Pinterest Traffic Drop: 10 Easy Tips To Boost Your Pinterest Traffic

I am not sure why so many people are reporting a drop in Pinterest traffic. 

Some reasons might be:

• the algorithm has changed
• promoted pins are using some of the spaces in the SmartFeed
• you need up use different types of pins
• a seasonal problem
• your audience is not behaving the same way
• you're choosing the wrong keywords

It's hard to tell because there are a lot of different opinions from experts, but Pinterest did a Webinar with Tailwind and explained what the best practices for pinning are.

And if you're doing the wrong things, it might affect your reach.

So here are some Pinterest marketing tips to help you solve your Pinterest traffic decline issues.

Get the basics right to reverse your Pinterest traffic drop

Before we start with some of the Pinterest traffic boosting tips I will give you, let's make sure you have the basics right.

Sometimes Pinterest will work even when you've set things wrong, particularly if you have a new or newish account and you're publishing new content.

But it can soon start going downhill if you haven't set up things the right way.

• Is your website optimised for Pinterest? A  great way to get more Pinterest traffic is to make sure your website is set up to encourage visitors to pin from it.
• Are your Profile and your Boards set up the right way?
• Are you pinning consistently? 
• Are you using more than one pin image for your blog posts? This is super-important!!
• Are you using CTAs in your pins so you get more click throughs?
• Are you using Tailwind? It doesn't really matter if you do manual pinning or use a scheduler but Tailwind members usually see an increase in followers, reach and your traffic. Try Tailwind for free.

1. Create new pin designs

THIS IS THE MOST IMPORTANT PINTEREST TIP!

Pinterest loves brand new content. It doesn't matter when you're reading this.

So perhaps you've not been creating a lot of blog content, or you only have one pin per blog post or per page. That's one reason your Pinterest traffic is tanking.

The solution is to create more content and to have 5-10 pins per blog post/page.

But what if you want to drive traffic to those blog posts that used to get you lots of affiliate commissions or get you hundreds of people joining your email list? 

You can still increase traffic to these blog posts by creating brand new pins.

But you can't possibly do all your blog posts in one go. So start with your 5 best blog posts first and up to 5 of those pages or posts you want to send more Pinterest users to.

The easiest way to find your best content on Pinterest is to use this FREE Google Analytics Dashboard from Kristie Hill.

When you receive the email with the dashboard, follow the instructions, click on the link and it will take you to your Google Analytics account.

You can also use Tailwind Analytics to find your most popular pins.

Then create 5 new pins for each blog post.

You can do the rest later and update your designs.

But, do your pins needs a makeover? 

While you're at it... Isn't it time you improved your pins and gave them a fresher look?

3 ways you can improve your pins 

1. Improve your pin design skills.  Make your pins stand out from the rest with this course. It's free, and it's full of great tips to help you design better pins. 
2. Change your pin styles or increase the number of designs. If you can't afford a designer and want a way to do them yourself: Get these templates from Bluchic, or these from HungryJPeg. 
3. Use multiple images for the same pin. Cos Pinterest does not focus on the text but the images. So 5 different images with same text = 5 pins. So getting a stock photo membership has now become more important if you don't take your own photos.

One of my favourites is IvoryMix stock photos, you hav access to thousands of images that are already in stock and you receive +100 images each month. But if you are not ready for a membership, why not check out one of her collections?

You'll get multiple photos that you can use and reuse in original ways, but the best value for money is definitely the membership option!! 

A solution for busy bloggers and entrepreneurs

It's very easy to spend hours and hours creating new pins for your posts. It's even more tempting to go on a pin creation spree and spend hours and hours creating and scheduling new pins when you see your Pinterest traffic drop. Even when you use templates, you could still end up spending several hours a week on pin design.

But what if you could create tens of pins in minutes?

That's where the new Tailwind Create tool comes in. 

Tailwind Create is a new tool by Tailwind that allows you to create lots of designer-quality pins with a couple of clicks.

You add your URL, the images you want to use, click on Go Create et voilà! You get multiple pins that you can easily edit, select and schedule in minutes.

Seriously, it's that good.

I explain how to do this in detail here.

Want to try it for yourself?

5. Share your best performing pins in tribes

If you still don't use Tribes, get FREE access here. Join Tailwind here and start playing with them.

Most tribes allow you to resubmit your pins. So find your most popular pins and add them to your best tribes again.

6. Create simple infographics for your best blog posts

People love infographics and they're always some of my most popular pins.  Because they get lots of repins. 

It's true they sometimes get more shares than click-throughs, so add a CTA to the pin image and in the description to tell people there's a free resource available.

I mean, all your blog posts have a content upgrade or a lead magnet, don't they?

7. Remove your poorly performing pins from smartloop

If you're already using SmartLoop, there is some housekeeping you need to do every few weeks and it's to check the performance of your pin.

You can see how well your SmartLoops are performing in Kristie's dashboard or directly in Tailwind.

What's the point of having pins nobody shares or clicks on your SmartLoop?

So do a clean up operation and add your latest and best performing pins.

You should also check that you're not pinning these older pins too often, just fo fill in the gaps a bit, if you know what I mean. 

And I wouldn't use SmartLoop to pin to group boards at all, just to mine (but that's up to you).

8. Redo your schedule 

Are you pinning at the right times? Or are you pinning too much?

If you're pinning manually, you can try pinning intermittently during the day rather than batch your pinning. It will depend on where you are and where most of your readers are. 

But, ideally, you want to pin when your pins get the most engagement. That's why Tailwind is a great tool and you should try it.  

If you use Tailwind, all you need to do is click on Your Schedule from the Menu bar and click on Recreate Schedule. 

You'll notice that Tailwind is now telling you when you're at risk of spamming, so you don't overdo it with your pinning. You should also leave at least 2 days between pinning different versions to different boards.

And, for Pete's sake, don't just start pinning 50 pins per day when you were doing 3.  It could be seen as spamming and Pinterest won't be happy with your account.

If you want to increase your pinning frequency, do it slowly by increasing the number of pins per day every week or so. Though Pinterest is now saying that you shouldn't pin that often and Tailwind will also tell you you're pinning too much.

9. Do some manual pinning and repinning

If you are a Tailwind user, keep the number of pins you schedule with Tailwind lower and try to do some manual pinning for a few minutes every day. But act as a user would, not as a business. You can do it from your phone if you want.

Pin some of your own content directly from your site and interact with the Smartfeed by pinning other people's pins as well, or following a few people or boards suggested by Pinterest.

I like doing 5-10 minutes in the morning and 5-10 minutes in the evening. That's all. 

10. Promote your best pins

This tip is not for new bloggers: NEVER PAY for promotion when you're not making money.

But if you are and have a product you can sell on a Tripwire page and sales funnels to monetise your email list, then promoting your pins is a great way to put your pins in front of new people, grow your email list and make money with them.

And the good thing about Promoted Pins is that they are very affordable compared to Facebook ads. And ROI (Return on Investment) is good so it's worth trying them out. 

Here's an article from Social Media Examiner to help you set them up and a post from DreamGrow with 14 tips to help you get better results.

BONUS tip for when your pinterest traffic drops

These are 10 easy and actionable tips you can follow when your Pinterest traffic is in decline.

But there's an extra tip I can give you for the mid- and long-term:

Work on your SEO so if your Pinterest traffic is dropping.

Cos you can't put all your eggs in the Pinterest basket. And it's a great idea to leverage both Pinterest and SEO for long term traffic growth.

And, above all, DON'T PANIC! Try putting all these tips in action and see how your website traffic recovers.