How Pinterest Works for Traffic + Business

If you create digital products like a course or an eBook or you sell your online coaching and you’re not on Pinterest, then you’re missing out on some serious traffic and income – Maybe you’re like Pinterest for Business – I don’t understand how Pinterest works – or you belief Pinterest is just for pretty pictures then please hear me out.

In today’s post, I will show you how Pinterest works for Traffic and Business if you’re a beginner and completely new to Pinterest.

This is exactly how I use Pinterest for my online business, to sell my digital products like my online course or my templates. And it’s how I’ve been able to get my content in front of way over 50 thousand subscribers on multiple social platforms and my email list. And that without the overwhelm, social media usually brings in about a 1h a week. Yup, it’s a super effective and beginner-friendly strategy you can implement today.

P.S. If you have loved what you heard about Pinterest so far, check out my free “Pin-Credible Marketing Quiz”. It literally takes 2 minutes and will help you Crush Your Pinterest Game and Boost Your Clicks. It’s free, it’s super fast, and a ton of fun.

How Pinterest helped me build my Business

Now before I get into let me just quickly share my story of how I discovered Pinterest and what it’s done for my life and Pinterest. Because seriously, it has changed everything. So right out of college, I landed this big job in corporate in one of the biggest Swiss banks, I live in Switzerland – and I know it’s such a cliche – But I was the kind of person who studied business because I was the smart thing to do – you know.

But man, I was living weekend by weekend. Vacation to the next vacation. I remember being on a trip to Italy, and I was overlooking the ocean, and I just started to cry because I knew I had exactly 5 days, 3h, and 30min left until I had to go back to this corporate job. Now during that time I also had a boyfriend – a lawyer – and he was actually about to leave for a year to study abroad and do this LLM thing soon. So yeah, he was gonna move away and leave me with a job that made me miserable. And I was like – what am I doing with my life? Is this it? It was a tough season in my life.

Now, while working in corporate, I also started a blog as a creative outlet. Where I would post random things like recipes or my trip to New York, just a lot of fun, and that was when blogging was still very, very popular. So I was like – okay, maybe I’m just gonna to that on my evenings and weekends now.

Now, very, very luckily, a couple of months before my boyfriend left for LA, he went down on one knee and asked me to marry him and to go with him. So, as you can imagine, I said yes and quit my banking job, and we packed our stuff, and moved across the world together. But basically, this also meant that I didn’t have a job anymore – so I had to really dig deep into how I could grow that blog I still had on the side and start to make money with it.

And that’s the point where I actually discovered the power of Pinterest. So, throughout that year I spent in California, I started to learn how I could leverage Pinterest strategies and apply them to my blog. And you know what can I say? It absolutely exploded my blog and traffic. I went from basically no people seeing my content to having hundreds of people on my site every single day. So at the end of the year in California, I made the decision not to go back to corporate but to continue to give this online business a shot with the backbone of Pinterest traffic, growing my sales and income.

Now, I know that was a bit of a long story, but I just wanted to share that with you so you know that wherever you are on your journey – there is this other side. And if you want to build an online business yourself or want to sell courses or digital products or coaching, then I want to scream it from the rooftops that Pinterest has really been one of the factors that made this happen for me.

So without further ado….

What is Pinterest?

These were the exact same questions I asked myself when I first learned about Pinterest a couple of years back. Up until then, I was using Pinterest to search for recipes to make for dinner or inspiration for my next trip. I was still trying to figure out Google and other traffic strategies and let me tell you, things were moving slowly. I was barely getting a handful of people to my website a day. And just as a reference, now I get thousands of people to my site every day, mostly straight from Pinterest.

Alright, so what is Pinterest?

If you’re like many other people, you’re probably saying it’s social media. And yeah, that’s kind of true. Pinterest does have some social aspects that can help you connect online, but Pinterest is a lot more than that. Pinterest is used by bloggers and businesses; it’s more like a search engine. Pinterest calls it a Visual Discovery Engine. So a place to discover new ideas and learn things through finding visuals- so images.

So yes, it is very visual, like for example, Instagram when you think about the beautiful images. But we have to make a clear distinction when it comes to the intent people have when they come to the platform. Things people search for on Pinterest are like ideas, tips, and advice. Plus, people love to shop on Pinterest.

Alright, so why does it matter for bloggers and businesses that Pinterest is not a classic social media but this “Visual Discovery Engine”? Well, you can use Pinterest strategically to your advantage to grow your traffic to your website and the sales to your business. As people on Pinterest are looking for ideas and answers, this is a great place for your business or blog to help those people out. And helping them is the first step in selling your services or products.

Now on top of that, Pinterest works a bit like Google as people are in this mindset of “search”! You can use this as an advantage and apply SEO strategies so Search Engine Optimizations on Pinterest to make sure your images on Pinterest show up high in the Pinterest search, get found by tons and tons of people, and drive automatic traffic to your website, which will make you more sales.

But I’m getting ahead of myself. Now that you ruffly know what Pinterest is and why it’s important:

How does Pinterest actually work?

Alright, I’m going to give you a very brief high-level overview of how Pinterest works. So everything starts with your Pinterest pin image.

As a business, you can create these pin images and upload them to Pinterest. Every Pin image is like a billboard for promoting your free content, your products, and your business. When you upload one of these pin images, you can add a URL. So each pin can have a different URL, and when people click on the pin images, they are going to this site with this URL.

So yes, you can upload multiple, dozens, even hundreds of these little billboard images to Pinterest which are attracting your people and your clients, and each of those pin images has a unique URL you can lead people to. This is very unique because – your Instagram post doesn’t get a link. Your TikTok doesn’t get a link. Maybe you have a link tree in your bio, but that’s so freaking inefficient. But each pin image on your Pinterest account has a unique URL link people can click on and go to your website.

Step 1. You Create your Graphic
Step 2. You Upload that Graphic to Pinterest
Step 3. Add your URL – post
Now people can find it.

And the key here is at all times, you can have dozens of pins working for you at the same time. So whenever someone searches something on Pinterest and your pin shows up – they click on that – you’re growing traffic for your business. Do you see now that Pinterest isn’t just for pretty pictures – It’s literally a tool you have for your marketing.

Why is growing the clicks (so the traffic) that important?

Well, having an online business is also a numbers game. The more people, you can get in front of your content and your products, the better. The more you will understand who is the right fit and who isn’t. The more traffic you get, the easier it is to grow an email list, and honestly, the more sales and income you can make online.

But maybe you’re like – cool, but like I’m constantly posting stuff on social media, but because of the stupid algorithm, no one is actually seeing my stuff. Can you relate? A couple of likes and then hours of work are down the drain? Well, here’s the good news. I mentioned this before, but Pinterest is just kind of a social media – it’s also a very very powerful search tool. So like, for example, Google.

When you type something into Google, you get a list of results right. We do it 100x a day, right? And the result that’s at the top that’s usually what Google thinks is the best answer for you right? Now Pinterest has a search bar as well. And tons and tons of people use it. But instead of a list of text results, you get a list of pin results.

And these pins aren’t random like you see on your social feed. Just based on what the algorithm thinks you might like. Note these pins that show up when you search are specific to that search. And this means we can get super strategic with our pins. We can apply SEO (search engine strategies) to our pins that allow them to show right at the top of those results. And trust me it’s so much easier to rank at the top on Pinterest than on Google.

Just imagine what this would mean for your business. When someone is looking specifically for a solution to their problem, they type it into Pinterest, and they find your pin shining bright at the top of these results. They click the pin, and boom, they’re in your space. Your website where you have full control. Like just what would it mean to actually create content that doesn’t disappear into the endlessness of the social universe but actually shows up when people need it the most? For me, it has literally changed everything.

So again, let me really break down how Pinterest and traffic work for growing your business:

How Does Pinterest Work for Business:

Step 1: You create a pin.

Remember, this is like your billboard. You want to let people know what they get when they click over. So, address their problem and how you can help and give them the solution.

(videos on how to do that)

Step 2 – You upload your image to Pinterest and add a URL

So you want to make sure you’re leading people directly to the place where their question is answered, like an educational blog post or where they can buy your course product, coaching or a sales page. So whatever you’re advertising on that pin, you want to make sure that the URL leads them to get directly to that place.

You want to do this over and over again. So you can upload many, many pins to Pinterest. It’s just more opportunity for people to find your stuff.

Step 3 -Now you can save them

In my experience, it’s a good way to get people to your site, and before you pitch a product or a service, you want to serve them up with some free value. So that you can build the know-like and trust factor and you’re building yourself up as an expert. People are skeptical nowadays. Like people are fed up with being scammed and tricked into buying stuff they don’t need. So I like to give a tone of free value through blog content, video content, and my email newsletters.

Step 4 – Finally, in step 4, you can think about your pitch.

After you’ve loved them up with your amazing free content that helps them solve their problems. You’ve established that you’re actually an expert in this, and you know what you’re talking about. Only then do I recommend you start pitching your online course, your eBook, and your online coaching.

And just let me tell you this works like magic. Like I’ve built an audience of over 50K people, I’m educating them for free, and this has helped me actually build a sustainable business online. Every day, I get emails from people who just purchased one of my courses or a template or product I recommend. Like to this day, it blows my mind how Pinterest is literally driving and building my business.

And you know I’m so not special. Like I don’t have a huge marketing team behind me. It’s literally just me doing this. So that’s why I know it can work for you, too.

Conclusion

And with that, we’ve come to the end of this post. Let me know if you have any questions. I’m here for you in the comments. I know you can do this. If this is working for me, it can work for you. So make sure to get started today; I’m always here for you.

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