.svg)
Disclaimer: The information provided is for educational purposes only and does not constitute professional advice.
Affiliate Disclosure: Some links on this page are affiliate links. I may earn a commission if you make a purchase through these links, at no cost to you.
🌷1. Pinterest Marketing
One way I recommend promoting your blog is through Pinterest marketing. It's simple to learn, but please know: when you're starting out, it can be very slooow! You may not even see any clicks. Please don't give up. Think about it ... *so* many people post to Pinterest ... including genuine and spammy accounts ... why would Pinterest promote just any new pin to thousands and millions of users? Especially when you're competing with longstanding, successful accounts with many views. Its algorithm has to analyze the quality of your pins (this is called 'indexing'). On top of quality pins, Pinterest favors consistency.
In this section, we'll go over:
- What is Pinterest?
- What is affiliate marketing?
- How do I get approved to become an affiliate?
- How does Pinterest affiliate marketing work?
- How do I create a pin?
Pinterest is like a search engine with pictures. When you type in a search in Pinterest, it will pull up mostly images ('pins') and sometimes videos.
According to Pinterest Business' page, Pinterest has more than 500 million monthly users. It's a popular tool that people use to search for things such as gardening tips, home decor ideas, food recipes, fashion, wedding tips, DIY, blogging ideas, travel tips, parenting ideas, Bible Scriptures, and much more.
Pinterest affiliate marketing is where you post pins to Pinterest so that when viewers click on your pin and go to your website, that article will contain an affiliate link(s).
For Pinterest affiliate marketing, you'll need:
1.) Your affiliate link
2.) A free Pinterest business account
3.) A place to host your links
Once you have your link, you would create a pin which links to your blog article, where the affiliate link would live.
🌻 Tips:
- Your affiliate link may be long and/or have random characters. If you prefer cleaner links, which is more professional, you can use a link shortener tool and link manager like 'Pretty Links' which is a free Wordpress plugin. Short.io is another tool with an awesome free plan. Bitly has a free plan where you can add up to 5 links/month.
- Many affiliate programs require you to have your own website, while some only require a social media account. It’s good to have 7-10 articles before you apply to programs.
🌸 With Pinterest Scheduler, you can schedule up to 10 pins (individually), 30 days in advance. This is perfect if you only need to schedule a small amount. For those looking to schedule in bulk, and pin to different boards at once, I recommend Tailwind, which is a scheduler tool for Pinterest (and Instagram). It uses Smart Scheduling to help you know the best times to pin for more views. You can also join 'Tribes' in the Tailwind community.
To be successful, you need:
- SEO-rich pins in pin text, titles, and descriptions
- Pinning strategically at the right times (but NOT in a spammy way, or your account could get restricted or suspended)
- Consistency, and …Patience!!! (You may not see earnings or even pin clicks right away but that’s normal)
🌸 In order to make pins, I recommend using Canva, which has a limited free and also paid version called CanvaPro. I use CanvaPro to create pins and Instagram posts and it's a very nice software with beautiful graphics. You can also create many other things such as resumes, business cards, eBook covers, social media posts, invitations, animations, blog graphics, logos, and much more.
🌻 Tip: This is not related to traffic growth, but you can use Canva or CanvaPro to design both your logo and favicon - which you will need for your blog. Your logo represents your blog/brand and the favicon is the small icon that appears on the left side on the browser tab and also shows up in Google search engine.
After you create your Canva account, you will need to create a free Pinterest Business account (not a 'personal' account).
🌻 Tip: Canva has many templates pre-made for you, and you can also check out Etsy marketplace, where you can find beautiful templates. Just search “Bulk Pinterest Templates” and you will see many different colors & styles. I purchased a few packages and they are beautiful and professional-looking :)
✔️ How to set up Pinterest:
1. Choose a niche
2. Create a Pinterest Business account (go to Pinterest.com, click "Sign up" and choose "Business account")
✔️ How to create a pin:
1. Go to Canva.com and sign up for a free account (or free Canva Pro 30-day trial)
2. Choose "Create a Design"
3. Type in "Pinterest Pin" or "Pin" in search
4. Choose the vertical 2:3 size ratio —> 1000 x 1500 pixels (I recommend this size)
5. After creating your pin, download and upload it onto Pinterest
✔️ How to upload to Pinterest:
1. On Pinterest, go to "Create" then "Create Pin"
2. Upload your pin, fill in title, description, tags and your article URL
3. Pick or create a board to pin it to
**Optional: You can schedule your pin for the future with either the Scheduler or Tailwind
🌼 Tips:
- Create professional-looking pins that are EASY TO READ! Use a clear font(s), and don't use too many words. Keep it short and sweet while using KEYWORDS! Remember, it's a search engine where people are scrolling and if your pin is difficult to read, they'll likely skip over it and not bother, so make sure to create pins that people will want to click on that can be read quickly.
- Don't stuff your description with hashtags and all the keywords you can fit; it can really trigger spam filter. Just use important keywords. I would not use too many hashtags.
- I recommend starting off with pinning 3-7 times a day; if you're pinning incessantly, for example uploadig many at once, your account could get flagged for spam. You can read more about Pinterest's polices on best practices to prevent spam here. You can always increase to pinning more, later.
- The algorithm takes time to figure out your account, so posting consistently (like ... DAILY!!!!!) will help it learn what your account is about Also, don’t reuse pins! Use different designs since Pinterest likes fresh designs.
- I personally don’t use the largest pin dimension (1000 x 3000px) because in the mobile app, it can easily get cut off from the screen, and it can look bulky and cumbersome. But, you can choose any size dimensions that work for you.
- You can use Pinterest Trends to study popular search trends and see what people are searching for
- When you’re just starting out on Pinterest, it can take a little time for your pins to get seen. If you post a bunch of very similar pins all at once, it might not trigger a spam filter but Pinterest might limit how many people see them at first. I believe this is called a 'shadow ban' (throttling) because it detects that you're posting too much similar content at once and/or posting too much in a short amount of time, i.e. 10-20 pins in one hour blocks.
- Also, please don't feel discouraged if you've been posting daily for days, even weeks but don't see many pin clicks. I've heard it's very normal for beginners but Pinterest algorithm rewards consistency and quality pins. It could take weeks, a month, or even months months for you to see any clicks/saves - it's different for everyone. I'm not a blogging expert and I was very discouraged (even cried) because after spending so long (6+ months) putting my site together, on my first day pinning I received zero clicks. It was hard on me but I'm choosing to not give up and you don't have to, either. I'm still a new blogger who's learning!
- When uploading your pins, I've read it's really important to put keywords in the file name. For instance, instead of uploading a pin named "image.PNG" change it first to "Fish-tacos-in-avocado-sauce.PNG" :'D
- It's also good to interact with others' content by liking, saving, and commenting on pins
- I recommend joining Tailwind communities and finding groups to join so you can share your pins and engage with others
-I've heard it's good to enable 'Rich Pins,' which are pins with more details and product, recipe, or article information on the pin; it can be considered as more valuable by Pinterest. Here is a great article explaining rich pins: https://learn.showit.com/en/articles/1161678-how-do-i-set-up-pinterest-rich-pins
🌸 Under FTC law, you have to disclose affiliate links in your Pinterest posts so that visitors are aware. You can put something like #Affiliate, #Ad, #AffiliateLink or something similar. I recommend placing it where your viewers can immediately see.
If you have a website, you must also disclose any affiliate links on there as well. You can say something like,
"This article contains affiliate links. If you make a purchase, I may earn a commission at no cost to you. I only recommend products that I genuinely believe offer good value."
🌷2. Pinterest Group Boards
Another way that can help drive traffic to your blog is through joining Pinterest Group Boards. It can help bring exposure to your account and you can also connect with others in your niche. You can create your own Group Boards as well and invite others.
Here is a tutorial on Group Boards: https://help.pinterest.com/en/article/group-boards
🌷3. Google Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
SEO is the process of making your site more visible on Google search engine. In other words, you are 'optimizing' your site for Google. When you go to search for something in Google, the results populate in the form of a list, and as you scroll down, you will see that there are subsequent pages, hence the many o's in "Gooooooooogle." There is a strategy to the ranking method. When we use Google, we do sometimes click on the 2nd, 3rd, 5th, etc. pages of the “ooooooooo,” but obviously more commonly stick to the first page or so.
1.) Researching keywords: understanding what keywords people tend to search for
a.) --> Long-tail vs. short-tail keywords: keywords that have more words with more specific searches will have less competition that shorter searches. Example: if you search for the keyword "gardening," since it's such a broad topic there will be more results pulled up than if you search for "organic tomato gardening in Arizona."
2.) Optimizing your titles and content: this means including relevant keywords in your titles and also articles
3.) Meta tags: this gives visitors and search engines info about a website before they click on it (it's just the short summary that they see when search results pull up)
4.) SSL certificate: although this is not directly related to SEO, it helps tremendously. SSL stands for "Secure Socket Layer." It is that padlock in the address bar that you see on the left, next to the website URL - it means that the information is encrypted between your browser and the server - preventing interception of information. Encrypted websites have an "s" at the end of "http," so it shows: "https." Users tend to trust sites with SSL. Nowadays pretty much all web hosts automatically provide a free SSL certificate with your website hosting package and it's the bare minimum standard.
Here are some free keyword research tools:
- Keysearch
- Ahrefs
- SEMRush
- Google Keyword Planner
- RankMath (for Wordpress)
- Answer the Public
For Wordpress, here are some good free plugins based on my research:
- All in One SEO (AIOSEO): has many great tools
- The SEO Framework: good and simple
- Yoast SEO: good for beginners
Here is a free SEO course for beginners:
- Ahrefs: https://ahrefs.com/academy/seo-training-course
For a paid beginner SEO tool, I recommend Mangools. It's affordable, beginner-friendly, and comes with 5 tools: KWFinder, SERPChecker, SERPWatcher, LinkMiner, and SiteProfiler. It's not as complex as tools like SEMRush and Ahrefs because it doesn't have advanced features such in-depth site audits and backlink crawlers. It's easier to use and good for beginners getting started with SEO.
🌷4. Social Media Marketing
Since it can take a while to rank on Google and sometimes the algorithm can be unpredictable, you should not depend on Google only. In addition to Pinterest Affiliate marketing, you can promote your blog through other social media platforms such as -->
- Facebook
- Instagram
- TikTok
- Twitter
- LinkedIn
- Rumble
- YouTube, etc.
If your budget allows, you can use paid ads.
You can also use a social media management tool like Buffer, which has a generous free plan.
🌷5. Write Effective Meta Descriptions
Meta descriptions are basically those brief few summary lines of a website when you pull up search engine results. You’ll want to include keywords in there.
Here's a tutorial on writing meta descriptions: https://yoast.com/meta-descriptions/
🌷6. Guest Blogging
Guest blogging is where you write for other blogs. You can reach out to sites you want to guest blog for, and some will have a "Write for Us" link or something similar.
🌷7. Email Marketing Campaigns
Building an email list is a very popular and great srategy that MANY bloggers and businesses use to promote their site and services. Email marketing helps you stay in touch with your readers, build rapport, and turn subscribers into loyal readers or customers. If you're serious about growing your blog and keeping in contact with readers, it is very valuable.
Here are some uses of email marketing:
- Promoting your content (such as new articles, posts ...)
- Announcing new products
- Giving discount codes
- Providing updates
- Sending free stuff
- Lead magnets (you offer a free product or a resource in exchange for the person's email signup)
- Sending newsletters
- Building rapport (you can send advice, tips, freebies, and let the reader get to know your story)
🌸 Email marketing tools that I recommend:
EmailOctopus: UK-based, affordable, easy to use, features are basic, has a great free plan, good for beginners
(Free plan up to 2,500 subscribers and 10,000 emails/month)
MailerLite: easy to use, affordable, comes with many beautiful templates, has basic and advanced features including automation builder, landing page builder that has A/B testing, heat maps, etc., good for beginners and growing businesses.
(Free plan up to 1,000 subscribers and 12,000 emails/month)
Kit (formerly ConvertKit): simple platform with strong features like automation, includes landing page builder, good for content creators
(Free plan up to 10,000 subscribers)
**MailerLite is more affordable than Kit and is awesome for those those needing a good quality and easy-to-use email marketing tool (perfect for those getting started), but Kit focuses more on monetization. For one example, Kit has advanced segmentation, which means it specifically targets certain audiences and sends tailored emails based on those characteristics.
🌷8. Landing Pages/Single-page Websites
A landing page is a one-page website that helps grab your reader's attention and provide a call-to-action. You can use a landing page for a product or service you offer on your blog, OR - if you're not looking to start a full blog but just want to sell a product, a landing page is excellent (there are entrepreneurs, professionals and businesses that only use landing pages for their products).
That way, you don't need to worry about having multiple web pages if you don't need them. Example: you're a real estate agent offering free home valuations
Different examples of what you can use landing used for:
- Selling an ebook
- Selling a course (we'll go over this in the next section)
- Sign-up for email list (some people use a pop-up or a landing page)
- Sign-up to book a coaching call
- Sign-up to register for a webinar
- Sign-up for a free PDF download
- Sign-up/subscribe to newsletter
- and more
Next, let's discuss how you can earn income with your blog.
Go to next --> Monetizing Your Blog or Website
<-- Go back 'Best Wordpress Theme'