How To Increase Your Blog Traffic With Pinterest & Tailwind
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How I used the Tailwind app for Pinterest to grow my blog traffic
I just returned from a mastermind retreat hosted by Carnival Cruise Line. I got to experience the western Caribbean by way of a magnificent cruise ship, all while participating in a bloggers business mastermind retreat!
There was a group of nine of us invited, including a publisher support specialist from Mediavine, a digital ad company that I was so excited to learn more about!
Mediavine monetizes websites and blogs with ads that readers view on a website’s pages.
There is a minimum of 25k US monthly views for your blog to qualify for Mediavine. (In June 2020, after this post was published, Mediavine increased their minimum acceptance to 50k monthly sessions).
After connecting with a Mediavine brand rep, turned a friend on our cruise, I was determined to make her proud and get onboard as soon as possible— (‘onboard’- pun intended)!
After a week of a lot of research, coupled with some invaluable advice I learned from my two blogger friends on the cruise, here are the steps I took to grow from 3k to 25k blog views, primarily focusing on Pinterest and the Tailwind app to see this through.
7 easy fixes I learned from Mediavine during our retreat
We each sat down with Mediavine, one-on-one, to have a look over our blogs and get actionable tips to make them better!
Here’s what I learned:
1. Blog paragraph font should be 18 for easy reading and mobile viewing.
2. White space is your friend! Space out pictures and headings.
3. Paragraphs should be ideally no more than 1-3 lines for the ultimate ease in digital reading. Never mind what your English teacher said!
4. Blog pictures are the best vertical instead of a horizontal view.
5. The longer the content or blog post, the better!
6. Sidebars should have only 1-3 widgets— I compromised on four!
7. I downloaded Mediavine’s new Grow plug-in for WordPress (formerly Social Pug). This app adds a floating sidebar to encourage readers to share your blog content! You can download the Grow plug-in HERE.
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I subscribed to Tailwind when I returned home
I started with the week trial period and then upgraded to Tailwind Plus to help give my blog traffic a boost, by way of strategic, unlimited Pinterest pinning.
Tailwind automatically schedules your Pinterest pins for you at the times when your users are most active! Here’s the price structure:
Try Tailwind with my referral link HERE.
– Tailwind Basic plan: FREE with up to 100 pins a month
– Tailwind Pro monthly plan: $15 monthly with up to 400 pins a month
– Tailwind Pro annual plan: $119 annually with unlimited pinning
SheIn dress | Who What Wear sandals | Gucci belt | Free People earrings | Free People glasses | Similar Etsy ring | Laptop cover |
I found that I was using Pinterest all wrong!
Tailwind has various videos to help you get acclimated right away!
While I am successful at achieving 65k monthly views on the platform, I was not taking full advantage of Pinterest’s attributes to lead viewers to my blog.
Click to follow me on Pinterest!
Here’s exactly what I fixed on Pinterest:
1. I renamed my Pinterest boards to make them click-worthy. For example, my board “Vow” full of wedding inspiration is now less ambiguous, and renamed “Wedding Inspiration.” Genius in the fact that I’m no longer over-thinking it!
2. I added a description to my boards and placed them in a Pinterest category. This is how you talk to Pinterest, so it knows how to categorize and share your boards.
3. I used Canva to add a text overlay to highlight my new click-worthy board titles and make them stand out to potential new board followers.
4. I added a title and description to every pin, making sure that the title solves a problem for the pinner. For example, “comfortable shoes for your next cruise” instead of “cruise shoes.”
5. IMPORTANT: I concentrated on re-pinning my most popular blog content since I wasn’t employing the strategies above in years past.
PLUS— YOU WANT TO LEAD VIEWERS BACK TO YOUR BLOG, SO YOUR *OWN* CONTENT IS KEY!
Tailwind makes this easy with their Smart Loops and scheduled pinning. Pins from your site automatically grab your URL, too!
6. ALSO IMPORTANT: I joined Pinterest groups to get my pins (the ones that link back to my site) re-shared by multiple active Pinterest users. Tailwind calls these groups Tribes.
Make sure you’re adhering to group rules when joining Tribes.
7. I committed to 50 pins scheduled each night for Tailwind to strategically post for me each new day when my users are active.
8. I paid attention to Pinterest trending topics and pinned accordingly.
9. I included at least four relevant hashtags on each pin for more search optimization.
10. I made sure each blog post that I was pinning from had a call to action in it (i.e., subscribe— at the bottom of this post!) 😉
11. I also committed to pinning select Instagram Story videos. For example, now is an excellent time since I’ll be sharing holiday-inspired, short videos that will be great to repurpose on Pinterest— linked back to my blog, of course!
That’s a lot of steps!
All of these steps may sound like a rigorous schedule, but worth it, for increasing blog traffic and growth! I’ve put so much time into my blog for three years now, and I figure 30-60 days of restructuring is definitely worth the monetization from a Mediavine acceptance!
Above all, my blog is the platform I own, and I should always invest my time driving traffic to it.
Plus, Tailwind’s automation makes it so much easier to get this system all into place.
Happy pinning, and I’ll keep you posted on my progress.
Stay tuned for updates to this post and come back again!
Updates: Already, since I published this post (24 hours ago), I have a new update to add!
– I made sure all posts from my blog to Pinterest are Rich Pins.
Rich Pins are free to anyone on Pinterest. They include extra information from your blog post meta description above and below the pinned picture, and the article title is usually bold. Rich Pins make your Pinterest posts look more official and clickable!
You can enable Rich Pins on Pinterest HERE.
Like these tips? Get more!
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Thanks for these helpful tips. I love Pinterest and am always searching for new ideas. I use Canva everyday and like the idea of changing the names of my boards to make them more appealing.
You’re welcome! Yes, your boards should have titles that people search for.