Running a blog today is a lot more challenging than it once was. In the past, it was relatively easy to draw traffic as fewer people realized the (relative) ease of running a blog. While competition isn’t exactly something people like, it does show you how easy it is to actually be a success if you are willing to work to be seen. One of the most useful ways to increase traffic with your lifestyle blog isn’t simply ‘be amazing’ – what kind of advice is that?
Instead, you want to be utilizing the power of social media. For a lifestyle blog, you specifically want to learn how to use Pinterest to drive traffic to your blog. Pinterest is a vastly powerful social media platform that attracts people from all manner of backgrounds. Therefore, it’s varied enough that your lifestyle blog can do more than enough to increase traffic.
That being said, knowing how to go about Pinterest marketing is a bit of a challenge. In a bid to help you do that and make a bit of extra potential for your blog’s visibility, we’ve got some excellent tips you can use to do just that.
Running a blog is a challenge – it takes a hell of a lot of work to make it right. However, to increase traffic you can use some pretty logical, almost universal solutions to help draw traffic. For a lifestyle blog, the kind of content you’ll be using to build the authority that you’ll be looking to gain works hand-in-hand with Pinterest itself.
So, let’s investigate some of the best ways that you can use Pinterest to drive traffic to your lifestyle blog and increase traffic for the long-term.
Creating a blog board
So, the first suggestion we have for you to start with on your Pinterest marketing plan is to start off by building a blog board. As one of the many useful parts of Pinterest, you can use this feature to help have a board just for your blog articles. This stops everything being a cluttered mess and getting lost together.
When you start pinning to this particular board, then, you should always add a caption to it so that is easily found by other people. Try and use some smart working in the caption to try and tag it in with other topics of the same kind so that people searching Pinterest might easily find a quote from one of the blog posts.
That can be a very powerful solution, so make sure that you utilize that for extra visibility. Now, you also should look to add a little quote to the image from the blog – a sentence you feel is a particularly pertinent part of the message within the post.
Most importantly, make sure that you always make a link directly to your actual blog post. While people can then find it on Pinterest, it gives them a chance to go and read more of your content on your blog itself.
Then, make sure that you create pin-able pins; make them easy to read. Make them nice and simple for Pinterest to display in an easy manner. For example, they should be long in length, vertically placed and designed to be visually appealing. For example, if you are writing about something to do with living in Belgrade, you would want to use a particular photo that symbolizes the city to catch people’s attention alongside the quote from the post.
If you have a blog post in list form, too, you should look to make some pins of the lists. Maybe break down some of all of the list into a smart image, and then link to the blog post with fuller explanations of why they made the list on the post itself. It’s all good, simple and easily managed marketing that has the chance to go viral and help your blog out.
As ever, though, be sure to post as consistently as possible.
Utilizing lifestyle boards
Another good way to make your lifestyle blog shine for all the reasons is to turn to the very useful and effective lifestyle board feature. This is a very good part of the Pinterest platform and one we recommend you try out as best you can. It should always post which are relevant to your actual audience and the blog itself. Don’t just throw a funny meme in because you see it floating around and getting hits somewhere; make sure it fits the narrative of your blog and isn’t just a gimmicky post.
That being said, you should use your lifestyle board to try and make sure that people can see your variety of opinion and suggestion, too. Re-pin posts at good times when they make logical sense within current events and situations in the world (be logical) and also never be afraid to pin someone else’ post. Don’t reproduce it yourself, pin their post instead so that it’s part of your wider collab without stealing it from them.
This is a good way to help show that you follow important industry leaders, and it can be a good way to get a nice little trickle effect of followers and interested parties from doing so. As you can imagine, that is quite a good way to help build up and increase traffic for your lifestyle blog.
Then, you should be looking to use your lifestyle boards to help create a regular persona about yourself. Make sure your content fits and is relevant, but don’t try and be something for everyone. Be specific; if you have lots of pins with little to no re-pins, then naturally you’ll drop down the user rankings. Be more precise and calculated about what you are pinning here; quality over quantity, always.
Try and spend at least one day per week setting up the pins that you want to use that week. Then, spend some time on useful tools like Tailwind that will then strategically re-pin pins for you on a daily basis without being annoying or spammy.
Join Group Boards
Group boards are one of the best parts of Pinterest marketing and those who don’t know how to use Pinterest for business will no doubt miss out. If you are serious about making your lifestyle blog better, then we implore you to get involved with group boards and take things an extra step further.
On Pinterest, group boards are owned by administrators, who can then add new people to the group to contribute. Essentially, you all work together to make a hub of quality content that brings the visitors for you all. We’re sure that you can see immediately how powerful this could be for you if utilized correctly. Obviously, to get into these groups you need to have something worth letting you in for, so you need to be as professional and as cool as you can to get involved with various group boards. If you do get in, though, and you can contribute with them, you should see a pretty nice boost in your visibility.
Start off by looking for boards that fit with your lifestyle blog – the city you are in, major industries within the city, that kind of thing. If you are all about a specific kind of lifestyle, hobby or whatever else you are doing then make sure you invest a lot of time in finding relevant groups.
Naturally, you aren’t going to get far if you are talking about BBQ meats on your lifestyle blog if you try and join a vegan group board. You won’t get too far trying to join a basketball-based group if you post about soccer – that kind of thing. Make sure you fit in and that it’s something you are relevant to.
So, look at the board description clearly when you are looking for assistance and you should find it a bit easier to find out how relevant that pin is to you. Take a look at their feed and see if you would fit in there, and then send them a message on their latest pin, asking if you can be part of the group.
Signing Up for a Business Account
Like any other form of social media, if you want to know how to use Pinterest for business use then you have to use its more professional business wing. Naturally, this is known as a business account and it’s a very worthwhile investment for you. We recommend that unless you have a decent following and brand already that you start from scratch, if possible. Regardless of if you do start from scratch or not, you should look to add a bit of style.
Start off by making this free upgrade and while you are professionalizing yourself, why not make your blog look stunning with this Veni WordPress theme.
Now, add a link to your snazzy new blog to your business Pinterest account, and you can take things to the next level in terms of style. Add in a link to your blog so that people know exactly what they are getting, and where they can find more of your stuff. While you will be using Pinterest marketing on a regular basis, you will also need to use your blog and advertise it regularly to make the most of that social media marketing.
We recommend that you make the most of something known as Rich pins; these show more information under a normal Pin and can be very effective from a marketing point of view. That being said, you do need to experiment with them a bit as there are four kinds of Rich pin: App, Product, Recipe and Article.
As you can imagine, the name implies what each should hold. So, keep that in mind and work around that as much as you can and you should find it a little easier to keep seeing progress. Overall, you should be looking to use the extra Pinterest business features for greater analysis.
All of the pins in the world can be posted, but you need to know how each is performing to know what works and what fails. Use the excellent Pinterest analytics to follow the story of your performance and see what works. You might be surprised what is your best performers and what kind of content holds you back. Sometimes, it’s the opposite of what you would have thought!
Regardless, it’s much easier from here to build up your business and make it stronger. The more you can do that now, the better. So, we recommend that you invest in the Pinterest business side of things and, alongside everything else mentioned, make your Pinterest marketing aims so much more achievable.
Conclusion
The above ideas, then, can be a strong blueprint for any Pinterest marketing that you undergo with your lifestyle blog. Done right and with the right kind of attitude when connecting with people, you can easily increase traffic. Add in the fact that this makes it easier to monetize that blog of yours, too, then your increase in traffic can become profitable in more ways than one.
Whether your blog is already up and running and you want to tweak it, or it’s just an idea, now is the time to implement it. Competition might exist, but solid logic will always help you increase traffic. Using the above, then, is about as logical as it gets!
