How Pinterest's Algorithm Changed and How You Can Profit From It

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If you want to use Pinterest to bring traffic to your website you should understand how the Pinterest algorithm works.

I am sure you are tired of seeing so many people generating lots of traffic from Pinterest even though they are not spending a lot of time on the platform.

I can completely understand you. I still remember how tough it was for me when I first started using Pinterest. But now things have changed a lot.

If you are in a hurry and want a quick answer then you need to know this:

Pinterest updated its algorithm so that now it favors FRESH pins and NEW content. By doing so, you will increase your domain quality which is a very important metric to get more traffic from Pinterest. Not to mention the vital importance of using keywords on your boards and pins.

The thing is: Pinterest acts more like a search engine, not a social media platform. This is something that you absolutely need to understand to get better results. This will build the foundation for your success on the platform.

That being said, let’s see how you can use the latest Pinterest algorithm update to maximize your traffic.

Related:

How Pinterest Algorithm works?

There are a few things that Pinterest shared to help publishers use the platform effectively.

There are 4 main ranking factors that you should take into consideration:

Your domain quality
Your pin quality
The pinner quality
The relevance of the topic

These ranking factors are not in any specific order. So you can always focus on what seems more obvious and easy for you.

That being said, let’s see how each can affect your traffic and what you can do to optimize them.

Ranking Factor 1- Your Domain Quality

The quality of your domain is really important when it comes to showing your pins to more people. Just like Google, Pinterest favors bloggers who have a higher domain quality.

Now, your domain quality has nothing to do with Moz’s domain authority. Having a higher Doman Authority doesn’t imply that you will get more traffic from Pinterest.

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Pinterest has its own algorithm based on how your pins are performing on the platform.

In short:

Pinterest will look at how many times a particular pin is being saved, viewed (Pin clicks), and clicked on (outbound clicks).

These metrics indicate that the pin is relevant and will get a boost in impressions.

Pro tip: Impression is important as it will extend your reach to more people, thereby increasing your chance of getting more outbound clicks.

Now, though increasing your domain authority can take some time, it doesn’t mean you cannot accelerate it.

Here are 5 steps to make sure that you are in tune with Pinterest’s algorithm:

1.Create a business account

Having a business account is the easiest way to make sure that Pinterest starts to see your account as legitimate. Having a personal account won’t do your business any favor.

So, if your account is still private, make sure to convert it to a business account.

2.Claim your website with Pinterest

This is a way to tell Pinterest that you are the owner of your website. The whole process is really simple and will take you just 1 minute.

Here is my step-by-step guide to help you convert and claim your account with Pinterest.

3.Enable Rich Pins

The next step is to enable Rich Pins for your account. This is vital because a Rich pin usually performs way better than a normal pin.

The setup is really simple and it can make a huge impact on your overall ranking on Pinterest.

Here is my step-by-step guide to help you to enable Rich Pins.

4.Use Keywords on your boards and profile

Having a profile that is optimized with keywords is really essential to get more traction on Pinterest.

For instance, if you head over to my profile you will see this:

My profile is very clear about what type of content I publish. I have added keywords in both my profile name and description.

This will help my profile to:

Get more exposure in search results.
Help people decide whether they should follow me or not.
Help Pinterest understand what my profile is really all about.

Now, there is another crucial thing that I am doing which is really working very well. And that is: I am optimizing my boards so that the pins are categorized in a way that works very well with Pinterest Algorithm.

Here is a preview of my top 3 boards:

Here is my step-by-step guide to help you optimize your board that will help you generate more clicks.

5.Create a system that will help you to pin consistently

Consistency is something that almost everyone struggles with. It is the most important thing you can do to guarantee you succeed in any type of online business you create.

Let me give you a simple example of how I struggled with my blog:

In the first 6 months of my blogging journey, I created only 34 blog posts. I was really struggling to be consistent with my posting schedule until I realized that my blog will never take off if I am not consistent.

That’s when I decided to take my blog more seriously which resulted in 76 NEW blog posts in the 6 next month. This is when my blog started to really get some serious momentum.

As you can see, I almost doubled the amount of content I created. All this was only possible because I made a SINGLE change in my daily habit.

The change was: I decided to write ONLY 300 words per day. That’s it.

The simple change in habit just to sit down and write only 300 words helped me to create 2 times more content than before.

It’s that simple to stay consistent.

That being said:

When it comes to adding new pins on Pinterest, CONSISTENCY is crucial to gaining any kind of momentum.

This is why I use Tailwind.

It’s a tool that allows me to automate all my pins so that I can focus more on creating valuable content for my readers.

For instance, here is my Pinning schedule:

I now spend only 5-7 mins per day on Pinterest where I do a few manual pinning. I have noticed that a combination of both manual pinning and automatic pinning gives the best result.

Also, Tailwind is the official partner for Pinterest, which means you don’t have to worry about your account being banned.

If you are not familiar with Tailwind, you can try it.

Click here to get started right now.

Ranking Factor 2 – Pin Quality

The quality of your pin can have a huge impact on how much traffic it generates.

For instance, if a lot of people are saving, viewing, or clicking on your pin, it is a positive signal to Pinterest that your pin is of high quality.

1.Create viral pins only

The thing is: You should always strive to make every pin a viral pin.

Now, I know this is impossible to achieve, but at least you know that every pin you are adding has the potential to become a viral pin. This is the only way you can be sure that at least a few pins can go viral and start to generate some serious traffic.

Now, you must be wondering how you can create a viral pin, right?

It’s really simple.

Here is what makes a Pin viral:

1. The size of the pin. Vertical pins with an optimum size of 735 x 1,200 pixels perform best on Pinterest. But it’s better to try different sizes to know what works best for you. For example, you can try pins with these ratios: (2:3), (1:2), and (9:16).

I have noticed that pins with the size of 600 x 1200 tend to perform well. Though Pinterest will tell you that the size is not appropriate, sometimes it performs even better than the recommended size. So give it a try and see it for yourself.

2. A good description. Your pins should contain a good description of your content. People should know what type of content they will get when they click on your pins.

You should also make sure that every pin contains at least 1 keyword.

3. Fonts that are easy to read. You will notice that fonts that are easy to read usually end up in the top search results. People want simple things. You don’t want to use fonts that will put any kind of extra pressure on your readers.

4. Use high-Quality images. Pins with a lot of space tend to perform better. So avoid adding too many pictures or elements on your pins.

You can also get awesome quality pictures from Pexels, Pixabay, and Unsplash for free.

5. Use only a few hashtags. Based on my experience, adding 2-3 hashtags to your pins is enough.

6. Include your logo on every pin that you create. Now, you can also add the link to your website’s URL if you want to.

7. Add a link to your blog post. All your pins should contain a link that is directed to your website. Also, don’t forget to double-check if your links are working.

This is how your semi-viral pin will look like:

2.Use eye-catching titles to increase your engagement

I am sure you must have heard this saying: “Don’t judge a book by its cover”.

The thing is:

Most people will click on your content based on your title. This is something that took me a lot of time to realize.

So, every time you create a pin title, ask yourself if this is the title you saw, would you click on the pin? If your answer is no, then try to create another title.

Let me give you a simple example:

Let’s say you have a blog post on “How to make money from home”. If you name your Pinterest pin just like that, it won’t generate a lot of engagement.

Now, if you change the title to: “10 super easy ways to make $5,000 working from home” it will definitely trigger curiosity which will increase your engagement.

Now, if you go further and create a title like: “10 awesome ways to make $5,000 from home right now“. The simple word “Right Now” will trigger even more curiosity.

This is how you can create titles that will trigger curiosity and urgency. If the title doesn’t create a sense of urgency, people won’t click on the pin. They will just save it.

3. Track your best-performing pins

When I first started to use Pinterest, I spent more time creating new pins and adding them to all my relevant boards as suggested by many bloggers.

You can do it for at least 3 months and see which pins are performing really well.

For instance, if I head over to my Pinterest analytics I will get the following results:

This is how much traffic I got for 30 days. I know it’s not a lot, but the result is just for the top 10 pins. This is just to give you a general idea of how many clicks you can get with a single pin.

As you can see, my top-performing pin generated 5,057 clicks in 1 month.

Also, these 10 top pins generated 13,046 clicks in just 1 month.

I was able to get this kind of traffic once I started to use Tailwind Communities.

The whole idea of using Pinterest is the compound effect it has over time.

Pro tip: Never delete any pin that you think is not bringing any traffic. You will see that there are pins that are more than 6-10 months old which generated only 1 click for the past 5-9 months has now suddenly started to generate 100-200 clicks per day.

Here is an example of a pin that did not bring a lot of traffic, but did bring consistent traffic for 6 months:

The traffic from your pins will usually look like this. This is why I love Pinterest so much.

Ranking factor 3 -The Pinner quality

Pinterest will take into consideration what kind of pinner you are before it will ever favor you in its ranking algorithm.

As I have said before, Pinterest wants more people to spend time on the platform. This is how they can increase their earnings.

And as a content creator, you must always try to follow every Pinterest guidelines that will help them make more money on the platform.

It’s really that simple.

For instance, before Pinterest accepts that you are someone who can be trusted, they will value the following crucial points:

How often you are adding new pins.
Do you do batch pinning or you pin consistently.
How many saves and comments your pins receive.
If you save only quality pins that are related to your niche.

That being said, you should always try to boost your Score with Pinterest. This is how you should do it:

1.Add pins throughout the day

Adding pins CONSISTENTLY is crucial to get any kind of results on Pinterest. If you are only adding pins once or twice a week, you will never be able to breakthrough.

There are two ways you can do it:

Either you add all your pins manually,
Or you use a scheduler that will make sure that new pins are added to your profile.

2.Always create fresh pins

Pinterest algorithm NOW favors fresh pins and new content. This has been made very clear during the latest algorithm update.

I know it can be tedious to constantly create new pins. That’s why I use Canva for all my pins.

It’s a free platform that will allow you to create awesome pins in less than 1 minute.

Though it is recommended to add a new pin every single week, I will tell you to create fresh pins with new images as often as you can.

For instance, right now I am adding at least 1 fresh pin every single day. And I have seen a significant increase in my impressions and blog traffic.

3.Use the 80/20 rule to maximize traffic

After using Pinterest for at least 3 months, you will start to see a pattern. You will notice that 20% of your content is bringing around 80% of traffic to your blog.

This is a general rule. It can also be 10%-90%.

For my blog, I have around 110 blog posts, and I have seen that around 17-20 blog posts tend to outperform all other blog posts.

So, to increase my traffic significantly, I now add 3-5 times more pins for these 17-20 blog posts.

This is something I wished someone had told me when I was still new to Pinterest. I was spending too much time adding every blog post to my Pinterest account which was scattering my efforts.

Ranking Factor 4 – Topic relevance

Now that you know how to optimize your domain, pin, and pinner quality, it’s time to look at your topic’s relevance.

On the surface, it doesn’t seem to be very important, but it can be the most important factor which concerns the Pinterest algorithm.

As I have mentioned before, Pinterest wants to show the most relevant results to its users. That’s why you must help Pinterest so that it can show your pins to your potential audience.

This is something that I really learned recently. I was so obsessed with getting the traction that I forgot to reverse my perspective.

Let me explain:

Since Pinterest is a search engine, whenever you will add a pin it will be assigned to a topic using keywords. It works just like Google search results. Every keyword will give a user a set of different results.

For instance, if you type “How to earn money by typing” on Pinterest search, you will get this result :

I have highlighted MY PINS. What can you observe?

I have two different sets of keywords that appeared for the search results:

How to make $100 a day by typing from home
9 easy ways to earn money by typing

This is how the Pinterest algorithm works. It will give different types of results based on a specific category( Make money by typing).

Now let’s analyze another result. This time we will search for “Manual Pinning Strategy”.

This time also, 2 of my pins appeared on the top of Pinterest search results:

How to use manual Pinning to increase blog traffic,
The best manual pinning strategy for more traffic.

Again, the search result displayed 2 of my pins which have a variation on the keyword I targeted.

In short, you should diversify your keywords for all your blog posts so that you can appear more often on search results.

Now, you must be wondering how you can do it.

Well, it’s really simple.

First, you must do some keyword research to find the best keywords for your pins.

1.Do keyword research

Many new bloggers make the mistake of not doing proper keyword research before they add new pins. And I must admit even I did this mistake. But hey, mistakes allow us to learn new things. Isn’t it?

The thing is: Once you are used to finding keywords, you will more traffic with less work. It’s that simple.

From my experience, Pinterest’s search bar is the BEST way to find keywords quickly.

So, let’s do that. Shall we?

Let’s say you have a blog post on “Baking a cake” and you want to find keywords that are related to this term.

When you type “Bake a cake” you will get this result:

Pinterest is giving you these awesome keywords that you can use:

Bake a cake from scratch
Bake a cake for beginners
Bake a cake like a bakery
Bake a cake easy

You can use all these keywords for different pins that you will create for your blog post on “Bake a cake”.

Now, you can go even further and find more specific keywords. For instance, if you click on “Bake a cake from Scratch”, you will get these results:

As you can see, you will get another set of keywords.

Pro tip: You can also use these specific keywords to create blog posts that will get a lot more traction on Pinterest.

2.Use your keyword everywhere

Now that you know how to find keywords, it’s time to sprinkle them everywhere. What I mean by that is:

Use your keywords on your profile name and description which will help Pinterest understand what your account is all about. This will greatly help your profile and pins to appear for a very specific category.
Next, you should add keywords to ALL your personal boards. This is vital as the pins that you will add to these boards will be categorized by Pinterest. If you want more details, you can have a look at my step-by-step guide to help you optimize your boards for MAXIMUM effectiveness.
The final step is to add keywords to all your pins. Also, don’t forget to add hashtags to all your pins.

As you can see I have optimized my pin in such a way that I can potentially appear for these search results:

How to start a money-making blog (Keyword used on the pin)
How to blog for money (Keyword used on Pin title)
Having your own blog (Pin description)
Hashtags used (Blogging tips, make money online, blog, start a blog, and side hustle)

This is the best way to guarantee that your pin appears for more keywords which will increase its reach exponentially.

Final Thoughts: How Pinterest’s Algorithm Changed and How You Can Profit From It

Now that you know how the Pinterest algorithm works, and how you can optimize your profile and pins, it’s time to start growing your Pinterest account.

It can take you anywhere between 1-3 months to start to see some traction if your profile is new.

Also, recently I have noticed that many of my fresh pins are generating clicks after 1-2 months. So, give your efforts time, my friend.

I hope that this blog has helped you understand the Pinterest algorithm better.

That being said, if you want to master Pinterest, there are the resources that will help you a lot:

If you liked this post, please don’t forget to share it as it will greatly help my blog to grow.

See you soon!