This week I’ve been promoting a clever tool for getting visitors to any website.
It’s called Traffic Trapper and you can watch a review video here.
Since the “traffic traps” are actually set on Pinterest, I thought I should publish a primer on using Pinterest for business.
So here goes. (This is excerpted from Pinterest Power, a great ebook I have Master Resale Rights to. If you’d like to download the entire ebook, here is a download link where you can get it for free on me.)
OK, on with the Pinterest Traffic Primer…
Introduction to Pinterest
So, you’ve heard about Pinterest and you’d like to find a way to make it work for your business. This is one of the most popular social media websites ever created, and that is saying something because there have been dozens of astronomically successful social media websites in the past decade or two.
In fact, Pinterest is such a force to be reckoned with that they have now earned the number three spot in social media website rankings. That means there are Facebook, Twitter and then Pinterest. Any business person that wants to increase their revenue and online presence should be on Pinterest.
What is Pinterest? How does it Work?
Pinterest is a social bookmarking site. Basically, it is a place where people hang out, and when they find something cool, they show it to all of their friends.
While the social bookmarking site was not a new concept by any means when Pinterest launched, they were one of the first to include a visual component as the basis for a social media website.
When you post something on Pinterest, it has to have an image as the basis of the post. You post – or “pin” your photos on a virtual pinboard, and 6 can “repin” other people’s images from their own feeds.
Pinterest is different than the traditional social media sharing site because people can create their own boards that people can browse so that someone who only wants to look at the photos in a single category doesn’t have to sift through every picture that the user has ever posted, such as the case with both Facebook and Twitter.
You sign up for Pinterest the same way you do other websites – with an email address and password, or you can use your Google or Facebook account to log in. Pinterest is already integrated with all of the major social media sites.
Why Has Pinterest Become so Popular?
Pinterest has grown to be the number three social media site on the internet, which is impressive considering that they were competing against giants like Google Plus, Stumbleupon and Digg. They obviously do something different than the sites mentioned, which is part of the reason visitors have flocked to set up boards and pin their favorite pics.
Today’s world runs on visual stimuli and that’s exactly what Pinterest provides to their users. Here are a few other reasons that the site has grown to epic proportions.
Reason #1: The way the site is set up
The designers behind Pinterest knew what they were doing when they created the way that content is organized and accessed. On other social media sites, particularly Facebook and Twitter, it is not only difficult for you to bookmark content you want to check out at a later date, it is also almost impossible to find an image that you’re looking for from a specific user.
Particularly with Twitter, you pretty much have no choice but to go backwards through every image the person has ever posted including their videos if you want to see a particular image and as far as finding content that you posted, if you tweet a lot what you are looking for is probably going to get lost in the shuffle, never to be seen again.
The files on Pinterest are a lot more organized and conducive to a search for a particular one. All the files within the pin board are organized and you can easily see which image links to which website. So, if you want to save content for later to read you can put it on its own pin board and then browse it at your leisure.
This is something unique that Pinterest has and other sites don’t.
Reason #2: You don’t need a lot of followers
Another reason that the Pinterest site is so successful is that even people that only have a few followers will still have plenty to do. With Facebook, people can see the content that you post on your timeline but only those who’ve liked your page or people that are following you. Same goes for Twitter. The only people that can see your updates are your own followers.
With Pinterest, things are a little different. When you share you’re sharing with the entire community. You will often find people you don’t know commenting on your pins after seeing them in their ‘Everything’ updates.
If you share something really cool, Pinterest might move your pin to the featured or popular section of Pinterest, or you’ll get even more visitors; that means that even if you only have a few followers, if you post something great it can still go viral.
Reason #3: You don’t have to get the kitchen sink when you follow someone With Facebook and Twitter. If you decide to follow someone, you will get all of their public updates, whether or not they apply to you. That’s just the nature of social media.
But what if you could choose only the tweets that you want to see from that person? That’s essentially what Pinterest does. Since the content is posted to different boards within someone’s account, you can choose the board that you want updates on.
If you’re not interested in something, you don’t have to subscribe to it. Of course, you still have the option to follow every board by that person as well.
How You Can Use Pinterest for your Business
Pinterest is a great tool. We’re going to explore how you can use this social media site to promote your business in the remaining chapters, but basically, you post content on your site, share it on Pinterest, and try to get traffic from there to your own website.
So, if you post great pictures, Pinterest can be a huge source of traffic for your business, some of whom may turn into one-time or long-term customers. What Kind of People Use Pinterest?
According to statistical analysis and research that has been done on the demographics of Pinterest, the audience members that use the social media site are the perfect people to advertise to. Many of them are highincome families, business owners and people looking for inspiration on what to buy.
The Pinterest audience is ready-made to funnel to your website and send to your checkout, but you need to make sure that you are respecting your audience and doing everything you can to contribute, rather than just be posting to try to sell something.
People use social media sites to be sociable, and businesses that understand this, and make sure 10 their business is connecting with followers, are the ones that are most successful.
The Perfect Sites for Pinterest Traffic
So, you are wondering whether or not your business is right for Pinterest or not.
Does the type of business you are in attract visitors from Pinterest?
The answer to this question may not be the most important factor to consider. What might be a better question is whether or not the type of business that you’re in can attract any visitors from Pinterest, and whether it will be worth the time spent to woo them.
While any type of business can make Pinterest successful, there are a few industries that just work better for the type of medium Pinterest is. Even if you don’t work in this specific niche, you might be able to change your marketing strategy to take advantage of the additional traffic that these areas of commerce get. Here are industries that seem tailor-made for Pinterest.
Travel
Travel is on everyone’s mind and while people are usually just dreaming when they look at travel pictures on Pinterest, if someone is planning a vacation and they find the perfect solution to a problem with your products or services, they might actually buy. If you are in the business of travel, know that while most of the time people aren’t seriously looking to book a 12 flight and hotel, but when you encounter the occasional one who does, it makes it all worth it.
Home Decorating
This is a great niche because it lends itself to such a huge variety of different products and services associated with it. There are dozens of industries and thousands of products that you could promote via Pinterest in the home decorating category. Many of the people that are browsing the site are looking for remodel ideas and if you can show them something that they can see in their own home, you might just have a customer.
Arts & Crafts
Another area that has a huge potential for profit is arts and crafts. Pinterest is one of the most active sites on the Internet because of crafts specifically. People are always looking to make something, on every holiday, for every occasion. If you are in the business of selling products that can be used for arts and crafts, Pinterest is a great choice for you. Some of the crafts that are out there that people are looking for ideas on include: art, sewing, making clothes, etc.
Food & Drink
If your business serves any sort of food or drink, Pinterest is the perfect marketing tool for you, particularly if you can target your pens to a specific area by using tags and keywords. Consider this: people browsing Pinterest and finding food items that they want to try will probably come into your place of business in order to; perhaps not that day but sometime in the near future. A pin of the decadent food item could do more to attract customers than many other kinds of advertising.
Diet & Fitness
Everyone knows that diet and fitness are big ticket items when it comes to e-commerce niches and Pinterest is no exception. If you are in the diet or exercise business, Pinterest is going to be a mecca for you.
Pinterest is full of diets, weight loss plans, recipes, exercise routines and much more. If you want to sell products and services to this audience, you should spend your time connecting with the people who see your pins and motivating those who are doing the exercise and diet plans. Show them items that can help them reach their weight loss goals and they will buy.
Books & Movies
Some of the most popular items on the Pinterest site are books and movies – with a special focus on books. People love buying books. They are only a few dollars and they are packed with great information about a variety of subjects. Promoting books is a great way to get Pinterest followers to come from the social media site to yours, as long as you actually know about the items that you are promoting and are not just making pins indiscriminately.
Fashion
Fashion is another great niche on Pinterest. People are always posting pictures of their favorite fashions and tons of traffic flock to those pins. If you can figure out how to speak to those people that are looking for fashions, you can probably get traffic that way. Of course, you need to know what you are doing in this niche, because people will be able to tell if you aren’t familiar with fashions.
Beauty & Skin Care
Beauty and skin care is a great topic to get into because there are so many different products out there and so many different things to say. All of the products on the market today for beauty can be pinned but the three largest ones are hair, eyes and nails.
Weddings & Events
Of course, you can promote just about anything in this category. Weddings require so many different products and lend themselves to a perfect Pinterest topic and one that is extremely conducive to the visual medium of Pinterst.
Gardening
Finally, you should look at gardening, a hobby that is becoming more and more popular. People are always looking for great gardening advice or suggestions and won’t resent it if you show them pictures of products that make gardening easier.
How to Drive Huge Traffic from Pinterest to your Site
In the last section, we discussed which businesses were tailor-made for Pinterest. But you don’t have to have a business in one of those categories to be successful on Pinterest.
Any business can get traffic from Pinterest by learning a few techniques. With some hard work and a little luck, you’ll be able to drive massive amounts of traffic from the social media gathering place to the place of commerce.
Here are some techniques to drive more traffic from your pins to your website.
Make links that lead to quality content. Pinterest doesn’t like spam, or anything that reeks of it, so if your links lead back to a low-quality page, with non-relevant images or text, they are going to demote your pins fast. Make sure that the link contains the picture you used for the pin.
Make sure that you are writing descriptions for search, and restrict the use of hashtags to special promotions or a hashtag you always use for your business. Make the descriptions compelling, concise and make sure they contain the words that people are going to be searching for. Pay attention to the trends and to the descriptions that you see and you’ll soon get a second sense for what kind of keywords you should include.
Become engaged. Try to create a regular following and make sure that you interact with them by visiting their pages and looking at their Pinterest feeds. You can even tap into your regular customer base by putting the Pinterest logo on your site and allowing people to follow it to your profile. These people will become the basis for your following.
Make sure that you post regularly, but not so often that people get sick of seeing your updates. This is a fine line to walk and requires that you know your audience and your niche topic. A good rule of thumb to follow is to post daily, two or three times max.
Make sure your board name is something engaging and make your descriptions something that not only contain searchable keywords but are also descriptions that people can use to identify exactly what a particular board is for.
If you create a name for your profile that includes the name of your business (as well as your username if possible) you will get better search rankings, especially after you confirm your website. You’ll also want to write a great description of your business.
Use the Rich Pins tool if you want to draw in more traffic. When you use rich pins you are able to add more text, which adds on keywords and helps them rank better.
Lastly, make sure that you know what you are doing on Pinterest and what your niche actually is. If you want to appeal to the crowd, know what pinners are searching for and then carve yourself a niche somewhere in the middle of that. Up to a certain point, the more specific you can be about your products or services, the more likely it is that you will be at the top of search.
Pinterest is the Site You Need for Promotion
When it comes to things like blog posts, Pinterest is fast becoming one of the best ways that you can drive traffic from the site to your own website or blog. If you are going to do a blog specifically, and most businesses should, then make sure that you have a board that is dedicated to your blogs so that your followers can easily find the post that they want while on Pinterest.
Make Sure You Decorate
Another factor that will determine how much traffic you are able to attract is the number and the topic of the boards that you have on your profile. If you don’t have multiple boards there you are going to be thought of as boring and not worth following.
Of course, if you have too many then followers are going to get confused and not browse your profile. You want to create boards around your business niche as much as possible. If you have a half a dozen or so boards that are all serving the same basic idea, and gives a great overview of what your business is, this is the best way to set up a business profile.
Continually Engage With Followers & Others
When you take the time to answer a question or respond to a comment, it matters. People remember things like that and they will remember your company later if you personally engage them. You may not have a lot of time available, but spend what time you do have actually making real connections with real people.
Those are the solid relationships that are going to come back to visit again, and are going to share your content with their own friends and followers. Remember, people are the biggest asset that you have on Pinterest and it is people that you want to create your boards and pins for.
Always Cross-Promote
You never know when one particular medium will engage someone so make sure that you cross-promote. If you have a blog, then make pins so that people can find your posts. If you make video content then let people that find you on Pinterest know about that as well. You want to funnel your visitors from your Pinterst profile to your internet real estate.
However, the opposite is true as well. Whenever someone finds you online, whether it is through your blog or your regular website, make sure that they can get over to your Pinterest profile and follow you so that you have the opportunity to make them into customers at a later date.
Slowly but Surely, Traffic will Increase If you can follow these suggestions you’ll give yourself the best chance of getting traffic, but don’t be concerned if traffic grows slowly. It takes time to grow your traffic using social media, but when you do get traffic, you’ll be getting quality traffic that is much more apt to buy your products or services, so it is completely worth it to build slowly.
If you want to speed your progress with Pinterest and automate as much as possible, consider using a tool such as this.
hey jim, link to ebook doesn’t work.Just bringing me to a gif. Thanks for looking into it
Hi James, try this link…
https://bizweb2000.com/PinterestPower.pdf
thanks Jim , much appreciated bud