Be Successful on Pinterest in 2021: 29 Amazing Tips
We all want to be more successful on Pinterest in 2021. That’s why I’ve put together 29 tips that will increase your Pinterest following, traffic and overall conversions.
You may also find this Pinterest manual pinning strategy and spreadsheet useful! If you’re a blogger, you may also find these 25 easy ‘request to join’ blogging group boards useful to start promoting your blog posts!
Subscribe below so you don’t miss any future blogging tips and tricks. We’d love to have you as part of the Pastime to Profit community!
Be Successful On Pinterest in 2021: Content
1. Click-worthy Titles on Your Pins
2. Create Multiple Pins for The Same Article
3. Consistently Update & Keep Your Pins Fresh
4. Use Pin Templates for Efficiency
5. Use high resolution, beautiful images (Where To Get Them?)
6. Bold, Colourful & Highlighted Text on Your Pins
7. Brand Your Pins With Name & Logo
8. All Pins in Vertical 2:3 Ratio (1000 by 1500 pixels)
9. Descriptions Full of Keywords
10. Alt Text
11. Avoid Excessive Hashtags (Can Look Spammy)
12. Upgrade to A Business Account
13. Use Your Analytics Effectively
14. Validate Your Site to Use Rich Pins
15. How Often Should You Pin Your Amazing Pins?
16. Boards Optimised For SEO (Keywords In Titles & Descriptions)
17. Consistent Board Theme (Choose A Colour scheme & Cover Photo)
18. Organise Your Boards
19. Group Boards Are Still Useful!
20. Improve Your Bio
21. Make Your Pinterest Name Look More Professional
22. Manual Pinning (As well as Tailwind)
23. Tailwind
24. Tailwind Communities (Tribes – it’s FREE!)
25. Don’t just pin Your Own Content
26. Try Video Pins
27. Include A Call-To-Action (CTA)
28. Make Sure Readers Can Save Your Pins Easily (Add a plugin that adds social share buttons)
29. Consistency & Not Giving Up
1. Click-worthy Titles on Your Pins
(Essential to be successful on Pinterest!)
You may have found this article through Pinterest. One of the key things that may have made you click through is the title. Titles are so important for your pins… if not the most important part of being successful on Pinterest.
You don’t necessarily have to match up perfectly with the title of the blog post (as long as they are not click bait!). They are the first thing Pinterest users see when they are scrolling through the feed… you have a split second for someone to decide whether they’re going to click or not.
So, for this article I’ll make a pin with the actual title: ‘Be Successful on Pinterest in 2021: 29 Amazing Tips.’ But I’ll also make pins with the titles:
• 29 Pinterest Tips to Skyrocket Your Blog Traffic
• 29 Ways to Increase Your Pinterest Monthly Views
I hope you get the idea. Whilst these alternative pins do not hold the actual blog title, they are relevant to the content and it is more likely readers will click on these pins.
This leads nicely onto tip 2.
Be Successful On Pinterest tip 2: Create Multiple Pins For The Same Article
Commonly, bloggers make one Pinterest featured image for their blog post and call it quits. There are so many opportunities here to reach a larger audience and get more traffic! Each time you create another pin for the blog post, you increase your chance to be successful on Pinterest!
You can make as many pins for each blog post as you want. Currently, I make 2-3, however I am aiming to increase this number towards 4-5 very soon.
By adding different pins to the same blog post, you can:
• Continually promote your old blog content with fresh pins
• Increase your chance of a viral pin
• Create a design which may outperform the others in design and title getting more clicks
• Reach a greater audience by sharing different pins with the same URL to different boards
• Be rewarded by Pinterest who GREATLY prefer new pins as opposed to cycling old ones
As you can see, creating multiple pin images for your content is a fantastic way at reaching wider audiences.
3. Consistently Update & Keep Your Pins Fresh
So we’ve discussed adding multiple pins to your blog posts from the start. However, when bloggers do this, they often use the set and forget approach. What do I mean?
They create multiple pins, pin them, add them to their schedules and think: ‘cool… that post has 5 pins I can tick it off my list of things to do’. However, not many bloggers in a month or twos time actually go back to old content and re-fresh their pins. You should set aside a day every couple of months to add brand new pin images and covers to all your content to keep all your blog posts fresh.
Pinterest rewards and prefers fresh images. So, if you started by creating multiple pins and cycling these, it’s a great start. However, these too can get stale. By continually adding new pins to blog posts over time, Pinterest will reward you for adding fresh content.
4. Use Pin Templates For Efficiency
You may be thinking, ‘I don’t have time to be making multiple pins at the start and also continually for each post.’ This is where pin templates are essential.
Create 10 templates on Canva for your pins which use different background images, text and colours. Then, when you create a new blog post, or you’re creating fresh images for old ones, you can go onto your templates and simply change the title to fit your new post/title.
This is a really effective method for creating fresh content very quickly.
5. Use high resolution, beautiful images (Where To Get Them?)
(Vital to be successful on Pinterest!!)
Pinterest is a visual platform. Those who use high quality images massively outperform those who don’t.
Pins that use a mixture of text and high-quality images relevant to the content are more clickable and lead to higher traffic and conversions. But… if I’m creating multiple pins and consistently refreshing them, I don’t have enough images to make that many unique pins? Well… look no further!
I have put together an article detailing the 19 BEST sites to get copyright free images for your blog. These sites are completely free to use and have high resolution images. Simply download an image you want for free, edit it to have a title and whatnot in Canva and, boom, you’ve got high quality images for your pins.
6. Bold, Colourful & Highlighted Text on Your Pins
As mentioned, titles are so important for your pins. Not only is the actual title content important, but also the text font, size and colour.
Titles are the first thing Pinterest users see when they are scrolling through Pinterest. You have a split second for someone to decide whether they’re going to click or not.
by following a number of simple tips, your pins will start to stand out.
1) Draw attention to important words by either:
• Making them bold
• Using different fonts
• Different colours or highlighting them
2) Use a maximum of 2 – 3 different fonts otherwise your pins may start to look messy.
3) Use a maximum of 2 – 3 different colours
7. Brand Your Pins With Your Name & Logo
This helps you be successful on Pinterest, but also generally raising awareness for your brand and blog. It can be super helpful to brand your pins with your website name. Whilst currently I don’t do this for all my pins (I don’t want pastimetoprofit.com on my featured cover images on my website), I do for most of my pins.
It is simple. Somewhere on your pin, you should have the name of your blog. I write pastimetoprofit.com on the bottom of my pins. This raises the general awareness of my blog as even if people don’t click through, they may recognise the name in future. It also stops others from using my pins, and overall, makes your pins look more professional like they are coming from a brand.
You can also add your logo. This is a recommendation from Pinterest Business themselves in this article! Just do not add the logo to the bottom right as they state this spot ‘gets covered up by our product icons.’
8. All Pins in Vertical 2:3 Ratio (1000 by 1500 pixels)
This is a really well known one… but just in case you’re a new blogger, all pins should be vertical. They should be in the ratio 2:3, and Pinterest have stated that they prefer larger images at the size of 1000 by 1500 pixels.
Be Successful On Pinterest Tip 9: Descriptions Full of Keywords
Pinterest is a search engine. Whilst it does feel like a social media account, it’s important to remember this fact. In order to get noticed, we need to also take image SEO seriously.
When you wrote your blog article, you were most likely trying to target some keywords that had high traffic and low competition. Make sure you use these keywords to fill up your pin description! But remember, the description is also for the reader, so MUST have good readability. What does this mean?
You cannot just keyword cram and hope for the best. Neither Pinterest nor the reader likes that! Therefore, for the best results in the Pinterest search engine, you should add your keywords to the description authentically. By writing in a manner that makes the reader feel like a friend, but also filling it with keywords, you are making the reader AND Pinterest happy. Win-win!
10. Alt Text (So Important To Be Successful On Pinterest!)
Make sure you understand what alt text is and add it to all your pins – it is important for image SEO!
In short, the alt text allows Pinterest to understand the content of your images so you are more likely to show up in search. By understanding how to write effective alt text that explains the contents of the image in detail and having keywords, it will maximise traffic.
Alt text is also important for improving accessibility to your content for users that are partially blind, for example. This text can be read out to these users using screen reading tools. Therefore, not only does adding alt text improve image SEO, it increases inclusivity.
For a full guide on alt text, I really advise you to check out this article called: ‘Is Alt Text Important For Image SEO: Complete Beginner Guide.’ It explains what alt text is, the importance of it and also how to use and write it.
11. Avoid Excessive Hashtags (Can Look Spammy)
I’m not saying don’t add hashtags – just don’t go crazy because it really can look spammy! Using 3 – 4, from what I have seen from successful Pinterest users, is the maximum.
For me personally, I find it far more effective to write a great description that is SEO optimised with keywords, rather than adding a load of hashtags. Find what suits you!
12. Upgrade To A Business Account
This is so important in order to be successful on Pinterest in 2021 if you own a blog or website. Use this article written by Pinterest to learn how to create a business account.
By upgrading to a business account, you get access to amazing, in-depth analytics to track your pins and engagement. A business account also lets you claim your account and use rich pins.
Both of these are discussed below!
Be Successful On Pinterest Tip 13: Use Your Analytics
These analytics can show you a breakdown of your audience insights. It can show you their interests, demographics and what device they use, which can have an impact on your Pinterest strategy. Analytics are a key component of analysing whether you are being successful on Pinterest.
If you notice your audience has an interest in a particular topic on your blog, consider writing more articles that are geared towards them. This will increase the likelihood they click and read your article. Also, if you look at where your audience are from, ensure you post at times when they are active.
Analytics will show you which pins are performing well and which ones not so well. If you identify a particular pin with high engagements, push this pin to more boards. If you see a pin with low engagement, why not create a fresh pin for that blog post. Creating a fresh pin to use, instead of current underperforming pins, ensures you consistently update your Pinterest and makes sure all your content is given the chance to be read.
14. Validate Your Site to Use Rich Pins
(One of the most important things to do to be successful on Pinterest!)
These are vital! There are a variety of rich pins, including:
• App rich pins: includes app description and more
• Place rich pins: includes address, map and phone number.
• Recipe rich pins: Includes ingredients, cooking times and serving information
• Product rich pins: Includes where to buy, availability and importantly pricing
• Movie rich pins: Includes reviews, ratings and cast members
• Article rich pins: Includes description, author, headline and link
Unless you are focused on writing recipes or movie reviews for your blog, you will most likely use the article rich pin. To start using rich pins, you must validate your site. This process is relatively straightforward.
Click ‘edit profile’ on your account, click ‘confirm website’ and copy the meta tag given. Once this is done, go over to your WordPress site, download the Yoast SEO plugin, click on the plugin on your sidebar, click ‘social’ and click on the Pinterest tab. Simply paste the meta tag you have copied.
To start using the all-important rich pins, you should then enter your URL into the Pinterest validator. This will guide you from there!
15. How Often Should You Pin Your Amazing Pins?
This article written by Tailwind states that ‘the most successful accounts on Tailwind publish 15 – 25 pins/day on average.’ Everyone is different and so the amount you pin will naturally vary. However, by sticking around the 15 – 25 pins a day mark you can’t go far wrong.
You need to ensure that your pins are fresh as Pinterest prioritizes this content! It is far more important to post fewer new pins rather than posting loads of old pin material.
You should also try and spread your pinning throughout the day. Do not just pin in one clump if you are not using a scheduling tool. Remember, look at your analytics and audience to see when the best times to post are.
16. Boards Optimised for SEO (Keywords in Titles & Descriptions)
Many people run out and just join loads of group boards because they think this will get them in front a large audience quickly. But, creating your own, SEO optimised boards first is so important.
Create individual, specific boards for each of your blog topics. You can then split these down even further. As an example, I write about Etsy. I write about tips and tricks for Etsy growth, but also more specific things such as Etsy SEO under that Etsy umbrella. I have a main umbrella Etsy board for tips and tricks, and then some more specific boards.
Each of my boards are optimised for SEO. This means the title uses keywords for the relevant topic, as well as a detailed description of the board, again, using keywords.
17. Consistent Board Theme (Choose A Colour scheme & Cover Photo)
Now your boards are SEO optimised, don’t stop there. The first 8 boards on your Pinterest profile, depending if you use mobile or not, are most visible to those looking at your profile.
It is important for your branding and to come across as professional by adding cover photos to each of your boards. This is vital because if not, Pinterest will just display the first pin and it’ll look cropped and messy. When choosing cover images, make sure you choose a consistent theme between boards.
This could mean you use a coherent colour palette for your covers, the same font if you choose to use writing in the covers, or even specific cartoon images of what the board represents.
For example, if you have a board for photography, you could make your cover a picture of a simple camera on a coloured background. The next board would have a different cartoon image and the same colour. This is just a quick example; you need to choose something that suits your style and niche. Whilst this isn’t completely essential to be successful on Pinterest, it definitely improves your chance at standing out and being remembered!
Be Successful On Pinterest Tip 18: Organise Your Boards
Whether you’ve just made boards or already had them, using the drag and drop function make sure they are in an appropriate and effective order.
Place your most important boards at the top, as these are the boards Pinterest users see and are most likely to click. It’s also handy to organise your boards by content. For example, for me, I have blogging boards, Etsy boards, social media boards and money boards. I ensure all my blogging boards are next to each other, all my Etsy boards are next to each other, and so on. This means they aren’t all just jumbled around.
If you are part of group boards, which I personally think are still amazing, make sure these are all underneath your own boards. It’s hard to maintain a theme when you can’t select the cover photo or write the title and description.
19. Group Boards (So useful to be successful on Pinterest!)
Talking about group boards, many people think their reign is over. There was a time when group boards were all the rave… now there’s kind of mixed feelings.
Personally, I still feel like they are super useful! If you feel the same, I highly recommend checking out these 25 easy ‘request to join’ group boards for bloggers. I put together this list as I found contacting the board owners quite tedious. So, all these have the simple ‘request to join’ function and are super easy to start promoting your blog content!
20. Improve Your Bio
Make sure you write a compelling bio. Again, whilst this isn’t absolutely essential and going to make or break your account, it can help you to be successful on Pinterest.
Write about what your blog offers readers, instead of simply stating what you write about. For example, I wouldn’t write this: ‘I write about blogging and how to start a blog. I also write about social media tips that could help you.’ It’s a little boring, and also the word ‘could’ doesn’t fill the reader with confidence.
Instead, I would write ‘Learn how to start a blog today. Use my social media and digital marketing tips that have helped hundreds so you can improve your business too. Click this link now to start:’
The second bio is written more actively. This means by using words like ‘today’ and ‘use my’ it makes people far more likely to click your link. By adding ‘that have helped hundreds’ it adds a layer of social proof. Finally, I added a call to action with ‘click this link now…’
Ensure you also add keywords throughout… just make sure you add them authentically. You also need to make sure you write it for a reader, and not just cramming the keywords for the Pinterest algorithm.
21. Make Your Pinterest Name Look More Professional
Many Pinterest users write their Pinterest name as either their own name or their website name. You can add to this to improve your profile SEO. Here is an example of adding keywords to your name:
‘Pastime To Profit | Blogging Tips | Pinterest Marketing | Etsy Advice’
See how I’ve added keywords spaced with this symbol: |. This makes your account look far more professional and it also helps Pinterest to quickly understand what your content is about. This helps SEO.
22. Manual Pinning (As well as Tailwind)
Manual pinning is still important! Yes, there are now amazing scheduling tools like Tailwind (discussed below). But, what many people forget is that manual pinning is greatly rewarded by Pinterest.
I highly advise you to check out this Pinterest Manual Pinning Strategy article I wrote recently. It highlights the 4 reasons why manual pinning is still vital. In short, it’s because:
• Pinterest rewards you for being active on the platform
• Manual pinning saves you money (vital for newbies!)
• It can actually save you time (Explained in the article!)
• Scheduled pinning encourages a lazy ‘set & forget’ approach which could harm long-term
The article also gives pointers on how to have an effective manual pinning strategy. It also has a downloadable, simple spreadsheet to keep track of your pinning.
Does this mean never use a scheduling tool? No. It’s just here to show you the importance of also manually pinning and that if you do not have the money, manual pinning CAN be just as effective.
23. Tailwind
(So USEFUL to be successful on Pinterest!)
It’s impossible to come across a Pinterest article without having Tailwind in it. Simply put, if you do not have time to manually pin, or if you’re not organised, Tailwind is a game-changer.
Tailwind allows you to schedule your pins for various boards and various times… WEEKS in advance. It allows you to just spend a couple of hours on one day to schedule and you’re sorted for the entire month! The features of Tailwind are amazing:
• Use the SMART scheduler so Tailwind can pin your content at the MOST optimised time
• Schedule months in advance
• Use board insights (analytics) to see data on your pin performance so you can adapt
• Tailwind offers a browser extension so you can schedule pins quickly and from anywhere
These are a small handful of the powerful tools Tailwind has to offer. Tailwind offers a completely FREE trial to you can try it out without losing anything. Click here to try out Tailwind now, I’m sure you won’t be disappointed!
24. Tailwind Communities (Tribes – it’s FREE!)
As briefly mentioned above, Tailwind also offers a feature called Tailwind communities (originally called Tailwind Tribes).
You can create a free Tailwind account and get access to Tailwind communities for free. Join up to 5 different communities in your niche on this free version. So, what are the benefits of these tribes?
Each tribe allows you to add some of your own pins, which are then re-pinned by others in the community. The beauty of these communities is that they keep track of how many of your own pins you add and how many times you re-pin other people’s pins. Depending on the board rules, many encourage a 1:1 ratio so for each time you get a re-pin on your content/add a pin of your own, you need to re-pin another person’s content.
This ensures everyone in each community is sharing their own content, and other peoples, to start generating traffic for one another.
Be Successful On Pinterest Tip 25: Don’t just pin Your Own Content
This one is simple enough. If you only ever post your own content, this could be viewed as spam by Pinterest. It also doesn’t create a great community as it’s nice to get a variety of quality content on your boards that also compliment your own. This gives your audience a greater wealth of quality resources to use which encourages them to come back.
When you pin other people’s content, ensure you have clicked through, actually read the post and know it’s not a dead-end pin e.g., the link doesn’t actually work. You want to ensure that the content you are re-pinning is actually high-quality. Pinterest can look at what you re-pin from others to see the quality of content across your account as a whole.
Additionally, re-pinning other people’s work makes it far more likely that they would reciprocate and pin some of your content. They also may even check out your profile and blog!
Personally, I do this in an 80:20 ratio. I post 80% of my own content and 20% of other people’s content. However, you decide which ratio suits you. You won’t find a concrete answer anywhere I’ve looked… trust me. Most of it is opinions and the ratio varies greatly!
26. Try Video Pins
Pinterest state that ‘video pins are a great way to tell a more comprehensive story about your brand, idea or project.’ People also respond much better to videos; they have higher click-through rates and also conversions.
This article written by Pinterest shows the requirements of video pins and the size specifications needed. Additionally, if you scroll down on this article, Pinterest have put together some helpful tips to make great video pins.
Why not try briefly outlining your blog post in video format and see how you get on? It could help your pin go viral much easier as users are more likely to re-pin! Who knows, maybe video pins are your calling and help you to be more successful on Pinterest!
27. Include A Call-To-Action (CTA)
Call-to-actions were mentioned briefly when writing your bio description. However, they can also be added to your pins!
Create a stunning pin as usual, with an attractive heading, your logo and whatnot, then perhaps add the call to action. What do I mean?
At the bottom of your pin, you could add some text saying: ‘Click here to learn more.’ The human mind works in mysterious ways. Having a sentence like that on your pin really does increase your click-through rate.
For example, it is highly likely that if two pins are identical (except one having a call to action), you will have different click-through rates. It will result in more traffic from the pin giving the reader a command or next steps to take.
28. Make Sure Readers Can Save Your Pins Easily
(Add a plugin that adds social share buttons - so important to be successful on Pinterest)
The number of blogs I’ve been on over the years that don’t have easily pinnable content…
Make sure the images you want to be pinned are 1000 by 1500 pixels. Also, make sure you have a social media plugin that allows readers to easily pin your content. Look at this blog post. At the top of the article and bottom of the article, there are clear share buttons for readers to share the post. (While on that subject, why not pin this to Pinterest. Too much… I’m sorry!)
Alongside those share buttons at the top and bottom, I have share buttons which are on the left side of the screen on certain pages that follow you as you scroll down.
These just serve as constant reminders to your readers that you can save and share the blog post. As they are clear, it also means that if people want to share your content, they can do so easily.
Final Be Successful On Pinterest Tip: Consistency & Not Giving Up
(The MOST important tip to be successful on Pinterest!)
Consistency is key if you want to be successful on Pinterest in 2021. You must be committed, follow a schedule and never give up hope. Pinterest rewards consistency, and if you continually post your content, as well as others, that big break will eventually come!
Whether you use a Pinterest manual pinning strategy or automate your process through Tailwind, you must keep on top of things. Don’t think after a week or two you haven’t seen any traffic and think your strategy isn’t working. You may forget to post one day… and that leads into two and so on.
You really can do this! Stay committed!
Be Successful on Pinterest in 2021: Final Thoughts
I really hope you found these tips helpful! Whilst some of them may not have been new, I hope you can go away and implement at least 1 or 2 things.
Wishing you all the very best on your blogging and Pinterest journey! I’m sure if you put your mind to it and want to be successful on Pinterest, you WILL get there! To help you get into more blogging group boards to pin your content, check out these 25 ‘request to join’ blogging group boards.
If you feel this article was helpful in any way, I would be grateful if you pinned it to Pinterest. Remember to subscribe below for useful blogging tips and tricks in future! I hate spam as much as you probably do, so I promise it is a maximum of 1 email a month.