Pinterest Hacks for Non “Pinterest-Worthy” Bloggers

(I don’t normally write about blogging tips, so forgive me for venturing out of my niche for this post.)

In my efforts towards blog monetization, my top priority (per my favorite coach’s advice) has been increasing my page views. Thus, I’ve been working HARD at Pinterest, which supposedly can be a blogger’s best friend when it comes to traffic. Up til now, I hadn’t been completely convinced.

You see, I am a storyteller. I write from a very messy place and most of what I see on Pinterest is more “put together.” Pinterest is the place for how-to’s and listicles, not 152 ramblings of my troubled soul, as this place is for me. 

But, I’ve made some huge headway in the Pinterest department and made some major breakthroughs that I thought I would share.

In the month of February, I hit 41,900 page views (WordPress stats). In the last 30 days, over 13,000 hits have come directly from Pinterest. So, I’m thrilled to be making some serious Pinterest headway!

1. Vertical images

Pinterest used to optimize viewing of both portrait and landscape orientation images the same. But some time in the last two years that changed. (I’m not sure when, because I was ignoring Pinterest.)

Now, images that are vertical / portrait orientation receive more page space and therefore are more eye-catching. Horizontal images simply will not succeed as well. Which means I am re-doing hundreds of images on my site. (Ugh…thank you very much, Pinterest.) Yes, it takes time, but if it brings in more traffic, it’s worth it.

2. Branding: pick your fonts and filters and stick with them

Making all of your images look the same might seem boring, but it’s incredibly helpful. It gives you consistency as a blogger – consistency to your readers. I’ve made some very subtle changes already to my site design to use the same filters and fonts throughout. (I even re-did my header! Did you notice?)

Now I’m using the same fonts and filters on all of the Pinterest images I’m creating and re-doing. This saves a TON of time. I can’t tell you how many hours of my life I have wasted on PicMonkey and Canva simply trying to decide between this font and that one. Now I can pull together an image in just a few minutes, and it takes NO thinking.

You can see what that looks like over on the sidebar, screenshot below:

For some more FABULOUS advice on this topic, check out these posts from A Problem Like Maria:

Branding Basics For Your Blog

Font Pairing Tips

3. Give your Pinterest image a different title.

Y’all, I have NO IDEA why this genius idea didn’t come to me sooner. But seriously, this is the BIGGEST thing that’s helping my Pinterest engagement.

As I mentioned above, I’m a story-teller who thought her content simply wasn’t that “Pinterest-worthy.” My titles are wordy with lots of brackets and parentheses. But when I started asking myself the following questions about my posts and putting slightly different titles on my Pinterest graphics, my Pinterest engagement took off!

What problem does this post solve? Can I word it as a how-to?

• Candlelight Dinner…Why Not? became Celebrating Your Anniversary When Your Spouse is Deployed
• “I think there’s something wrong with my child” ~ Steps to take toward a behavioral diagnosis became simply How to Get a Behavioral Diagnosis for Your Child

Can I sensationalize this title?

I’m not a huge fan of clickbait, but Pinterest is one place it is apropos.

• So how was your RnR? became The Honest Truth About Mid-Tour RnR
• 152 insights into my baby’s soul: cultivating love with one question a day became 365 Question to Ask Your Child
• So what? {One question that will end “mommy wars” before they begin} became One Question That Ends All “Mommy Wars”

Can I make this title more succinct?

This one has helped me add a ton of posts to Pinterest that have NEVER been available on that platform. The less words on a title means the bigger you can make them, and the more eye-catching your graphic will be.

• pink ribbons, camouflage, and one happy baby boy! became Our RnR Homecoming
• All about preschool tot packs (and the good and the bad of using them) became Tips for Using Preschool “Tot Packs”
• love songs to help you through a rough spot in your marriage became Love Songs for Trouble Marriages
• The Rest of Our Lives: Musings on Reintegration After Deployment became Facing the Challenges of Reintegration

4. Stock images aren’t all evil.

I’ve never used stock images on principal that I wanted my site to be my site with my own photography. But when I got turned down for a Pinterest scheduler platform because my images weren’t high quality enough, I reconsidered.

I asked myself what the goal is. If content is sitting on my site and not being read when it COULD be, would using a stock image for a few posts really do that much harm? 

Canva has stock images for $1 or 11 images for $10. So I paid for a set of 10 and still have only used about half of them. You can also find a great list of stock images here: 21 Free Stock Photo Resources.

You can see some of the stock images I’ve used in the pins listed below:

Love Songs for Troubled Marriages

Imprints on My Heart: My Early Miscarriage

One Question That Ends All “Mommy Wars”

In Defense of the Mundane Date Night

Fighting Discouragement in Pregnancy

Relaxation Apps for Pregnancy

5. Find Group / Collaborative Boards

Utilize pingroupie.com to find group boards in your niche and ask to be invited to pin to them. There are also Facebook groups that let you interact with other bloggers who have group boards and are looking for collaborators.

6. Evaluate ALL of your posts for Pinterest potential.

When I started this back in January, I made a master list of all of my blog posts that I thought could do even remotely well on Pinterest. There were hundreds.

Bloggers are supposed to curate a lot of content to keep their page views up. I’ve been doing that for the last 8 years, and now I have SO much content to work with that is, unfortunately, just sitting in my archives collecting dust. Making new graphic for them and putting them on Pinterest has been the best way to dust them off and give them new life.

For example, my post from the DARK AGES of 2011, Reasons I Enjoy Deployment has been viewed 188 times in the last quarter. It only had 21 views in 2015.

I hope you have found this post helpful. If you are a storytelling blogger, remember, your words DO matter! With a few tweaks here and there, your content can be “Pinterest Worthy” too.