your groups at once. Now you have to manually share it to each group. But if your target audience is in those groups it can be well worth the effort.

26) Twitter (X)

Twitter can be unpredictable given the ongoing changes to the algorithm, but it can also be a great traffic source if you tweet frequently (things move fast and tweets come and go quickly).

Tweet a link to your post right after you publish it, and then use tools like MetriCool, Buffer, or MissingLttr to schedule 5-20 tweets throughout the day and week. Make sure you include hashtags and vary your tweets with different highlights from your post so each one is unique.

27) Facebook

Make sure you have a branded business page and share your posts there, even if you don’t invest a lot of time on Facebook. Organic posts (meaning posts that you don’t pay to boost or promote) really don’t get much reach on Facebook, so it’s not a traffic-first approach here.

That said, you want share your blog posts on Facebook because potential customers may search for your brand on social media, and oftentimes Facebook is the first place they’ll look. It’s important to be posting consistently, if for no other reason than social proof and to show that you’re an active, current business.

28) Facebook Groups

Groups are Facebook’s secret sauce, so join them and share, share! Don’t be spammy and share blatant links to your blog, though. There’s an etiquette to Facebook groups, and what makes them so great is that you’ve got real people sharing tips, asking questions, and helping each other out. That’s how you want to approach groups.

Join a few where you feel you can contribute (and even learn). Then, if you see an opportunity to share a post, or maybe someone has a question that your post helps answer, share your link.

Always check the group rules. The admin will let you know when – and if – it’s okay
to share promotional links.

Step 4

Schedule Posts for Later

Once you’re shared your blog post on social media, it’s a good idea to schedule more shares so you can continue getting traffic to your blog post. Most people won’t see your post the first time so it’s important to reshare it. Scheduling tools allow you to schedule additional posts throughout the week and month. They’re easy to use, and most have the ability to create variations so your social posts look fresh and unique.

29) Metricool

Love, love, love this scheduling tool! We’ve been using it for the past few months in a quest to find the perfect scheduling tool. We use their “auto list” feature to recycle and share our evergreen posts to Instagram, Facebook and Twitter. There are similar scheduling tools such as SmarterQueue, Sprout Social, and MeetEdgar, but our traffic has definitely bumped up since using Metricool, and the price is reasonable for unlimited social accounts.

30) Buffer

Buffer is a great tool for scheduling tweets. You can easily load up multiple tweets and schedule them during the first week. It’s a great way to give your posts an initial spike in traffic.

31) Later

We love Later for scheduling Instagram posts and stories. You can switch between the calendar view and preview mode to see how your posts will look in your feed before you post them. And you can even rearrange them if you want.

Their plans also include the Link in Bio feature where you can host multiple links for traffic generation. And their Caption Writer makes it easy to create a caption for your blog post so you don’t get stuck with writer’s block.

Step 5

Share to Bookmarking Sites

Depending on your niche, bookmarking sites can give you an additional boost in traffic. And they’re free so why not?

32) Reddit

Reddit can be an intimidating platform because users (called “redditors”) can sense spam a thousand miles away. Your account can easily get banned if you don’t adhere to subreddit rules, so please be careful here. Redditors can also be very tough with their comments. You need to be thick-skinned to post on Reddit…

We’ve received amazing traffic for some posts and very little blog traffic for others. We’ve also been banned from some subreddits. But we still think it’s worth sharing your posts here because the boost in traffic can be noticeable and make a difference. Reddit traffic tends to convert pretty well too.

You just have to be very careful with your approach to adding links to your posts. Build up some karma before you drop any links. And best practice is to approach subreddits the same way you would approach a Facebook group. When you come across a post or a question where you can help, include a link to your post within your comment.

33) Hacker News

If you blog about entrepreneurship, Hacker News will get you traffic. Plus, it’s easy to submit your posts, just share your link & title and you’re done!

34) Growth Hackers

If your blog has anything to do with growth hacking, startups or tech, Growth Hackers is another place you can share your posts.

35) Scoop.it

Scoop.It is a content integration tool that integrates with Twitter, so if you have a following on Twitter you can hit the ground running with a decent amount of followers on Scoop.it too. To add content, either set up an RSS feed or add your posts manually, which is how we’ve used it. That allows you add specific tags to each post.

36) Flipboard

Flipboard is a social magazine where you can create collections of your favorite articles and websites. And you can also post to Flipboard and then “flip” your content outside of Flipboard and generate traffic to your blog post. You can even interact with users, comment, and post photos. It’s got a really great design and we love spending time on it. Which is how you should approach all of this. If you love a particular site, dig into it. We have seen a boost in traffic since using it.

Hashtags are key so make sure your post includes hashtags relevant to your post and your niche. People follow hashtags to get the articles they want in their collections.

Step 6

Share to Forums & Blogging Sites

Answering questions on forums and repurposing your blog posts on other blogging sites is another powerful way to drive traffic. It’s a great idea to experiment with at least one of these to see what kind of traffic you can generate.

37) Quora

We’ve gotten decent traffic from Quora, and also, surprisingly, a number of clients. Quora is a question-and-answer forum where you can find and answer questions on just about any topic. The trick is to dive deep, make your answer a valuable resource, and include links to relevant blog posts, which is how you’ll drive traffic.

38) Medium

Medium is a blogging platform similar to WordPress where you share stories, which is their term for blog posts. Some use it as their primary blog, and others use it as a way to expand their reach and drive traffic to their main blog, which is how we’ve used it.

The best way to repurpose your content and drive traffic to your website is to create a new story about the same topic, using different language, and insert links throughout it to your blog posts.

39) Bloglovin’

Create an RSS feed and add your blog to Bloglovin’. This is another one we’re on the fence with, but it’s easy enough to add your feed, so what have you got to lose? Make sure your images include an enticing description because your featured image description is the one that will be added to Bloglovin’.

Also, you may want to consider including only excerpts from your posts (in WordPress: Settings/Reading/Summary) rather than the full post itself to compare traffic results.

Step 7

Consider Advertising

You don’t have to spend a lot to get traffic from ads. Just make sure you’re strategic about the blog posts you’re running ads to. At the very least, they should include a content upgrade so that people can sign up for your list. Or, run your ad to a landing page with a freebie, challenge or free course.

40) Facebook Ads

Organic Facebook engagement may be a thing of the past, but paid ads promoting your blog post can be a great way to drive traffic and build your email list. As with most ad platforms, you’ll need to test a lot of creatives and audience targeting to get the best click through rate for your budget.

As you get more traffic and start to build your list, your welcome email sequence can include an offer for a low-cost product. Take that income and reinvest it into your ads so you wind up spending little to nothing to build your email list.

41) Pinterest Ads

Pinterest ads are a secret weapon for traffic. They give new pins a boost in visibility so others see them. Once you have a bunch of repins from your promoted pins, the snowball effects starts happening. The best part is you can run ads for as little as $5 a day and get results.

42) Tiktok Ads

If you notice one of the short videos you created in step #23 gaining traction, you can turn it into a Spark Ad to reach more people. Spark ads are boosted TikToks that look and function like regular TikToks. People can comment, like and share them. The big difference is you’ll be able to add a clickable button that links to your blog post.

43) Reddit Ads

Because Redditors can be so tough, ads may be the way to go here. The traffic you can get from Reddit is no joke, so we recommend giving ads a try. Again, you don’t have to spend much to test them. We’d wait until you have a course or paid offer to promote because that’s where the magic really happens on Reddit.

With Reddit ads you can choose to block or show comments. We suggest showing them because redditors are all about their comments and being social.

44) Quuu Promote

Quuu is a platform where people share each other’s posts. The free version allows you to find and share content to Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn. Quuu Promote is their paid version where you can add your content for other creators to share with their followers. Their plans are reasonable and from the results we’ve seen, definitely worth it.

Step 8

Network with Content Creators

Another thing you can do to increase blog traffic and build brand awareness is develop relationships with bloggers and content creators.

45) Guest Posting

Guest blogging on other people’s sites will help you build relationships with others in your niche, expose your brand to more people, and drive traffic to your blog. Create a list of your favorite blogs and websites, ideally well-known ones in your industry. You can visit their website to see if they accept guest posts (view their About or Contact pages). Or, ask them via a DM on social media.

Most websites will allow you to add one link to your website in your guest blog post. And you’ll have a second opportunity to add a link in your author bio.

46) Comment on other Blogs

Commenting on well-known blogs in your niche isn’t a direct traffic strategy but it can help increase your visibility and build relationships with other bloggers. That can lead to collaboration opportunities such as guest posting, guest podcasting, joint webinars, and so on. Don’t just comment here and there, though. Try to comment on every blog post they publish and provide your insights.

Here’s why I love Pinterest so much:

• It drives massive traffic to my site, easily OVER 60% of my total traffic
• It’s fun to look through all the beautiful images
• I find great content to share
• Pins can take on a life of their own and drive traffic for months

So let’s jump in and start driving traffic with Pinterest.

SETTING UP YOUR PINTEREST PLATFORM

There are some things you want to do before you get going, such as set up your account, boards and pins the right way.

Updated: June 27, 2019

1) Create a business account

If you have a personal account, turn it into a business account. This will give you access to analytics so you can see which pins are getting the most repins, comments and likes. You’ll also be able to run ads and claim your website so that Pinterest can verify that the content shared from your website is, in fact, yours.

2) Tailor your profile to attract your target audience

Whether you have 100 followers or 5,000, there are likely tons of people who will view your profile each month. You want to make sure it attracts the right people so they stick around once they find you, right?

Include a friendly photo that reflects your brand and a brief bio that explains what you do and how you help. Keep the focus of your description on your target audience and not you! Check out this post if you need help crafting a killer description.

If you’re featuring a course or a freebie, this is a great place to include it. Take a look at Sarah Morgan’s Pinterest bio:

3) Create boards that are relevant to your audience

To rock this strategy, you want to have at least 10 boards that your readers would be looking for.

You probably have categories for your blog, right? Start there. Create different boards for each category that you write about. This makes it easy for people to find the boards that interest them without having to sift through irrelevant pins and boards.

I like to give my boards “active” titles (e.g., Start a Blog, Grow a Blog).

While you’re here, you may want to delete boards that don’t fit with your brand, personality or niche.

When you delete a board, you will lose the people who are only following that one specific board. Don’t worry, though! It’s perfectly okay to lose followers who aren’t interested in your main message. By narrowing your focus, you’re going to attract more of the right followers, and that’s what you want. Having said that, if you prefer NOT to lose followers, don’t delete the board. Instead, archive it. You won’t lose any followers this way.

Note: It’s okay to keep other boards if you want. Just make sure that your relevant boards appear first. Let people scroll down to see your other interests if they want to. Hey, you never know, you may make a wonderful connection in the process!

4) Create a brand board

Out of the 10 boards you create, one of them should be a featured board where you only pin your branded content. Set this up as the very first board people see when they find you. On this board you’ll pin only your pins.

Take a look at how I set up my boards:

Now, when you publish your blog post, the first thing you want to do is to pin to your branded board. You can use the Pinterest Save Button or install the Social Warfare plugin and use that to pin an image from your blog.

UPDATE: Brand boards are not a must today. If you already have one, keep it! Most of my repins still come from my brand board. But if you’re just starting out on Pinterest, it’s more important that your first pin is shared to the most relevant board. This will help Pinterest quickly index it so that you get more search traffic. Personally, I like brand boards because they make it easy for people to find your best pins in one place. For more on Pinterest SEO strategies like this, read this post.

5) Add some pins

Nobody wants to visit a blank board, right? The next thing to do is to fill up your boards with pins that your audience would find interesting.

Here are some random thoughts about pinning:

• To share other pins, repin the best content in your feed, or search for a specific topic (or brand in your niche). If you find something that your readers would love, share it!
• The more you pin, the better. I pin 13x a day. I know others pin 30x a day.
• Make sure you pin some of your own content as well as curated content. When I first started, I didn’t have original content so I shared other people’s pins. This is fine at first, just keep in mind that ultimately you want to share a mix of both.
• Shoot for 30% your own content and 70% other people’s content. When you have more of your own content, flip that ratio.

PINTEREST TRAFFIC-BOOSTING TIPS!

6) Join Group Boards

Group boards give you access to audiences beyond your followers. So if you have 1,000 followers and you join a group board with 10,000 followers, you’ve just 10x’d your ability to get eyes on your pins and drive traffic to your blog.

There are two ways to find group boards:

• Search on Pingroupie for group boards around your blog topics
• Join group boards that other bloggers and brand in your niche are in

It may take a while to get invited to boards, but it’s well worth it! You may find that some that you want to join are not accepting collaborators, and that’s okay. There are plenty of others to choose from. Follow the board description for instructions on joining. In most cases, you’ll need to follow the board and moderator, then send an email with your Pinterest profile asking for an invite.

Try to join board that have more followers than you and a high engagement rate (lots of pins, repins, and likes).

Another thing: Pay attention to the board rules. Some will allow you to pin 1x a day, others allow 4-5 pins a day, and still others have no limits. You don’t spam your high-performing boards and run the risk of getting banned. I know this. I’ve been banned from boards simply because I didn’t pay attention to the rules.

7) SEO your pins and boards

Pinterest is a little different than Facebook or Twitter. It’s not really a social media platform. It’s a visual search engine, much like Google. When you log in to Pinterest, most of the pins in your feed are the result of the Pinterest search algorithm.

Pinterest ranks pins according to relevance. And relevance is based on the keywords you include in your profile description, pin descriptions and board descriptions.

If you want Pinterest to rank your content in their feed (and I know you do!), you have to implement search engine optimization (SEO) strategies. What this really means is that you should optimize your pins and boards so that they show up first in search results, the same way you would optimize a blog post to make it rank higher on Google.

1) Optimize your board descriptions

Now that you have your boards don’t leave the descriptions blank! This is valuable space to add in important terms that your readers would be searching for.

Go back and add in some keywords to your boards. This is the best way to help them rank high on Pinterest, PLUS your boards can actually rank on Google too. When people search on Google, your Pinterest board can show up on the first page!

If you’re like me, you filter your Pinterest searches by people, pins, or boards. Having the right keywords in your board will help them show up for relevant searches.

Here’s what you want in your board descriptions:

• The topics you’ll be pinning about
• Any keywords related to your niche (not limited to just one keyword). Include any relevant terms so that Pinterest knows when to show your board. For instance, my “Start a Blog” board includes these keywords: entrepreneur, solopreneur, small business, blogging tips, blogging tools, driving traffic, epic content, social media, content strategies, content marketing, startup tips, online business strategies, SEO tools.

2) Optimize pin descriptions

We are on a keyword roll! Every pin you save from your website should have keywords. This is what’s really going to give your brand the biggest boost. It pays to put the effort into your descriptions. You want them to appeal to people AND Pinterest.

You don’t have to add unique descriptions when you repin someone else’s content. But you certainly can if you want to. This adds extra work so be sure you’re not doing this at the sake of your own descriptions!

What you want in your descriptions:

• A friendly recap of your post
• Some relevant keywords that people would use to search for you
• Two to three hashtags
• A call to action, such as “Click through to see all the tips.”

Tip: If you have a self-hosted WordPress blog, you can amplify your SEO and save a few steps by adding a pin description to the alt text in your featured image, or by using Tasty Pins. When people share the pin from your site, the description will  automatically appear. For more on how to set this up, check out this post.

8) Create pin-worthy titles

You can have the best content with brilliant images, but if your headline falls flat, people will likely miss it. You want your titles to be actionable or inspire some kind of curiosity or urgency. Words like the best, secrets of and ultimate guide to make people want to click through to learn more.

Just remember, there are good titles, bad titles, and so-so titles. You want yours to be pin-worthy!

Some general thoughts here:

• Benefit-rich titles will grab people’s attention right away. Will your post save people time, money, show them how to do something? Include your audience in the title too so that readers know it’s for them (e.g., 25 Ways for Entrepreneurs to Grow your Blog Audience)
• How-to post titles tend to catch people’s attention quickly because they provide a solution to a problem or answer questions your peeps have
• Titles like 5 ways to are powerful because they’re simple and actionable. Plus, they let people know exactly what they can expect.
• Don’t be vague or generic. This is what will kill your post title more than anything else. If people don’t know what your post is about or who it’s for, why would they read it?

9) Make pins that stand out

I can spend hours devouring all the beautiful images on Pinterest! Your images need to grab people’s attention too. Here are some ways to do that:

1) Use images with nondescript people (aka no faces)

Images of people (but not faces) get more clicks than images with just graphics or a background color. Why no faces? Pictures tell a story, and people want to see themselves (not others) in your story.

2) Use whitespace

When I created my first pins, I made the text super big so that it would jump out at people. Turns out, larger text isn’t always better. Leaving some whitespace will actually help your images stand out from all the others.

3) Create contrast between elements

Take a look at your feed real quick. Which pins really stand out to you? If you look closer, you’ll see that the text on those pins is easy to read, and clearly differentiated from the background. Make sure you play with the contrast between your background and headline so that it jumps out.

QUICK TIP: Look at your feed from your phone. That’s where 80% of people will see your content.

4) Use strategic color combinations

I’ve experimented with everything from dark backgrounds, to light backgrounds, to reds, oranges, blacks, and even blues. Overall, lighter background colors seem to jump out more and get more clicks and saves. Reds and oranges catch my eye more than blues and blacks. What do you think?

5) Longer pins are better

Yep, it’s true. I get more clicks on longer pins. They give you more room to play and be creative. For instance, I could create a long pin for the post you’re reading, and include each step to give a peek at what’s inside.

UPDATE: Be careful with longer pins now. Pinterest no longer favors super long pins that hog up the feed. Read this post for more on Pinterest image sizes. 

10) Brand your pins

When you find something that works, don’t change it! It’s okay to play around with the look of your pins at first, but when you find a style that you love and can recreate easily, stick with it. Lock it down in a template with the exact colors, fonts and other brand elements you will use over and over again.

I’ve seen many people (including me) use different fonts and colors on every pin image. Your boards can start to look a bit all over the place if you do this. Aim for consistency and harmony so that people instantly recognize your pins. People who know and trust your brand will tend to click through, regardless of how captivating (or not) your headline is!

Note: Make sure you include your logo and/or website in your pins. Check out this post for more brand and style guide tips.

11) Apply for rich pins

Speaking of branding, before you start loading up your boards with pins, set up rich pins.

Sounds techie, right? Really, they’re easy to set up and will give your pins a major boost. Once you have claimed your website, rich pins will display your brand name below your pin image.

Take a look at one of my pins to see what I mean:

When you use rich pins and add other brand elements to your pin image, you will have a leg up on your competitors. Here’s more info on setting up rich pins.

12) Clean up your boards

Every once in a while, take a look at your boards and get rid of pins with low engagement (aka repins). Pins that don’t get repinned and clicked won’t show up. They just kind of clutter your boards. Repin counts are relative to each board, so if most of your pins on a particular board have 100 repins, delete pins with fewer than 10 or 20. Make sense?

13) Display share buttons only on posts and strategic images

If you use SumoMe image sharer icons, the default setting applies to all images. What that means is that people will be able to share any image from any page on your site, including your logo, background images, header images, and more. But you want control here. If people pin random images from your site, they will likely share images you don’t want shared.

You can easily tweak the setting so that the share buttons display only on your blog posts. PLUS you can control which images display on your posts.

Let’s say you have secondary images to help readers digest your message, but those images aren’t pin-worthy. Just add <rel=”noshare”> to the image you don’t want people to pin and the share buttons will disappear. This way, you will only display share buttons on primary images (featured images, vertical images, etc).

14) Schedule your pins

I use Tailwind to schedule my pins and love it.

The Tailwind dashboard is super user-friendly, and it’s easy to find what you’re looking for. For the most part, you’ll live in the Publish > Drafts or Publish > Scheduled sections on the left. On the right is where the scheduling magic happens! That’s where the virtual calendar lives and where you create time slots. Then schedule away!

You can even create board lists (groups of boards) to save time. I love board lists, especially since I discovered how to loop my pins with them, which you can do too! Pins you share to lists will be distributed to all boards in the list (make sure you set intervals between each pin).

The SmartLoop is another tool you can use to recycle pins. Just decide what boards and pins you want in your loop, and the SmartLoop will take care of repinning them. You can even enter group board rules! I use board lists to share new posts. and the SmartLoop to recycle older posts.