10 Reasons to Get Pinterested

Image Source: Pinterest.com

I know what you’re thinking. Pinterest is just another Social Media site and who has time for that?

Right? Well guess what? You do!

If you want more visitors <read “readers”> then you have to invite them in. Yes, it can be terribly addicting, but only if you let it. Like anything else, moderation and proper time management are key to making Pinterest productive and oh how productive it can be!

So, what are you waiting for?

Here Are 10 Great Reasons to Start Using Pinterest Right Now!

1. Millions of Hungry Eyes: As of January 2012,there were more than 11.7 million Pinterest users. In the past year member growth exceeded 145%. That’s a lot of potential new visitors patiently waiting to discover your Blog. Pinterest generates more website traffic than YouTube, Google+, and LinkedIn combined! Just think of what one half of one percent of that figure could equal in web traffic to your site.

2. Set It Up and Walk Away: You don’t have to do anything else. Take fifteen minutes to create an account and get your site set-up properly … and that’s it. Seriously! It’s that easy and what’s more is you don’t ever have to go to the Pinterest site again (if you don’t want to) in order for it to help increase visitors to your site. By adding the Pinterest “share” button to your posts and pages for your visitors to use — as well as a “Pin It” button for you to use, you effectively enable yourself and your visitors the ability to pin any and all images from your site. Even businesses (both large and small) have jumped on the Pinterest train because it works and most people will tell you that Pinterest is one of the top 5 referrers to their Blog or website.

3.Images, Images, Images: Doing an image search and collecting quality images has never been easier. There are billions of beautiful, educational, and funny images all nicely organized and categorized just waiting for you to find on Pinterest. Each is linked to its source so it’s easy to find other images from the same source (this also makes it easy to give attribution or credit if you use them on your site). There isn’t anything you cannot find on Pinterest; from cute baby animals, to breathtaking scenery, to erotic black and whites; it’s all there. You can also find helpful Info-graphics and How-To’s that can beef up your own Blog or website content.

4. An Engaged, Captive, and Constantly Growing Audience: No other Social Media site has grown at such a rapid pace. Every time you pin an image from your website or Blog you are introducing what you do to a very large and expanding audience. Images have a longer lifespan on Pinterest then on any other Social Media medium. Unlike videos and written content, great images never fall out of trend or become outdated. People are always looking for a great pic or graphic. Pinterest members will re-pin your images (with your site link) over and over again — 80% of all images Pinned on Pinterest are re-pins! An image you pin today can continue to generate new visitors for countless years to come.

5. Instant Ping Backs With Every “Pin”: Your pinned images automatically link back to your Blog or website. In addition, you can drop your link in the image description area as well giving you two ping backs for the price of one. This allows users to simply click on your image and head on over to your Blog or website. Pingbacks — also called “backlinks”, are the number one way to increase your chances of being found in search engines. The more outside links back to your Blog or website the higher you will rank which means the easier it is for people to find you.

6. Search Engine Optimization (SEO): In addition to the backlinks, utilizing key words and hash tags (#) in the descriptions of your Pinned images will increase your blog or website rankings. Images (along with your link) will show up easier and more often in search engine results. You can take a peek at how I tag my images here. When someone searches for “cute baby animals” — if you have “cute baby animals” pinned and properly tagged,  not only will your images show up in Pinterest searches, but they will also show up in Google and other internet searches.

7. Generate New & Repeat Visitors With a Caption Contest: Create and name a Pinterest board and a WordPress (or other website) post/page specific to your contest. Add the same interesting, curious, or humorous image to both. Be sure the title and image is the same so your visitors/particpiants don’t get confused.  In both the image description area on Pinterest and your post/page body ask visitors to come up with and leave a caption for the image in your Blog or website page/post comment area. On Pinterest in that same description area tell people to click the image to get to the caption contest page. That’s all you have to do. Be sure you’ve “pinned” the image directly from your site page so the backlink will bring participants straight to it. Also, it never hurts to remind people to re-pin — especially when it comes to a contest! You can offer a prize if you’d like to however, you don’t have to. People love caption contests and will participate simply because it’s fun. If you do offer a prize it will increase participation exponentially. A FREE to you, yet valuable to your winner prize would be to offer to write a “review” of their Pinterest boards, website, or Blog.

8. Enhance Your “Brand”: Let’s face it, we live in an uber digital world focused on “brands” and whether you like it or not, you (and your site) are a Brand. Why not make your Brand more Pinteresting to digital consumers? The key to Branding is consistency; this means everything associated with your Brand should have the same look, feel, and “voice” and it needs to be continuously promoted. With Pinterest, other people promote your brand for you by the mere act of re-pinning what you have already pinned from your site. Remember, when they do this the are also re-pinning the link to your site. There is no end to how much promotion Pinterest members will provide. Be sure your Pinterest profile or site specific “board” has the same logo or image you use for your site and add your site address (link) to your profile/bio. You can create one board or many boards it is up to you. The number of boards will determine how you categorize your Pinned images. A single board titled the same as your website or Blog is sufficient however, you may wish to create multiple boards based on themes, i.e. “Sayings & Such“, “Art“, “Writing“, “Things That Make Me Smile“, and so on. You can even organize your boards by color.

9. Tutorials Make it Easy: There is no such thing as, “I can’t” or  “I don’t know how” anymore. It is super easy to find tutorials for just about anything these days including those that walk you through setting up and using Pinterest. You can go to YouTube and do a search yourself, but here are just a few helpful videos I found that will help get you started: “Pinterest Tutorial“, “Ultimate Guide to Pinterest for Bloggers“, “How To Make Your Blog Pinterest Friendly So You Can Get Free Traffic“, and more. But, don’t assume you need a tutorial. Pinterest is very user-friendly and easy to navigate with a click or two.

10. It’s Free: Not only is it free to get a Pinterest account, but it is a free way to store an infinite number of images without taking up space on your hard drive. You get a free account, free image storage, free marketing & promotion, free web traffic and if you do it right it can even help you free-up some time. Who doesn’t like free? 

Here’are some spare pins to get you started. 

Image Source: colourbox.com

Happy Pinning! You’re life just got more Pinteresting!

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