How to Drive Traffic to Your Website with Pinterest

If you’re running a small business and haven’t considered Pinterest a viable source of traffic for your website, you’re missing out on a huge marketing opportunity. To generate leads on Pinterest, your pins need to do more than move people to like and repin.

More than half of all traffic to Pinterest is from mobile browsers, which means by posting more frequently to Pinterest, you have the chance to increase your mobile presence.

1) Storytelling with HQ photographs

Pinterest is primarily a visual experience. Images help convey stories that can evoke an emotion in us. Choose high-quality photographs and use them in the pins you create to promote your content. The right images can make the viewer ask “What’s going on in this picture?”. Once you’ve captured their attention, you’ve likely induced them to click through to your site and learn the rest of the story.
All pins use images but many include stock photography and overlaid text; these elements are so common that it’s become easy for viewers to skim over them. A pin that tells the viewer there’s a story being told makes people stop and look at it. The longer they view, the greater the chance of a click-through. If you don’t have compelling or attractive images, it’s unlikely your content will be re-pinned or shared.

2) Optimize your images

According to Pinterest, the best aspect ratio for Pinterest images is between 2:3 and 1:3.5, with a minimum width of 600 pixels. Taller pins take up more space in feeds, which means they get more attention.
The most shared images on Pinterest are clean, bold, colorful, and aesthetically appealing.

Captions also matter – try to use captivating captions to draw more attention to the content. People are driven to check out offers that create a sense of urgency; offers that expire in a short time, products that are limited-edition or about to go out of stock, or information that the rest of the world knows about. Use captions to motivate people to grab the opportunity to use a discount, knowing that the offer will soon be gone.

3) Use rich pins

Rich Pins are a great way to drive additional traffic through Pinterest and they’re free to use. Rich Pins give you more control over the details associated with your business’s products and content. A rich pin of a product will link directly to that product’s page, whereas a regular pin would just link to the brand’s homepage.
Users benefit from product pins because they include real-time pricing and inventory availability. Also note that if you were to reduce the price of a product that has a rich pin, customers who repinned that product image would receive an email from Pinterest notifying them of the price change, which can prompt them to make the purchase.

4) Post at the right time

Like all social media platforms, the frequency and timing of your posts on Pinterest can make a huge impact on your engagement rate, specifically the number of clicks and traffic driven to your site. As for frequency, research suggests you should pin anywhere from 5 to 30 times per day to see the most engagement.
Since repins are one of the best ways to grow your own following, users need to see your pins. According to HubSpot, the best time to post on Pinterest is in the evening, especially on Saturdays from 8:00-11:00 pm. Other prime times to pin include daily from 2:00-4:00 am and 2:00-4:00 pm., and Fridays around 3:00 pm. Our own research at AddThis shows that the most popular times for people to pin content to Pinterest is Monday from 9:00-10:00 pm ET.

Pinterest is one of the best sources of traffic for many websites and blogs. This is especially true for online shops and so a lot of small businesses want to find out more about how Pinterest works.

Have experience with using Pinterest for promoting your business? Share in the comments!