3 OF THE BEST INTROVERT-FRIENDLY MARKETING STRATEGIES

 I know exactly where you are, fellow introvert.

You’ve been focussing your marketing efforts on Instagram for a while now.

You’ll spend ages creating graphics and editing images for the ‘gram, before you edit and re-edit the perfect caption, add those all important hashtags and spend enough time engaging to bring people back to your post, once your post has gone live. 

You put pressure on yourself to be active on your Instagram stories daily and you’ve seen the articles about needing to post everyday to gain traction. 

And perhaps recently you’ve felt like the effort you’re putting into social media isn’t rewarding you in the way it once was. In fact, social media has become an exhausting time suck – but the annoying thing is that, you’re kinda reliant on it now because you’ve neglected your other marketing channels. 

And perhaps you’ve also run some live launches. And it was great at the time, it gave you a buzz and it delivered results but afterwards you felt done in. 

And for several weeks you simply didn’t have the energy to show up as much as you would have liked across your marketing channels. 

How do I know this?

I’ve been there, this is my story as well as yours. But – I want you to know I have discovered a much more introvert-friendly way to do marketing in your business.

Not so long ago I was focusing all of my marketing efforts into Instagram and regular launches. But to cut a long story short, I ended up burnt out. 

Without any energy left to keep going, I discovered that Instagram isn’t actually ‘all that’. I was forced (luckily) to find more introvert-friendly, sustainable approaches to marketing. 

It’s easy to fall into the trap of spending all of your time and energy on creating Instagram posts, scrolling the app, and feeling overwhelmed by DMs. 

But more recently I know I’m not the only one who was found that you’ve got to put 5 times the effort into social media to get the same results.

How would it feel to be focussed on introvert-friendly marketing instead? 

How would it feel to take the pressure off yourself to be speaking to camera every day and ‘doing reels’? 

Imagine if you could find a way to do your marketing while curled up on the sofa in your PJs! Read on fellow introvert! 

None of these introvert-friendly marketing strategies are going to be things you’ve never heard of before, in fact you might think – well DUH! But here’s the kicker – you might know all about these marketing strategies, BUUUT are you actually doing them right now? Or is social media gobbling up every last bit of your time and energy? Let’s dive in.

Introvert strategy 1: Blogging

At this point, blogging feels like the oldest trick in the book. It almost feels like blogging was the OG of online marketing and things have moved on since then. You don’t tend to hear people talking about blogging so much anymore, it’s all about Instagram reels and smashing your next launch. 

But when you’re talking about introvert friendly marketing – marketing that is going to reward you in the long run not, just in the next couple of days this is absolutely where your attention needs to be. 

Consistent blogging and building up your bank of evergreen content is a sure fire way to drive organic traffic to your website – where they can find their way onto your mailing list and into your online shop and courses. 

Here’s why blogging is such an introvert friendly way to do inbound marketing… you can do it in your pyjamas with a cup of tea curled up in bed, you can do it from your garden chair, you can do it by dictating into your voice notes whilst out on a walk, and editing it onto your blog later. 

I know blogging can feel overwhelming. We make ourselves believe that blogging is a huge ordeal (and it absolutely can be if you make it an ordeal) – but it doesn’t need to be! 

If you’re not blogging right now, the best place to start is by creating a healthy blogging habit that helps you find the JOY in it, before you get bogged down in keyword research and meta tags. 

Your next step? Creating a consistent blogging routine that you can stick to. 

How about, you challenge yourself to blog everyday for a couple of weeks? It doesn’t need to be War and Peace in length, it doesn’t need to be filled with beautiful imagery, and it doesn’t need to be endlessly researched for the perfect keywords – at this stage you just need to focus on building the Habit.

Introvert strategy 2: Pinterest

Pinterest is my happy place. 

When you’re scrolling Pinterest you’re thinking about your own life, and getting inspired and excited about the possibilities – your dream home, your business development, that clever organization system for your wardrobe. On Pinterest, you collect images and links to blog posts that inspire and inform you.

Whereas on Instagram, you’re looking at what’s going on for other people as you endlessly scroll. And so often this leads to comparison, frustration and that feeling of not enough-ness. 

So why wouldn’t you want to hang out and do your marketing in a place that makes you feel happy and inspired!? 

It’s also another platform that’s all about imagery, so if you love creating beautiful graphics, photography and faffing about in canva – this is the platform for you.

Here’s why Pinterest is one of the most introvert-friendly marketing strategies… it’s NOT a social Media platform, it is a search engine. Think of it as Google for images. That means no commenting and no exhausting DMs – just inspiring imagery and creating beautifully curated moodboards. Yes please! Perfect for introverts like us! 

The basic premise of Pinterest is that you create graphics and upload them to your Pinterest account, linking through to content on your website. 

This is where Pinterest works hand in hand with blogging. You create a pinnable image, or perhaps ten pinnable images for each of your blog posts, and pin them to the relevant boards on your Pinterest account. 

Once you get into the swing of it it’s really enjoyable and easy. And once you’ve mastered the basics there’s no end of geekery you can get into around keywords and optimizing your graphics if you feel so inclined. 

Introvert strategy 3: Evergreen marketing funnel

When we talk about marketing in business what we really mean is creating connections with our audience, and nurturing them through the customer journey – from discovering us, to knowing, liking and trusting us, to becoming a customer. 

One way of doing this is to do all of the legwork by being present on social media and running regular live launches – but that’s not a sustainable approach for you, fellow introvert. 

For us introverts, we can subsidies or even eventually replace the need for live launches and social media by setting up clever, automated systems that nurture our audience along that customer journey without us having to be there 24/7 – AKA an evergreen marketing funnel. 

An evergreen marketing Funnel can take lots of different forms, but let’s say you set one up that invites visitors to your website to opt-in to a free offer. 

Let’s say someone has Googled something that has led them to land on one of your blog posts. From there they see a link to sign up for your free lead magnet, that is going to help them overcome a pain point and give them some quick wins that will help them get the result they want. 

Once they have signed up for your free offer, and therefore opted-in to receive your emails, you then follow up with a sequence of automated emails or other content that continues to give value and nurture this person through your customer journey. 

Later on in your evergreen marketing funnel, you invite this person to learn more about how your offers could help them, and give them the opportunity to become a customer. 

Perhaps you’re thinking – sales funnels – grooooosss. Don’t they have to be really gross and aggressive to actually work? And that’s definitely not me. 

We’ve all seen really gross sales funnels out there. But that’s NOT what I’m talking about here. I’m talking about a value-driven and feel good approach to marketing funnels –  and an evergreen sales funnel might just be the answer to increasing your business income. 

And let me reassure you, it is possible to build funnels that deliver value and serve your audience with integrity. These is the kind of sales funnels I build for my clients.

How to Sell on Instagram and Start Seeing Results

 So, you’ve put your offer out to the world on Facebook, Pinterest, LinkedIn even… what about Instagram?

Maybe you’ve already tried but you just aren’t seeing the results you’d like. A platform that just hit one billion monthly users, you’d expect to make some sales, right?

Well, you’re half-right. 

The thing about Instagram is you have to know how to work it so that it, in turn, works for you. Instagram’s algorithms change every day, so while it can be difficult keeping up with all of the newest updates, there are still some tried-and-true steps you can take the next time you’re ready to put your offer on Instagram.

Using these selling methods paired with your newly optimized business account will allow you to k-i-l-l it so that you can finally start seeing the results you want.

Get a Few Things in Check First

If you haven’t checked out our blog post about how to use Instagram for business, we highly encourage you to go check that out. Everything we talked about will come into play here, but for the sake of ease, we’ll briefly go over the absolute most important steps you cannot miss out on.

SWITCH YOUR ACCOUNT TO A BUSINESS PROFILE

Do this now if you haven’t yet. Converting your Instagram account to a business profile will unlock all the insights you need to guide your posts. You’ll be able to know your audience’s demographics– what age and gender they are, where they live, when they’re online– as well as how often your profile is visited, how many link and button clicks you get, and how many interactions you get on your posts on what days. We can’t stress enough how key all of this, especially when you’re ready to start paying for ads.

All you have to do is go to Settings > Account > Switch to Personal Account, and all you’re all set! Your insights will appear once you make your first post upon switching.

HASHTAG, HASHTAG, HASHTAG!

Hashtags are the biggest way to start seeing organic leads on Instagram. We know the term “hashtag research” may seem daunting, but it’s super valuable and not as hard as it seems. Browse around on other pages in the same or similar industry as you and make a list of hashtags you see them using. Add to that list some keywords that relate to your industry, and put yourself in your customers’ shoes to add some things they would also search. Then, search your hashtags and throw out any that have more than 500k or less than 100k posts using them. When you search your keywords, hashtags that include that word will start to pop up. Filter through those just the same as the others. You want to make sure you’re choosing hashtags that aren’t oversaturated with posts but that are still being used enough that you’re likely to be seen. 

Not only do you get overall page insights, but you also get insights for each individual post. Part of that includes showing you where your followers who viewed the post are coming from. (I think you know where we’re going with this.) How many views are coming via hashtags is also included in that list, which is perfect for getting an idea of how your hashtags are performing so that you can start testing which ones are doing the trick.

Get Intentional with Ads

That pretty “Promote This Post” button sure does look tempting, but we beg you to resist the urge. The options are very limited, and you won’t able to target a specific audience. Linking your Instagram account with your Facebook business page will allow you to use their Ads Manager and give you tons of different options. You can choose to only run your ads on Instagram, or you can have them run on both platforms. This is where your profile insights will come into play. Instagram basically already tells you who you should be targeting, and you can play around with the other options to target those users with certain interests as well.

THEN, TEST THEM!

Don’t feel like you need a humongous budget for this. A small budget can work, as long as you’re intentional with your targeting and testing your ads. You can do this by setting up 3 campaigns that are all pretty much the same, but just tweak a few things between them. So, the second ad may have a different picture but the same copy, and the third may have the same picture but different copy. Once you see which one performed the best over a period of time– say, 3-5 days– you can then go on to use that ad, but switch up the targeting and so forth. 

Use the Shopping Feature

If you sell physical products, Instagram’s shopping feature is a must. You know how when you tag a friend in a post and when you tap on the post, their username pops up? Think of your products as that friend. When users tap on your post, the product name and price will pop up. Once clicking on that, they’re taken to product details page, which has the description, a button to view the item on your website, and more products that you’ve added. You can even add other items to the page that might go with that product. It’s a win-win and such a huge opportunity for physical product-based businesses to see some sales increases.

Don’t Be Afraid to Reach Out

Physical product sellers can, of course, reach out to influencers or celebrities to pay for product promotion or send free products in exchange, but service-based businesses can do something like this as well.

Remember your free work stage when you just wanted to gather a few testimonials to help get your feet off the ground? It’s time to use them, babe. Post them everywhere. Have a dedicated Story Highlight on your profile just for testimonials, post about them in your feed, remind everyone that not only do you think you’re the shit, but others do, too. 

If you haven’t already, get a testimonial from past clients as well as your current ones. It can also be worth it to ask if they could even make a post promoting you and your services. The worst they could say is no, and if they say yes, that’s even more exposure you’d be getting.

Showcase Your Offer in Stories

Last but not least, post to your Stories regularly about your offer– every day, at least. Once that 24-hour timeframe has passed, up goes another one! Add CTAs and engagement stickers (we went over those in this blog post, too!) to encourage your followers to engage, click, swipe, etc. Create a sequence with your Stories. One to show the offer, one to tell what it’s about, another for testimonials, etc. You want it to flow seamlessly so your followers can easily tap and read.

OKAY, BUT HOW DO YOU CREATE IT?

Create your social media posts quickly and easily with the help of the Creative Template Shop!  Check out our Instagram Stories Sales Sequence templates that were made specifically to help you. Showcase your amazing offers via stories and start seeing leads! 

6 Steps to Set Up a Pinterest Business Account & Optimize It

 As a small business, one of the most powerful steps you can take to increase brand exposure is to set up a Pinterest business account and optimize your profile.

I’ll admit: when I first started using Pinterest for my business, I wasn’t too thrilled to get the initial setup done. I wanted to dive into the fun stuff, like joining group boards and curating pretty graphics.

But you want to get found by your ideal audience, right? And stand out from all the other business accounts? And, oh yeah, make some sales?!

If you’re nodding your head (which I hope you are!), then these initial steps are really important. Luckily, none of them takes more than 15 minutes.

So let’s rip off that bandaid, and then I promise we can move onto the sexier side of Pinterest.

How to Set Up a Pinterest Business Account

1. Switch to a Business Account if You Haven’t Yet

If you’re using Pinterest but you have a personal account, the first thing you want to do is switch to a business profile. It’s just a matter of clicking a button. Super easy!

If you’re starting from scratch, you’ll want to create a new business profile.

Why should you care about having a business profile? As a business account, you’ll be able to promote your pins if you choose (Pinterest advertising). But most importantly, you’ll get access to Pinterest Analytics.

With analytics, you can look at your metrics and use them to look at what you’re doing right (and do more of that) and what you’re doing wrong (so you know to stop doing that). Because I don’t care how perfect someone is, there is always room for improvement!

2. Enable Rich Pins

There are four types of rich pins: product pins, article pins, app pins, and recipe pins. The first two should apply to you if you have an online shop and/or if you have a blog for your shop.

You might be wondering: can you add rich pins for Etsy shops? Well, you’re in luck: they’re automatically enabled!

Why should you care about enabling rich pins?

Your pins will stand out more and have more context. Any pin you create (or that’s saved from your website or online shop) will have extra information attached to it.

It will show your article’s title (or product name) in bold. Plus, if someone looks at it close up, it shows even more information (your profile, description, price, availability, etc).

The best part? If you change something in your blog post (the title, for example), or the price of your product, the pin itself will update that information.

Oh wait, there’s one more perk: rich pins have a higher ranking in Pinterest’s smart feed algorithm. Heck yes!

If you aren’t sure if you’ve added metadata correctly, enter your URL into the validator above and it will show you what metadata you have. Then you can add/edit and resubmit.

If your metadata is correct, an ‘Apply’ button should appear, and you should click it. After that, it should take about an hour for Pinterest to approve you. Voila!

3. Claim Your Business Website on Pinterest

You want to do this for two reasons. First, because it will add your profile picture to all the pins from your website if someone clicks to view the pin close up. Hint: that’s good for brand recognition!

And second, you’ll get access to analytics specifically for your website (as in, which pins people are saving & engaging with from your site).

4. Add a Profile Picture

You might be tempted to use your logo as your profile picture. That’s fine, but a picture of yourself might be a better option. People respond to a human face, and are more likely to trust you.

It’s especially important for small businesses to show the face behind their brand. It adds a personal touch that people feel they can connect with. Your profile will stand out even more if your profile picture’s background is a bright color.

If you don’t feel comfortable putting a picture of your face on social media, consider using a cartoon or illustration of yourself instead. But again, a logo works fine, too. Try to use bright colors and large enough font that stands out.

Either way, make sure your image is a circle or a square (not a rectangle). Pinterest will automatically resize it, and you don’t want it to look stretched or distorted!

5. Optimize Your Profile Name & Bio for Pinterest SEO

Your Pinterest name is searchable, so you should add a few keywords in there! For example, if you sell greeting cards, make sure those two words are included after your brand name. You can use a separator key like ‘|’ in between to keep it clean.

This is especially important, because if someone stumbles across your Pinterest account, how will they know if they’re interested in your business without you telling them upfront what you sell?

Insider tip: update your account name in the mobile app. It will let you add more characters than on desktop.

The same thing goes for your bio: keyword it up, baby! Describe who your product is for and how it can solve his/her problem. For example, a shop that sells business planners might say:

“We help busy entrepreneurs stay organized and get more done with structured & lushly-illustrated planners, so they can spend more time on things they love!”

At the end of your bio, include a call-to-action or incentive to entice people to click on your website link. This might include a freebie or discount code (even better if it converts them to your email list!). An example of a freebie might be free printable wall art or a coloring page.

If you have space, try to include a little bit about yourself. Remember: social media is all about making personal connections.

6. Remove or Hide Boards That Are Unrelated to Your Niche/Target Market

If your brand focuses on crochet toys, does it make sense to have Pinterest boards like ‘Dream Travel Destinations’ or ‘Classic Makeup Looks’? Probably not.

Your boards don’t have to be directly related to your products. In fact, that would be too limiting. Stick to interests that are somehow related to what you sell (and that your ideal customer would care about).

Any boards you have that don’t seem relevant should be deleted or changed to ‘Secret’. Don’t waste time attracting the wrong audience!

So which boards do work? Let’s go back to the crochet toys example.

Kid’s room decor would work smashingly as a board, because users who are searching for that would also be interested in adorable children’s toys. Wouldn’t a crochet fox doll look amazing on a forest-shaped wooden shelf? I don’t even have kids and I already want it.

Conclusion: Setting up Your Pinterest Business Account

That’s it. Your profile’s optimized. You did it! Now you can move onto the fun stuff (actually pinning!) with some comforting knowledge: anything you do on Pinterest from now on will be more likely to stand out and get found.

Tailwind Communities: Why & How to Use Them for Pinterest Success

 The Tailwind Communities feature is one of my favorites. (Probably my number one favorite – although it’s hard to choose just one!). It’s extremely powerful for Pinterest growth and traffic, for both small and big accounts.

I’ll break down why I love Tailwind Communities (formerly known as Tailwind Tribes) so much, why they’re so useful, and how to make the most out of them. Because there will probably be a lot to choose from, and you want to pick the best ones for you!

What are Tailwind Communities?

The Tailwind Communities feature allows you to share your awesome pins with other pinners in your niche (and vice versa). They share your pins to their audiences, which puts your pins in front of more potential new followers.

It’s an easy way to super-charge your Pinterest reach with barely any extra effort. Really, you can’t afford not to try them! And, I have great news: Tailwind now has a free forever plan that includes access to 5 Tailwind Communities. Yep, you heard that right!

Essentially, you select which Communities you want to join (you’ll have access to a certain number based on your Tailwind plan), then you submit some pins to them each month. Then, other members of the Community may re-share your pin to their own audiences, because often the rules ask that you re-share as many as you submit.

Why are Tailwind Communities so great?

We’ll start with the most obvious reason: Tailwind Communities can get your pins shared by other pinners, including pinners with large audiences.

When I go to my analytics and view my top pins, I can see under the “source” column that most of my top pins originated from other accounts (not mine). That either means it’s a pin directly from my website, or it’s a pin from a Tailwind Community.

Aside from the fact that they can explode your Pinterest reach – especially if you don’t have a lot of followers yet – Tailwind Communities give your Pinterest account a boost in other ways.

When a pin is re-shared via Tailwind Communities, it’s seen by Pinterest as a new pin – not a re-pin. This sends signals to Pinterest that others are pinning your content even from outside the platform, which is an indicator that you create share-able content. This helps strengthen your account, and can help grow your traffic.

Additionally, you can use Communities to test out different pin templates and see which are most appealing. (The ones that get the most re-shares are probably your best bet!)

How to Find the Best Communities for You

Start by navigating to the ‘Communities’ section of your Tailwind dashboard. Select ‘Find a Community’ and type in a keyword related to your business niche.

You should see a list of related Tailwind Communities pop up. (You may need to go more broad or more granular with your topic, depending on the options that appear).

It’s important to evaluate a Community’s stats before you join. You can tell a Community is high quality if it has a lot of engagement. The green bars next to the Community’s name will tell you how active it is.

Click the ‘preview Community’ button, and you’ll be able to see its detailed stats on the left hand side of the screen.

Check if the Community is active, and if they have good re-share and re-pin metrics compared to other Communities in your niche. These are good signs that it’s worth joining.

When deciding which Communities to join, consider your niche and your audience. Does the Community’s description align with the type of pins and content you share? Often, it’s better to join a smaller Community that’s more in line with your business than a larger, more generic one.

Some Communities are public, and some can only be joined by request or invitation.

How to join exclusive Tailwind Communities

If a Community has a button next to it that says ‘Request to Join’, that’s an ‘exclusive’ Community. But all that means is that the Community creator wants to vet people before they join. You’ll just need to include an introduction about yourself and the type of content you create.

There is another way to find invitations for exclusive Communities, though. Try Googling the name of the Community in quotation marks + the words ‘Tailwind Community’. You may be able to find a direct link to join.

Another good way to find invite links is to find out who the Community owner is. Check out their blog posts related to Tailwind – they may have included a link there.

Either way, if you create quality pins and aren’t doing anything shady on Pinterest, most of your requests should be approved!

Essential Strategy Tips

Here are some ways to take full advantage of the Tailwind Communities feature!

1. Submit your pins to Tailwind Communities at different times and days throughout the week.

For example, share a pin to half your Communities on Monday, and the other half on Thursday. Doing this makes it more likely your pins will be seen by different pinners throughout the week. Experiment and see which times work best for getting more re-shares.

2. Always make sure your pin has a title, description, and the proper URL before you submit to a Community.

If it doesn’t have a title or description, other pinners won’t be able to re-share it. And if it doesn’t link to the right page, that can negatively affect user experience AND you can lose traffic.

3. Be sure to follow the Community rules.

Always share more pins than you submit, and don’t be a spammer! Most communities ask that you only submit a certain amount of pins each day.

4. Continue to evaluate your Communities.

Monitor your Community analytics occasionally, and if a Community isn’t getting you very good reach, consider leaving and trying another one. You don’t have to use the same ones forever. It’s all about what works best for you!

5. Once you start to see some traction, think about purchasing a Communities Power-Up.

For most niches, there are way more than 5 or 10 relevant Communities. Being able to join more Communities and submit more pins can multiply your reach even further. Personally, I pay for a Communities Power-Up, and it’s absolutely been worth it for my business.

Again, Tailwind has a free plan which lets you schedule 20 pins per month AND you can use Tailwind Communities. Really, there’s no reason not to sign up!

Pinterest SEO: 7 Steps to Harness This Marketing Strategy

 Sure, Pinterest is a haven for pretty things. Who doesn’t love photos of adorable kittens in teacups? But did you know you can use Pinterest SEO (search engine optimization) to increase your reach on Pinterest?

Under its glossy sheen, Pinterest is a robust informational superhighway. Imagine metal cogs whirring and shifting at warp speed.

It can be the best thing that’s happened to your website or online shop. Traffic, shares, all that good stuff.

So let’s make that happen, shall we?

If you haven’t yet read my post on 6 steps to set up your Pinterest profile to get found & make sales, do that first. What I talk about in this post should come after you’ve built that solid foundation. Don’t worry, it shouldn’t take very long!

Once you’ve gotten that out of the way, your next step is to optimize your Pinterest profile for search engine optimization. But before you actually DO anything, you should follow these three steps first. Trust me, they’re important.

7 Essential Pinterest SEO Tips

1. Identify Your Ideal Audience/Customer

Everything you do on Pinterest should attract your ideal customer. So, you’ll need to consider who that is for your business.

Take a look at who has bought from you in the past: what patterns do you see in their lifestyle, interests, and actions?

This might sound weird, but write out a bio of your ideal customer. This will help you focus on your niche, and determine how to proceed with the next steps below.

2. Brainstorm 10-20 Boards Within Your Niche

Keep in mind these boards should mirror both your products and your ideal audience’s interests. Think of it as a Venn diagram (if that doesn’t ring any bells, it’s the one with the two circles that intersect). Which types of boards are related to both your products and your ideal customers’ interests?

For example, let’s say you sell Harry Potter bookmarks. You might want to create some boards like “Harry Potter Fan Art”, “Harry Potter Quotes”, and “Awesome Gifts for Harry Potter Fans”. But go a step further. People who like Harry Potter are likely to love all things books. Think “Dream Home Library” or “Literary Home Decor”.

This way, you’re not limiting yourself too much, but you’re staying within the scope of your niche.

3. Use the Search Bar for Pinterest SEO Keyword Research

If you’re on your home feed, tap the search bar at the top and start typing a word related to your niche, then click ‘Search’. More words will appear below that finish the phrase. You can scroll over to see more. These are keywords people are searching for.

You’ll want to find at least 10-15 of these phrases (also known as long-tail keywords) to use while optimizing your profile for SEO. Think of words your ideal customer might use, and what they might be searching for within your niche.

For example, if you’re a watercolor artist, you might want to start by searching for “Watercolor Art”. Some additional keywords that show up are “Abstract”, “Flowers”, and “Disney”. If any of these phrases relate to your products, use them for your SEO (we’ll get to that next).

4. Create 15-20 Boards + Optimize Them for Pinterest SEO

Now that you’ve thought up 15-20 niche-specific boards, it’s time to add those keywords. Add a keyword-rich title and description to each board. Since you have more space here, focus more on using long-tail (entire phrase) keywords.

Be sure to add related categories to your boards. There should be a dropdown menu for this when you edit your board.

Also, include a board for JUST your products and/or blog posts. Don’t make it difficult for people to follow your original pins! I don’t know how many times I’ve come across a pinner who creates beautiful pins, but only pins them to group boards that I might not want to follow. No one should ever stumble on your Pinterest profile and have trouble finding pictures of what it is you actually sell.

*SEO tip: when you first add a new pin of yours to a board, pin it to the MOST relevant board first. This makes sure Pinterest understands exactly what the pin is about. Then, add that pin to your generic brand/business board later on.

5. Add Descriptions + Hashtags to Pins

In the same vein as the step above, add related long-tail keywords to your pin descriptions. Yes, this includes pins you’re re-pinning from others’ accounts – just don’t put as much time into those. One or two phrases should be fine there.

Pinterest prefers descriptions to be full sentences, not just keyword-stuffed jumbles of words. On your own pins, write a few sentences with your keywords in them, then add 3-5 related hashtags to the bottom.

Yep, Pinterest uses hashtags now! They’re just like Instagram hashtags. Pins with a specific hashtag will show up chronologically whenever someone searches for that hashtag.

6. Title Your Images Before You Upload

Before you upload an image directly to Pinterest, check to make sure the image’s name is relevant. Yes, it actually matters what the image is titled on your hard drive. The more relevant it is, the more SEO juice you’ll get.

7. Add Alt-Text to Images on Your Website

If you have a website, make sure to add alt-text to all your images. If someone pins an image from your site, the alt-text is what pulls in as the description.

This way, you’re saving people time by writing a description for them, and you’re making sure your pin is SEO-optimized so it gets seen by more people. Win-win!

But keep in mind: when it comes to image alt-text, it’s best to keep it short and avoid any hashtags or keyword-stuffing. Otherwise, you could hurt your Google rankings.

And there you have it. Soon enough, you’ll be beating off hordes of followers with a stick! Well, maybe not quite that. You’re probably a nice person. 🙂

How to Use Tailwind for Pinterest: The Ultimate Strategy Guide

 In this post, I’ll walk you through how to use Tailwind for Pinterest. Most importantly, I’ll reveal the exact strategies I use to get the most out of it (so you can, too!).

If you haven’t heard of Tailwind, it’s a game-changing scheduling app for Pinterest. It makes Pinterest marketing feel like a cake walk.

It’s hands-down my favorite social media tool for business.

Not only does it allow you to schedule your pins in advance, but it also has many other features, including Tailwind Communities (similar to group boards, but even better) and killer analytics.

Plus, Tailwind is an official partner of Pinterest, so that tells you they’re doing something right!

You’ll see the best results if you use Tailwind as a tool for elevating your Pinterest strategy. If you haven’t yet, I recommend optimizing your Pinterest profile and implementing a strong Pinterest SEO strategy.

Why is Tailwind so important for business owners?

There are many reasons why Tailwind is so powerful for small businesses and creative entrepreneurs. Here are the big ones:

• You can schedule pins at optimal times so you don’t have to be on Pinterest when you don’t want to be (yes, that means you can finally take a vacation!)
• It increases your reach & traffic on Pinterest by incentivizing other pinners to share your pins
• It saves you time by making it easy to find content to share
• You can easily loop your pins and schedule intervals to re-share your content without spamming
• You can track which pins you’ve already pinned to your own boards & your group boards (and how long ago you shared them)

Is Tailwind worth it?

I can’t promise you that you’ll get a certain number of followers, or a specific volume of traffic. But I CAN tell you how much of an impact it’s had on my own business.

Since joining Tailwind, my re-pin rates and click rates have gone up drastically, too. And really, when you use Pinterest for business, clicks should be your ultimate goal.

These are my personal results, but Tailwind also publishes the typical results of members every year.

They have a free plan, which lets you schedule 20 pins per month AND you can use Tailwind Communities, too!

Try it out and see if you like it! It’s hands down the best investment I’ve made in my business. From what I’ve seen, you can get wayyy more bang for your buck with Pinterest + Tailwind than using paid traffic sources like advertising.

Now, let’s move on to how Tailwind works and how to use it strategically to skyrocket your reach on Pinterest.

How to Use Tailwind for Scheduling Pins

One of Tailwind’s main features is its Pinterest scheduling.

It determines the best times for you to pin based on when your audience is typically online, and it queues up pins that you select. That way, you can pin during the best times (when your followers are on the platform) without being on Pinterest at all hours of the night.

You can view your schedule and move pins around easily. You can even shuffle pins, which is especially helpful if you like to batch-pin a lot of similar pins at once.

If you hover over a pin, you can see exactly which board it’s scheduled to pin to, and at what time.

[Mobile] How to schedule a pin to Tailwind from the Pinterest app

Install the Tailwind app

Hold down on an image in the Pinterest app

Select the ‘Send’ button

Tap ‘More Apps’

Tap ‘Tailwind’

Select the board(s) you want to schedule to

Add a keyword-rich description

Tap ‘Schedule’

[Desktop] How to schedule a pin to Tailwind from Pinterest OR from anywhere on the internet

Install the Tailwind extension for Google Chrome, Safari, or Firefox

Hover over any image

Click the Tailwind ‘Schedule’ icon

Type in the board(s) you want to schedule to

Add a keyword-rich description

Verify that the correct URL pulled in (it should automatically do this if you’re using the extension on your website)

Click the ‘Add to Queue now’ button

When you schedule a pin, you can also choose to select a custom time, share it to your Tailwind Communities, or add it to your SmartLoops. We’ll go into more detail on Communities later.

If you schedule the pin to multiple boards, you can set a specific interval between shares.

For example, if you want to share a pin to all your group boards, you can space it out by several days so you aren’t spamming.

How to Use Board Lists to Save Time

Board lists are a life-saver when it comes to scheduling a pin to multiple boards. I mainly use them for my group boards, but you can use them for your own boards, too.

Instead of having to schedule your pin to each group board individually, you can create a board list that has all of them. Then, you only have to type that one board list’s name, and they’ll all be selected.

Tip: you can use board lists to keep track of which pins you’ve already added to your group boards.

Here’s how:

Start as if you’re about to add a pin to your queue. You can also do this from your drafts.

Type in your group boards board list, and hit enter.

If an orange exclamation mark appears, that means you’ve shared a pin with that link to at least one of the selected boards.

If you click on the exclamation mark, Tailwind will tell you which boards the pin’s already been shared to and how long ago it was added.

This is so helpful for making sure you’re not adding duplicates if a group board doesn’t allow them. I’m sure I’m not the only one who likes to avoid getting kicked out of group boards! This trick makes it a lot easier to follow board rules.

How to Set Interval Scheduling for a Pin

When you do schedule a pin to multiple boards at once, you want to make sure they won’t be pinned all at once. This is especially important for group boards, since many have a rule that you can only pin a maximum number of pins per day.

That’s where interval scheduling comes in. It allows you to easily space out your pin’s schedule by a certain number of days.

Here’s how it works:

Click the Tailwind icon to add a pin to your queue

Select the boards or board list you want the pin shared to

Click ‘Set Interval’

Select the date & time you want the interval to start

Choose the number of days to wait before the next time the pin is shared

Choose if you want the timing to be based on open time slots, optimized (create new time slots), or an exact time

View the scheduled preview that appears

If you’re happy with it, click Set Interval

Your pins will now show up in your scheduled queue, spread out based on the interval you set.

Tailwind Communities

Tailwind Communities are similar to group boards. In my opinion, they’re even better!

Each Community is a group of pinners in a particular niche or with a shared purpose. For example, there are Communities for Etsy sellers, bloggers, and all types of online businesses.

You use Communities as you would use group boards: by sharing your own content so others can re-pin it. And, just like for group boards, there’s an expectation that you’ll reciprocate by sharing others’ content from the Community.

It’s a mutual partnership, and the concept works very well. Communities are even better than group boards because it’s easier to tell if someone isn’t following the rules.

Plus, pins that are re-pinned through Tailwind Communities are considered ‘new’ pins, as if they have been saved from your website. This tells Pinterest that your content is high quality and worth sharing.

Another awesome perk of Tailwind Communities: if you create & share quality pins, power pinners might re-share them to their much larger audiences.

I’ve also had pinners share my pins to a bunch of their group boards for even more reach. It’s such a good feeling. And if it can happen for me, it can happen for you, too.

Again, these are my personal results. There’s no guarantee that all of this will happen. But I want to show you it’s possible!

Now, let’s delve further into how to use Tailwind Communities strategically.

How to Share a Pin to Your Tailwind Communities

You can share a pin to your Tailwind Communities the same way you add it to your queue.

Find the pin (in your drafts in the Tailwind app or site, or using the Tailwind extension on Pinterest or your website)

Select the ‘Add to Communities’ button

Choose which Communities to share your pin to, and click ‘Add to Community’

If you hover over the red exclamation point, you can see the last time you added this link to your Communities, if it was with a different image, and when it was added. This helps you avoid adding duplicate pins too often.

Keep in mind: the amount of monthly Community submissions you’ll have depends on your membership level. If you decide you want to share more pins per month than the basic level comes with, you can purchase PowerUps.

To save yourself some time, save a draft of each new pin you create in Tailwind with your description and URL entered. Then, you can easily share it to your Communities at different times throughout the week without having to create a new pin each time.

How do I find the best Communities for me?

If you haven’t joined Tailwind yet, you can use the free plan to explore Communities in your niche and submit 30 pins per month!

You can tell a Community is high quality if it has a lot of engagement. The green bars next to the Community’s name will tell you how active it is.

Click the ‘preview Community’ button, and you’ll be able to see its detailed stats on the left hand side of the screen.

Check if the Community is active, and if they have good re-share and re-pin metrics. These are good indicators that it’s worth joining.

When deciding which Communities to join, consider your niche and your audience. Often, it’s better to join a smaller Community that’s more in line with your business than a larger, more generic one.

Some Communities are public, and some can only be joined by request or invitation.

To get you started, here’s a list of 10 Tailwind Communities for online shops and creative small businesses:

All Handmade Pin Exchange

Artists Unite

#BadassCreatives

Beautiful Printables

Best of Etsy Products

Creative Entrepreneurs

Etsy Handmade Creations | Small Business

Etsy Lovers- All Things Etsy

Promote MeCommerce

Etsy Mini Mall Tribe

And here’s a list of 10 Communities for online entrepreneurs and bloggers:

Action-Taking Business Owners Community

Best Blogging and Social Media Tips

Blog + Biz Babes

Bloggers + Creative Infopreneurs Tribe

Bloggers Chalkboard

Blogging & Social Media Pins [Run By ClarityAvenue]

Digital Marketing Tribe

Share Blog + Biz Tips

Small Biz Besties

Small Business

How do I join exclusive Tailwind Communities?

You can usually request to join an exclusive Community. Be sure to include an introduction about yourself and your business.

If you don’t feel like waiting, however, there are other ways to find invitations.

Secret tip: you can find a link for most exclusive (‘Request to Join’) Tailwind Communities by Googling the name of the Community in quotation marks + the words ‘Tailwind Community’.

Another good way to find invite links is to find out who the Community owner/creator is. Check out their blog posts related to Tailwind to see if they’ve included a link there.

I was able to find a LOT of Community invite links using these methods, and it’s quicker than sending a request to join.

But again, no matter how much you use Tailwind or Communities, you won’t be successful if you don’t create quality pins or follow the Community rules. Nobody likes a spammer!

Tailwind Communities Best Practices

Always share others’ pins more often than you add your own.

Adhere to the Community rules. Some Communities request that you only add a certain amount of pins per day. Others may request that you only add graphics that are longer than they are wide (also known as vertical pins). Be sure you’re only adding pins that are relevant to that Community’s topics.

Typically, these rules are there to discourage spamming and low quality pins. They help make the Community run smoothly, so do your best to follow them!

Continue to Evaluate Your Communities

After you’ve been a Community member for a while, evaluate your stats. See if each Community has been a good fit for you.

You can find this information on the Communities page, under the Community’s description.

Maybe certain topics or types of pins do better than others in that particular Community. Look at the content you’ve shared to see what’s been re-shared the most. That will give you a good idea of the type of pins you should continue sharing to that Community.

You can even create your own Community! Invite others in your circle who you think would be strong contributors.

Pinterest for Business

 Hmmm, Pinterest for Business? Really?

Yes, it’s not a secret anymore that Pinterest will bring you the most traffic to your blog, website, or any other place. And not only that, your sales will grow significantly if you do it right.

Why do most bloggers, entrepreneurs, and marketers see an increase in sales? Well, it’s because over 80% of Pinterest users are BUYERS!

You won’t find that many on Facebook or Instagram.

That’s why it’s so important to use Pinterest for business. And there is another great news you should know – you can get MASSIVE Traffic for FREE!

1.) Why you should use Pinterest for business:

Reason #1: Most Pinterest users are buyers:

As I said before, the first reason is that over 80% of Pinterest users are buyers. You can reach out to a lot of people without struggling and wasting a ton of your time in front of your computer.

Reason #2: You won’t waste too much time reaching more people:

To be honest with you, I spent at least 4 hours more in front of a computer when I was using Facebook. There is nothing wrong with Facebook (I still use it), but if you want to reach out to more people, you will have to invest in ads. I can say that I’m not a Social Media slave anymore just because I started using Pinterest.

Reason #3: Pinterest ads are way cheaper and more powerful:

Another reason you should use Pinterest for business is that you can use its ads. You will invest way less money than with Facebook ads. The only problem that I see here is that Pinterest ads are not global.

2.) How to set up a Pinterest account for your business:

STEP #1:

You have two options here. If you already have a Pinterest personal profile, you can simply convert it to a business account.

OPTION 1: Convert a personal account to a business account:

Log in to your Pinterest profile account

Go to pinterest.com/business/convert/

Fill out your business name and website, then select a business type

Click Create account

OPTION 2: Create a new business account:

If you have a personal account but don’t want to convert it, go to pinterest.com/logout to log out

Go to pinterest.com/business/create/

Fill out your email, password, and business name, then select a business type

Click Create account

STEP #2:

Complete your Pinterest for a business account:

First, upload your headshot photo (smile on the photo)

Choose your username (it should be the name of your brand or just your name if you are branding yourself) – Include some keywords (for example, Pinterest for Business Tips, Ideas for Weight Loss…)

Complete your bio (include keywords – SEO optimized so that your business account will get ranked higher up and you will get in front of your targeted audience)

Also, you can add your location

And don’t forget to add your website 

STEP #3:

How to verify your website on Pinterest:

Log in to Pinterest from a web browser and click the arrow in your top right corner to open your menu.

Select Settings

Click “Claim” and enter your website URL, then click Claim. 

Select “Add HTML tag”

Then copy the tag and click Next

Go to the index.html file of your website and add the tag to the <head> section before the <body> section

Then go back to Pinterest and click Submit

STEP #4:

Your next step is to set up Pinterest rich pins:

You will need to add metadata to the content on your website.

Then you will have to verify your Rich Pins before you go to Pinterest

Then go to Rich Pins Validator:

If you read all the steps from the Pinterest help site, then you know you have to go to Rich Pins Validator. There you will see which steps to take next. This is how the site will look like:

You only need to do this once from any link on your website. Then you will enable Rich Pins for your whole domain.

3.) How to automate your Pinterest with their scheduler:

You can schedule your static or video pins inside Pinterest. Click ‘Create’ in the top left corner, then choose ‘Create Pin’.

There you can upload your graphics or videos, fill out the title, description, alt text, add a link, and choose the most relevant board.

At the bottom, you will see two options:

Publish immediately

Publish at a later date

Click ‘Publish at a later date’ and choose the date and time when you want your pin to be published.

4.) Create Pins for Pinterest:

Pinterest is a visual search engine, which means you have to create attractive pins. The pin images have to be vertical .

The ratio should be 2:3 – for example, 1000 x 1500 pixels. Here are other 2:3 ratio sizes:

I mostly use the size 1000 x 1500 px for static pins, and 1080 x 1920 px for idea pins.

Before you start making pins, you should know what they will look like. I’m talking about colors and fonts. Your brand is not just you, your products, or your services. It’s also the looks of your visuals.

Besides the high-quality images, you should always include the same colors and fonts. 

5.) How to grow your Pinterest account:

The number of followers is not that important but you should still grow it. The more followers you have, the more people see your pins. So here is what you should do:

At the end of each blog post, ask people to follow you on Pinterest 

When sending an email to your audience, including the call to action to follow you on Pinterest

Add a pin widget to your blog

Add a Pinterest share button to your blog

When making a video, you can include a call to action at the end

6.) Know your targeted audience:

You have to know who your targeted audience is. Not everyone is interested in what you have, so if you don’t want to waste your time, you have to figure out who are they, where they hang out (online or offline), and more.

You can create detailed customer personas and tailor your marketing efforts to your target audience by answering these questions. 

This can help you better connect with your potential customers, create more compelling content, and ultimately grow your business.

7.) Check your analytics:

And here we go with the boring part – at least it used to be boring to me. And that’s why I made the biggest mistake – NOT CHECKING THE ANALYTICS.

That’s why I wasted a ton of time doing stuff that didn’t work at all. I don’t want you to repeat my mistake. If you want to do Pinterest for business, then analyzing how your pins are doing is a must!

You can find the analytics in the top left corner of your Pinterest account. Click on overview and check all the stats. But I suggest you focus on your blog analytics more because Pinterest analytics are not that accurate.

HOW TO KEYWORD ON PINTEREST

 A question comes often is — how important is it to keyword on Pinterest? The answer — so important! But there is a right way and a wrong way to do it. Pinterest is a search and discovery network. Pinners are searching for ideas, dreams, plans, goals, recipes and more. In order to find your content, they need to search for certain terms. We need to make sure your content has those terms so they can find you in a sea of pins. 

So here’s the skinny about keywording on Pinterest and the what, why, where and how. Alright, let’s dive in.

WHAT IS PINTEREST KEYWORDING?

Keywording is a process of adding specific words from your niche allowing Pinterest users to find the content they are searching for. Example, I search “modern farmhouse bathroom lights” I hope that Pinterest will return back all those results. Why? Because I really want to find an exact match to what I’m looking for.

Learn more about SEO and Pinterest here.

Keywording is a way to help organize content. For example, if I’m a user searching for DIY Floating Shelves, then Pinterest will pull all pins with those words in the pin description. They may pull other relevant content with DIY, Shelves, Floating, etc. Their platform is still evolving so you may get a few items that are not directly related but it’s going to get as close as it can.

Moral of the story? Be specific and strategic with keywords. 

Note that Pinterest keywording is very different than Google. At this time there is not keyword tool that will allow you to see the ranking of keywords on Pinterest. You can use the recently released Pinterest Trends tool which could turn into the main keyword tool for Pinterest.

WHAT KEYWORDING IS NOT!

It’s not a way to game the system. It’s a way to ensure the right people find your content. That’s where you get qualified leads and people added to your tribe. Let me say this as well, don’t sweep wide here. I’ve heard people say you should maximize for all areas — quotes, food, DIY, Style, Fashion, etc. However, if none of those areas have your target person, do not keyword for them. Be specific and strategic with keywords. If you don’t create content or sell products in the wedding space, don’t have a board for weddings.

WHY KEYWORD ON PINTEREST?

Let’s say you have a very niche business and you’re looking to target a specific person. You want to make sure a mom, early 20s, 3 kids and does not work outside the home, finds your content about being a stay at home mom. You would add specific keywords to help her find the articles you know will give her the tools to be effective in her daily life.

For me, I want to specifically target people interested in Pinterest marketing and management. Every board, board description and pin description should include those keywords in a natural-sounding way. I’ll explain more about how that looks below.

The other reason to keyword is to help the algorithm on Pinterest know how to categorize your content and share with those that may not follow you but are interested in the topic.

HOW TO KEYWORD ON PINTEREST

Use simple words that fit into your niche. I used to say break it into three parts and add personality, but now that Pinterest has dialed back what you see in descriptions, it’s best to be brief and straight to the point. You can use up to 500 characters in your pin description.

Here’s an example:

How to clean up Pinterest boards in five easy steps. Are you lost in how to make your boards look professional and engaging for your audience? Learn more tips about how to utilize Pinterest marketing in your business from the Simple Pin Podcast!

If you are using hashtags in your pin descriptions, stop. Adding hashtags is no longer valuable on Pinterest. 

The end-user is mainly looking at the image. If the image gives them all the information they need, they will look there first. If the image is blank they will look to the description. They don’t need fancy they just need informative.

WHERE TO KEYWORD ON PINTEREST

Okay, so the very first place we always optimize images is on your site. When you write a post, speaking specifically to those using WordPress, and you add an image, you will want to put your keywords into the Pinterest description box. Stay away from the alt-text. This is specifically for the visually impaired. See image below for an example.

So why do we want to keyword this first? Because when someone pins your pin, this specific description will be pulled up as the description that ‘travels’ with the pin.

For example, you’ve just created this amazing post about DIY Floating Shelves and spent hours on it and you’re so excited to have it rock Pinterest. You release your post and people start pinning it but the alt text says “image o8315”. Whoops! And if you don’t have Rich Pins, then people really can’t tell what it is beside the image. See where I’m going with this?

If you don’t know where to start in updating older posts with the Pinterest description, I suggest you use the search bar to see what keywords come up in relation to your post. You can also use the “More Like This” to see what content is coming up as related to your older pin.

PIN DESCRIPTIONS

If you’ve already filled in your Pinterest description, you won’t have to do anything when you pin a pin. However, if you want to upload a pin directly, you will need to add a pin description. 

I have a planner landing page for my Pinterest planner and have 3 different images that go to that landing page. I would like to pin all of them to my Simple Pin board, so I upload the first image, and THEN I’ll need to add a description to the pin. Once I do that I can add the pin and then edit it to add the URL to my landing page.

This is one of the only times you’ll need to add a pin description. Or you can edit them on existing pins. Note, when you edit it will not automatically update existing pins. It’s one at a time kind of thing. You can also add in the title here with 4-5 words.

PROFILE

Your profile is a great place to add keywords and it’s one that is often overlooked. There are two places you can add the keywords

First, your business name.

I have Simple Pin Media with the keyword Pinterest marketing next to my name.

Next is your profile description. Use this section to let them know how you’re going to serve them with the type of content or niche you are. You can use the same keywords you used in your business name.

BOARD TITLES

Use simple words but consider who your target person is. You are under no obligation here to sweep wide unless of course, your audience is wide (like in the case of a lifestyle blogger). But if you’re more targeted to the DIY home project crowd, be specific in the type of titles you use for your boards. Maybe every board title has DIY in it. Get creative but be consistent.

Key takeaway: the goal in keywording is to target your audience.

BOARD DESCRIPTIONS

This is a place where you will tell the user what you will pin on the board. Be smart about writing complete sentences. You can add several sentences here, but I wouldn’t spend too much time doing that. 2-3 is perfectly acceptable.

KNOW YOUR PINTEREST AUDIENCE

The goal in keywording is to target your audience. To attract the person you want to see your content. If you’re stuck on which keywords to use, start with a simple list. Or start with who that person is and make a quick story about them and their lifestyle. Then come up with a list of boards to create or update. 

How to Increase Your Website Traffic in 2024 and Beyond

 What good is your website if nobody actually sees it? It’s the number one struggle that entrepreneurs have when they come to me to help them with their marketing. 

What I see is that entrepreneurs will build their website, they’re doing it themselves, they’re hiring a graphic designer, they’re hiring a team to do it, and then it sits there. And they’re like, well, I spent all this time, I spent all this energy, I spent some money building this website, but no one’s actually finding it except for maybe a handful of people that saw it the day that you announced that you had a new website. 

We’ve all been there.

I had a website for about two years before people started to find it because I didn’t know about the strategies I’m sharing with you today.

Now, more than 10,000 people land on my website every single month!

You’re going to notice with these four tips, I’m sharing today, that I do not talk about social media. 

Listen, social media is an asset. I am not saying there’s anything wrong with marketing your business on social media. But when we are talking about consistent quality leads, there are other avenues that you want to have in place for your business. 

Social media just isn’t the top dog when it comes to marketing your business anymore. And many of my clients actually are overwhelmed with the process of using social media every single day. 

I use the analogy that it feels like you’re shooting a paper airplane into a sea of people and hoping it hits the right person. The strategies I’m about to share with you are very different and they focus on client attraction.

But, before we get into all of my favorite ways to drive consistent traffic and quality leads to your website, let us first talk about the importance of your website. 

THE IMPORTANCE OF YOUR WEBSITE AS AN ENTREPRENEUR

Now, I know there’s a lot of information floating around the internet on whether or not you need a website and how much energy and time should go into your website. 

But I truly believe that one of the greatest assets to entrepreneurs and small business owners is their website. We actually refer to it as your home base over here  because that is essentially what it is.

If you needed to create one spot with all of the information for your ideal customer, whether they are coming in at the beginning of the buying process, just knowing they have a problem and not sure how to solve it, all the way to ready to pull out their credit card and purchase your products and your services, you can create your website. 

Your website will serve as your home base. 

It is where you get to share your story. 

It’s where you get to share strong language and connect with your audience. 

It’s where you get to share powerful resources in the form of a blog, a podcast, or a YouTube channel. 

It is where you get to share full sales pages of your offers so people can get all of the information that they need.

It’s truly one of my favorite things to support entrepreneurs in creating. But it also can take a really long time. You don’t need to have some fancy, beautifully designed website if you don’t have a) the budget or b) the time to take care of that. 

You just want a central location with your info. 

INCREASE WEBSITE TRAFFIC TIP #1

OPTIMIZE FOR SEARCH ENGINES (SEO)

One of the first things that you want to do when you create your new website is making sure that it’s optimized for search engines, specifically for Google. 

Now, there’s a lot of different ways to handle this. I actually talk about SEO specifically  right here where I talk about the strategy for SEO, how to create site-wide SEO and some of my favorite ways to boost your overall rankings. 

But so many people will create their website and they forget about the technical, very strategic backend that comes into play for site-wide SEO.

We also tend to gravitate a little bit more towards thinking of SEO in terms of blogging, and that is powerful, but what I want you to focus on first and foremost is making sure that your pages, your headings, your site descriptions are optimized.

INCREASE WEBSITE TRAFFIC TIP #2

PINTEREST

My second favorite way to drive traffic to my website and the website of my clients are using Pinterest. 

Oh my gosh, I swear this is my love language. I used to use Pinterest as a consumer all the time. Maybe you’re like me and you use it to look up recipes and home decor and clothes that you’re going to pack for your next vacation and you never really thought about using it for business. 

Well, back in some years, I recognized that a lot of bloggers were using Pinterest and there had to be a way for us to use Pinterest to build our service-based business at the time. So I started exploring it.

I was already blogging, so I looked at ways that I could optimize that. I figured if my ideal customer was already there looking for lifestyle things, what are the odds that they would be there to look for business pieces as well?

We started to see that traffic was consistently coming to my blog. So rather than the one day a week when I shared my blog on social media or emailed my list, I was getting views every single day from Pinterest. That’s when I fell in love with it and went all in. 

And to this day, we have over a million viewers on Pinterest every single month. And one of my favorite ways to use Pinterest, obviously, is in connection with a blog.

Blogging is a great way for you to have valuable resources, high-value content on your website to support your ideal customer through the buying journey so that if someone’s coming in at the very first stage and we’re wanting to move them through to the purchase stage, we have great information and resources there to show our authority and our expertise.

Blogging is also a fantastic way to improve your SEO rankings because Google, as we mentioned in number one, wants to know that you have high-quality content on your website and that you are backing up what you say that you’re doing within your industry with content. 

So blogging tells Google, oh, this person is an expert in personal branding and they talk about it all the time on the blog. But then, in addition to that, we can use Pinterest to drive consistent traffic to our website so when we post a blog it doesn’t just disappear or we cross our fingers and hope that it shows up in Google. We can make sure that it’s showing up on Pinterest.

When you’re writing your blogs, it’s important to create content you know your audience is searching for so that you’re showing up in that way, while also providing value.

A blog can serve so many purposes.

Imagine someone who doesn’t know anything about your brand and finds your post on Pinterest, they now have brand awareness.

The same can happen on Google.

Now imagine someone follows you on Instagram or is on your email list and thinking about working with you. They can see the value you provide and your blog and it might be the turning point for moving your relationship to paying client.

Blogging is incredibly powerful and can also be used to repurpose your content on other platforms, just another way to drive traffic back to your website. 

• Consistent pinning is important, meaning you don’t just post one pin a week. We recommend at least three times a week with 10-15 pins each of those days. 
• You’ll want to create eye-catching images for the platform, and a few variations for each piece of content. 
• Just like Google, Pinterest is a search engine which means your titles and keywords matter. Take the time to research those!

INCREASE WEBSITE TRAFFIC TIP #3

YOUTUBE

Speaking of search engines, we cannot miss an opportunity to talk about YouTube. 

YouTube just like the other two that I’ve mentioned before, is a powerful platform because it again is a search engine, meaning that your ideal customer is coming to this platform to search for very specific topics. 

Since it’s a search engine it brings in quality leads because people are searching for your resources. In addition, video is a great way to build a connection because your audience is able to see and hear you. It’s one of the reasons I post weekly videos on Youtube!

YouTube is also a great way to build that know, like, and trust factor, to expand brand awareness, brand attraction, and to again get people off of the platform. 

So there’s a lot of creative ways that you can think about using YouTube. While I prefer camera face-to-face video, you could also explore repurposing your podcast onto the platform. 

You could explore creating trainings (think slideshows) if you don’t want your face on camera and putting those onto the platform. 

Just as with all of these strategies, make sure that you’re paying attention to search engine optimization, that you’re paying attention to what you’re naming your video, the tags, the description because that’s going to play a role in how your videos are viewed.

INCREASE WEBSITE TRAFFIC TIP #4

PUBLIC RELATIONS

And finally, number four, this is a tip and a tool that is so dear to my heart because it’s actually my background. 

One of my favorite ways to drive traffic to my website, to build that know, like, and trust factor with my ideal customer, and ultimately expand the awareness of my brand is through features. 

Now, by features I mean podcasts, interviews, guest speaking opportunities, featured in a publication. It is absolutely amazing what happens when you get in front of a new audience through one of these trusted platforms. 

So of course, we got a lot of traffic and some of those people weren’t the right fit. They just wanted to see what my business is about. But a lot of that traffic did convert.

CONCLUSION

Those are four of my favorite ways and truly underrated ways to drive traffic to your website. 

It’s not enough to rely on social media. It just isn’t going to work in your favor for consistent traffic, not to mention you’ve got to consistently be posting. 

With the platforms that I shared with you, one piece of content can live for a really long time or one strategy that you implement can drive traffic to your website for years and years to come.

How to Brainstorm New Content When You’re Feeling Stuck

 Maintaining a blog for your brand has countless benefits. At GoLive, our blog has been a constant source of traffic for the business over the years. Our blog is meant to provide female entrepreneurs with helpful content on everything from website design to social media marketing and our ideal clients often find us through our blog posts–whether they come up during a Google search, on Pinterest, or through our Instagram. All that to say, our blog has been a valuable component of our brand and we truly believe that it’s an essential part of marketing for any business.  The key to getting the most value out of a blog, however, is consistency. 

Blogging regularly for your business… 

Provides your audience with helpful resources, which ultimately boosts your credibility  

Drives more traffic to your website through SEO, and when you share the posts on social media 

Builds relationships between your brand and potential or existing clients or customers

Gives you more content to share on other outlets like social media or your email list  

Whether you’ve been producing blog posts for years or are about to dive into producing content for the first time, consistently coming up with engaging blog post topics can feel like the most intimidating part of the process. But before you start to feel overwhelmed thinking that you need to come up with tons of award-winning blog post topics right off the bat, just know that it’s okay to feel stuck. At the end of the day, you are an expert in whatever service or product you provide so you have all the information. You just need a few brainstorming methods to get the creative juices flowing. Our biggest tip for brainstorming new content is to think about your ideal customer or client. Your blog, social media, and ultimately your business, revolves around providing them with something–whether that something is helpful, inspirational, or entertaining. So it only makes sense that your blog should focus on your customer and being a go-to resource for them.  If you’re feeling stuck on what to write about for your brand’s blog, here are a few ways to brainstorm new blog post ideas.  

5 Ways to Brainstorm New Blog Post Ideas

01. Use Google (or other searchable websites)

Where is the first place you turn to when you’re stumped or have a question? Google, right? Well, the search engine can also be a handy resource when you’re trying to brainstorm new blog post ideas. By using Google, you can search for topics that you’ve covered on your blog before and see what else comes up in the results.   For example, let’s say you are a social media manager and typically write about social media marketing tips on your blog. To find more topics to write about you could search for “social media marketing” and see that “social media marketing tools” and “social media marketing for beginners” pop up in the related searches. This gives you two starting topics that could then be splintered into several blog posts. You can also refer to the “People also ask” or “People also search for” section to determine what other angles people may be interested in. There are even tools like Answer the Public that will essentially do this for you. Simply type in a topic or keyword, and the tool will populate tons of related phrases or questions that people are searching around that topic.  

PRO TIP: Give the blog post a searchable title. Naming your blog post with a title that people would actually search for increases the chances of the post showing up in search results. As you’re writing, think about what someone would type into the Google search bar. With the social media marketing example, you can see that a common search term is “social media marketing tools.” To personalize this phrase but still make it searchable, you could name your blog post “10 Must-Have Social Media Marketing Tools For Small Businesses.”  

02. Ask Your Audience

Go directly to the source and ask your audience what topics they want to read about on the blog. Your blog is designed to serve them, afterall, so it only makes sense to invite your readers to join the conversation. Asking your audience to share their input will not only encourage engagement but it will give you a clear idea of what they are interested in learning more about.   If you send a weekly newsletter, ask your audience to reply to the email with blog post topics that they’re interested in. Or, you can post a poll or questions sticker on your Instagram Stories asking your followers what questions they want answered on your blog.  

03. Use your own content as inspiration 

 If you’ve been creating blog content for a while, then you’re in luck–you already have a well of inspiration at your fingertips! All you need to do is determine how to repurpose your current content to create something fresh.  Start by taking a look at your top-performing blog posts–these are popular for a reason. Can you break down the main topic of one of these posts into a few different topics? For example, maybe you are a wedding photographer and one of your most popular blog posts is about the best wedding venues in your area. Consider breaking it up into more specific blog posts like best outdoor wedding venues, best wedding venues for small weddings, most unique wedding venues, etc.  

04. See what your competitors are writing about 

There’s no harm in seeing what your competition is up to. If you need some inspiration, visit their blog to see what they’ve written about lately. Just remember: this method is simply for inspiration, and it’s important not to copy anything they’ve done.   Instead, see if there’s a topic they’ve covered that you’ve yet to write about. You can write about the same topic but put your brand’s own unique spin on it.  Another good place to look for topic ideas is on your competitor’s social media. But rather than checking out the content they’ve been posting, take a look through the comments section to see what their audience may be asking them in relation to the topics you write about. The comments section is always a goldmine of ideas, whether on Instagram, TikTok or LinkedIn.   When you’re in the same industry as another brand, there will always be overlap in the services you provide or topics you cover on your blog. The key is to determine what differs you from the competition and highlight that in your blog posts.  

05. Think about what your ideal client or customer would want to read before they’d book or buy from you 

Put yourself in your ideal client’s shoes and imagine what they’d be interested in reading about that would lead them to you. For example, if you are a wedding photographer, then your ideal client is most likely a new bride that is in the midst of wedding planning. Some things she could be searching for are how to plan a wedding, the best wedding venues in her area, or tips for creating a wedding budget.   Or, if you’re a graphic designer for small businesses, then your ideal client is likely a small business owner who may be getting ready to launch their new business. They may be searching for tips on creating a brand identity, building a website, or how to create a logo.  By writing about these topics on your blog, you could potentially draw in your customer during their planning phase which means you would be top of mind when the client is ready to book or buy. 

When you are seeking inspiration for new blog posts, the main takeaway is that you don’t need to reinvent the wheel! Everything you need to brainstorm new topics is already at your disposal. By keeping your audience in mind, using tools like Google, and relying on your own expertise, you can consistently come up with blog post topics that will position your brand as a resource and draw in potential clients and customers in no time.