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Lesson Info

Driving Traffic

All right, so let's talking driving traffic, 'cause, ultimately, we love that people are experiencing our business on Pinterest, but we definitely want them to see so much more of what we have to offer, and Pinterest wants to help you do that too. Pinterest can drive incremental traffic for months and years to come. Like, we've really established that this is a place for your content to live and breathe forever. It's like eternal. And, ultimately, we need to make sure that we're prepared for driving traffic. So, I want you to think about your website, and I want you to think about, what do you want people to, ultimately, do when they get to your website? What is really what you're trying position and set themselves for when they're coming from Pinterest to your site. Is it comments on a blog post? Is it subscription to your newsletter? Is it to buy a product? Is it to follow you on social media? Is it to take a survey? Is it to share a post? Watch a video? Click an ad or link? Figure o...

ut what the ultimate conversion is for you. And, then, I would say, for me, it's a subscription to my newsletter. So, I have a popup on my site. I would say popups in general are probably not a good, best SEO practice, but that's really my goal, is to grow my email base, so, that's what I have right away when they come to my site, that's what they're offered. So, just think about that. Like, is it a shopping experience? Or is it following on social media? So, you want to make sure that your website is, ultimately, optimized for clickthroughs. So, you want to make sure that you have fast load time on your website. So, websites that load really slow, Pinterest is not going to give priority to that. Again, Pinterest's whole goal is create a really good user experience. What's more frustrating for a Pinner than to be on Pinterest and be directed to a site that is taking forever to load? Make sure your landing page makes sense for your pin, so you're not misleading them. Add the save button to your website. So, let's help people do PR for us. We want to give them an opportunity to pin things from our websites. And, so, that's the little Pin It button you can install, where people hover over your image, and then the little button pops up to indicate they can pin it. It increases saves up to five times. So, you're missing out on an opportunity if that is not installed on your website. And then you want to make sure that you're creating good blog post titles, that are compelling, like, really not just general ideas. Just give them a good hook. Add the follow button. So, that's going to help drive traffic, in that, more people are going to be following you. And, then, on Pinterest, and, therefore, senior content, and then repinning your content, which is going to drive traffic back to your site, so, you want to make sure that they're following you. And make sure that your pins from your site have good alt text descriptions. So, that's that metadata that I was mentioning. When someone pins something from your site, you have the ability to actually add a description, a suggested description for the pin. Of course, they could always edit that and put it into their own words. But most people are lazy, and they just want to pin and save the idea, so, give it the best chance by stuffing it with those keywords, in, like, a non-spammy way, like, write actual sentences, don't just put like green, navy, leather, brown, winter, fall. Make sense with your pin. But take an opportunity to add that metadata. If you use WordPress, you can use a plugin that can help you do that. There's Yoast, which is a really great WordPress plugin. But take time to do that, and, also, I should say, when you are saving your image files, make sure to, instead of like image, like img_1234, make sure to write, you know, Navy Jumpsuit Fall. Put keywords there too. And this is going through my flow of how I share my content on Pinterest. So, I pin consistently, so, I'm already pinning within the community, and then I'm pinning from my site every single day. Don't shy away from volume. To that person's question, make sure you're pinning. Don't feel like you're going to get dinged by sharing a lot of content. You're not gonna get dinged, just make sure, if you're sharing a lot of content, you're doing it consistently, and not just in one thing. You want to organize it well to relevant boards, and the first five pins, so, this is kind of how the algorithm is. The first five pins that you save each day are gonna be prioritized for distribution. So, make sure that those first five pins count. So, that means when you're logging into Pinterest, and you're sharing, make those first five pins the ones that you really want people to see. Include UTM tags in your links. So, this is where you can create UTM tags with Google Analytics, and where you can add that to every link, when you upload a pin, you put the link of the pin there, you can add a tag there. That's going to give you additional information and data on what happens when people click on that link, and what happens after that. And to get more eyes on your pins, you should consider including your pins in your newsletter, like, "Hey, guys, I'm on Pinterest. "Did you see this pin? "Look at this awesome pin." Work with influencer like me. Say, "Alex, man, you have got to check out "my new product. "Would you consider pinning this?" I can tell you. Just ask me. I might shoot myself in the foot right now. I'm gonna get a ton of emails, but I don't mind. If it's a really cool product, and I think other people would like it, and I like it, I would love to pin it. We love sharing great ideas. It is my best interest to find a really cool idea and share it. That means I'm gonna get more engagement. So, tell me about it. Find those influencers that you connect with, or that you think you are gonna connect with your product and service, and tell them about it. Or, work with us to even create content, that's gonna be like, you know, "I have this great business consulting service, "and I don't really know how to create a good image "or a pin that goes with it. "Alex would you mind working with me, "and we'll create some cool content together?" And then I would share it with my community as part of our partnership. That's what influencer do all the time. Use promoted pins. So, as we'll talk about in our ads for Pinterest class, we're gonna talk about promoted pins, and how effective they are, and the fact that people love ads on Pinterest, which I think is amazing. 'Cause other than the Super Bowl, I don't know any other time that people want to watch ads, except on Pinterest. Virality, ultimately, takes time. And three and a half months to reach a half life. So, just be patient. When you're sharing your content, and you're like, man, and you check back in two days, "Man, people think it's terrible. It sucks." Don't judge yourself. Give yourself some grace. Give yourself some time. It takes time for it to grow. So, when you want to measure things, you want to look at your analytic monthly views and impressions, and this is going to tell you, you know, who's really engaging with your content, and who's actually seeing it. And I think you're gonna be surprised, because, as we talked about, it's really like a 10x reach, so, it's well beyond your following, and, then, hopefully, that gives you encouragement. You want to look at what they're saving, so, which pins are actually being saved, and that way you can create more content around that. And you want to know which boards are working for you. So, then you know, "Mm, I should make sure to always pin to this board." Of course, you want to make sure it's relevant. So, if you have a board that's all about rugs, and it's really popular, and you start pinning chairs to it, I mean, it's kind of spammy. Maybe change the position of the board, and you can talk about home decor. Just be thinking about your strategy there. What are the interests? So, Pinterest analytics will tell you the popular interest of your audience, and you might find some cool things, like, "Oh, my audience all these things "that I'm talking about, "but they also love fitness. "I don't have a fitness board. "Maybe I should make one, "because I do also like fitness, "and that could be another connection point." And you want to pay attention to your website traffic, so, that's where you would make sure to, Pinterest will tell you the traffic that they're directing to your site, but you, as a best practice, want to look at Google analytics, 'cause like, you know, the golden rule, and just look at that as, like, "Okay, what's actually happening here?" So, some tools that you will need to do that, would be the Pinterest analytics, with your business account, Google Analytics, and then there's a third-party Pinterest app called Tailwind. I use that sometimes to schedule pins. So, as we talked about with consistency, and that being a priority, sometimes I'm on vacation, and I don't want to pin, and that's okay. It's okay to take a break from social media, but in order to be consistent, I also use Tailwind as a scheduler for my pins. And, in general, this is just some good resources for you guys. The Pinterest Newsroom is where you get the updates on the latest products that they're coming out with. And they have a Pinterest Business Board, so, a board on Pinterest, on Pinterest Pinterest Profile. That's weird to say. Where you can follow that for anything to help businesses. And, then, there's resources for developers, and, of course, a help desk, anytime someone's trying to hack your account, or you just don't understand something. You can always reach out to Pinterest, and someone will reach right back to you. I've had the best customer experience on Pinterest. Ultimately, look at the data, and adjust your game plan based on the data. But if this is overwhelming you, which I know I just threw a heck of a lot information on you, I would love to help you. That is what I do. So, I help people overhaul all their account. Like, some people are like, "Man, I have 150 boards, "and this is just a lot for me to do." I love cleaning. I love cleaning and organizing. Let me help you do that. If you need someone to just maintain your account, 'cause you feel like you don't have time, I would love to do that for you. My favorite thing in the whole wide world, as you guys know, is content creation, and creating really awesome images and pins, which I'll talk about in the promoted pins section. And, of course, I do strategy sessions for brands and private classes. If this wasn't private enough, and need me to go over it again, I would be more than happy to. So, give me a ring. Connect with me on social. If you follow me on Instagram at avestyles, I don't talk about Pinterest hardly at all, but I love talking about my life, and you can connect with me there. So, I would love to take a time to open up to questions. Absolutely. So, first the audience. So, how do travel boards do on Pinterest? They're supporting local travel in the city, and the local businesses that are great support while you're there. Oh, they do so well. It's a very popular category. I mean, the most popular categories are food, and home, and style and beauty, but travel is definitely one too. I worked with Airbnb, actually, to create a whole board around LA and family-friendly restaurants. I mean, people are definitely planning their vacations on Pinterest. And, so, you can create boards around the best restaurants to try in your travel destination, best places to stay, there's so much you can do, what to where, what to pack, how do to travel with kids. I mean, I find all of these. When we went to Disneyland, I went on Pinterest to figure out how to do Disneyland with two kids under five. Yeah, absolutely. So, I am a photographer, a wedding photographer, specifically. And, obviously, there's so much I could pin, you know, inspiration, like, here's these beautiful dresses, here's these beautiful decor, et cetera, and then, obviously, my own content too. However, my concern is, since Pinterest is curated, and is usually professional photos of these items, my concern would be people taking interest in that style of photography, or in that photographer, because they see that I've posted it, and then veering away from working with me. What would you say about that? Yeah, so, essentially, you're worried about pinning competition or something that would detract from your style? Yeah. I think at the end of the day, you are going to be who you are, and you have the opportunity to share your content just as much as other people's content too. And your target market, your target client is gonna be the person that resonates with your pin. If they go with that, if you're style is like edgier, I don't know, what's your style? Colorful. Vibrant. Authentic. That's kind of what it is. Okay, and if they go with the muted, and yeah. Then, obviously, they're not my person. They're not my client. No, I get that. Not your client. I mean, at the same time, if you're pinning that pin, are you really pinning it because you love it, and you think it's helpful? Or are you pinning it just to pin it too? And if you are pinning it to help your bride, or your future customer, then share it loud, and hope that they really love who you are at the end of the day. Yeah, just being like authentic with them, and helping them, and then at the end of the day, they'll make their decision, whatever they do. Ultimately, like as someone who, you know, has helped a lot of photographers, and I used to style engagement photos, and work with brides all the time, and we would go through Pinterest all the time, sometimes, you know, the creator of that wedding dress, that's their brand, but the bride usually knows, okay, I really love this dress because I know it's gonna look good on me, but when they're choosing photography, just because they see a style of photography with the dress, they're not necessarily dismissing your photography here. Got it. Cool. Thank you. I have a question about, I know a while ago, maybe years, with Pinterest, you can post videos. Can you put video content on Pinterest? And, also, what would be a strategy for that? Would I post like the thumbnail that I have for that video to push people to that video, or just post the video directly? Yes, so, this is kind of two-part question. So, the first answer, yes, there is video on Pinterest, but there's only video in the form of a promoted pin or ad. So, if you want to promote video, it is highly effective, which we'll talk about in the ad class. Because in a sea of static images, to all of a sudden see motion, everybody flocks to it, so, it's very good. And if you have video that you've already done, you can just repurpose, like a commercial spot, or a 15-second spot, and put it on there. And then if you want to still drive traffic to videos, and not do promote pins, by suggestion would be, to, yeah, take like a thumbnail or a static image, put some text over, you know, what this video is about, and how it's helpful, and then when they click that, it drives them to YouTube, or it drives them to your site to watch the video. Okay, thank you. We had somebody, actually, online, just saying, perhaps in a suggestion to the audience member we just had asking a question, about pinning competitors, but saying if you pin vendors, and want to work with other people in the community, maybe not photographers, but venues, you know, fashion designers, then they can refer backwards between, business between each other, and back and forth. So, part of that community. Just a suggestion from someone online there. One of the comments questions, "I notice a lot of businesses have an Instagram board, "which they pin their Instagram pictures on. "What's the strategy behind this, "and do you recommend doing that?" Yeah, I mean, a lot of people also find inspiration on Instagram, and I can see why people wanna be able to pin there. I think that cool things are gonna come down the pipeline in that regard, but I think that, you know, I definitely have screenshotted things that I wanted to save, but the most important thing, if you're doing that, is you have to drive attribution back to that post. Do not take a screenshot, upload it to Pinterest, and not give credit to whose photo that was. So, just be very careful about that, and make sure you're giving direct attribution, not only back to that Instagram, but to that actual Instagram post, so, people can read and interact with it. A few people have asked a similar question. "I have good engagement with my pins, "but I'm not gaining as many followers "as I would like. "Is there something you could recommend to increase "the following after the engagements happened?" But I know we covered quite a lot of that over the duration of the content. Yeah, I mean, again, give them every opportunity to follow you. Talk about Pinterest on Instagram. Talk about Pinterest on Facebook. Say, "Hey, guys." an Instagram story, "Oh my gosh, loving this on Pinterest right now, "what do you guys think? "Swipe up to click to see." I mean, there's so many ways we can be promoting people following us on Pinterest, that I don't think, I don't ever see people taking an opportunity to do. Make sure that pin it button is there and follow button is there. And go in and interact with your followers. Follow back and interact with people. I feel like, Pinterest, it isn't social in that people are coming to satisfy themselves, they're coming to satisfy their ideas. But when people do take the time to make a point of connection and message somebody, or tell someone, like, "Hey, I think you would really like this board." What's the worst thing that can happen? People would just say no or ignore you. But maybe, by taking that effort, they might follow you. So, I would encourage you to take every opportunity to do that. Oh, hey. (laughs) When did that happen? Sneaky behind the scenes. Probably just one more question. And it's just about the algorithm and deleting pins. So, Elizabeth asked, "Does deleting pin board hurt you with the algorithm? "I'm a photographer, and I use Pinterest "to collaborate with other with mood boards. "If I kept every mood board, "I'd have millions, "so I usually delete them after a few months." I can't speak to knowing the algorithm. But what I would say, is now that there's an archive feature, you shouldn't have to ever delete anything, so, just archive it, if you're worried about that. That's what I do.