This week I’m continuing with part two of my 2-part series on how to improve your Pinterest traffic when you’ve experienced a drop. With anything in life and any platform that uses an algorithm to function, there will be ups and downs. Spoiler alert: if you’re marketing your business on Pinterest, it will be no different!
Before we dive into this second part, let’s quickly define what I mean by “a drop in your Pinterest traffic”.
As I mentioned, it would be unrealistic to expect engagement, reach, traffic, etc. to be on the up and up every single month on Pinterest. I’ve said it before, but I’ll say it again, there will always be natural peaks and valleys.
But, let’s say you step back and look at the overall big picture for your Pinterest marketing strategy. If you’re actually seeing a halt in your growth, or maybe been going the wrong direction month over month, year over year, then it’s time to apply some of the tips I’m sharing this week!
Since this is a 2-part series, if you missed part one, you can go back and review those tips in this blog post!
8. Create Fresh Pins Consistently
Pinterest wants to create a good user experience and keep Pinners coming back to their platform. This is why they changed the algorithm a while back and started prioritizing fresh content. They also encourage Pinterest creators to be focusing their energy on creating high-quality new content.
Before this push for fresh content, Pinners would do their searches and they might constantly see the same Pins showing up at the top of their searches. This wasn’t creating a great user experience, or inspiring Pinners in a new way to see the same old stale content.
Here’s one common misstep I see with business owners that negatively impacts their traffic and growth. I’m talking about repinning their older content and calling that their “Pinterest strategy”.
Focusing your time and energy on creating fresh content, rather than repinning older content, is a great way to improve your Pinterest traffic!
Let’s say you’ve been Pinning 10 Pins a day, but you know it will take more time to create more fresh Pins. Maybe you try Pinning fewer Pins per day. But just keep in mind, the Pins you are Pinning daily should be high quality, fresh, content!
Tip: This doesn’t mean that you can never repin again. A lot of business owners lost their minds when they heard that Pinterest was prioritizing fresh content. They thought this meant every single Pin had to be a new design.
You can still repin, especially your Pins that have historically performed well for you. This also applies to your evergreen content and your seasonal content.
I recommend that you really space out those repins though. This means that if you have an evergreen Pin that performs well that you’d like to repin, maybe you only repin it 1-2x a year.
9. Fresh Content
We know that Pinterest wants us to be creating fresh Pins (new Pin design, title, description), but your fresh content goes beyond just new Pin designs!
In this image below, you’ll see the hierarchy of the most preferable content to be sharing on Pinterest. As you can see, the “most fresh” content would be a new Pin design AND a new URL.
Yes, it’s great to be creating fresh Pin designs, but it’s also important to be creating new long-form content that will inspire your audience.
For me, I’m creating a new blog post every single week, which means I’m sharing at least 4 new URL’s a month to Pinterest. Plus, I might also have new lead magnets, affiliates, or even products I’m sharing as well.
What I want you to take away from this tip is that you need to be not only creating fresh Pin designs, but also fresh content in regards to where you’re actually sending your audience.
I should mention, it might not be realistic for you to be blogging once a week. Maybe you create a fresh piece of content once a month. But, you do need to figure out what’s manageable/sustainable for you and your business.
The main takeaway from this tip is that growth and traffic over time will be more difficult if you’re sending your traffic to the same 3, stale, URL’s over and over again.
Learn from my experience! I’ve tried this with clients that didn’t have very much content and showing growth was much more challenging.
10. Tweak in Intervals Between Pins
If you’re using a scheduler like Tailwind, then you most likely are also taking advantage of some of their features like scheduling one Pin to 3-4 boards and their interval feature to space out the Pins.
This is very tactical, but one test you could try making is to space out your intervals more. If you’re Pinning one Pin to 3-5 Boards, it’s a better user experience to slowly drip out that content rather than turn the faucet on full blast and overshare that one Pin to multiple boards.
For my clients, and myself, I typically use an interval of at least 7 days between when I Pinned a specific Pin to one board and when it goes out to the next board. You could actually wait longer if you wish!
Tip: Tailwind will give you a warning if you try to make the interval < 3 days between boards. But it’s my opinion that you should spread them out as much as possible.
11. Tweak in Pins Per Day
Sometimes less is more on Pinterest! Let’s say you’ve heard other content creators say that they Pin 10-15X a day on Pinterest, so you feel like you should do the same.
I recommend always focusing on quality over volume. One tweak you could make in your tactics is to actually Pin fewer Pins per day, but as I mentioned before, you could share more fresh Pins a day while backing off of the total number of Pins.
It might seem logical that the more you Pin the more you grow. But remember that Pinterest focuses on fresh content, so this high volume of Pins per day does not always equal more traffic!
If your Pins are stale and you’ve repinned them too much, they aren’t going to be widely distributed, which means less traffic.
12. Add in New Pin Designs
A really great way to streamline your Pinterest Pin creation is to create beautifully branded Pin templates.
As a matter of fact, all of my clients receive custom templates from me whether we’re doing a Start-Up Package or a Comprehensive Maintenance Package.
If my clients already have templates that they use and love, we continue to use those in addition to the templates I create. This basically just creates more variety, which is a good thing!
I have had clients in the past that have as few as 3 templates that they rotate between, and over time, this can start to feel pretty stale.
Remember how I said that the platform thrives off of fresh content? If your Pins basically all look the same, then they for sure are not checking off that crucial box of “fresh content”.
I’m not saying to abandon your old templates, but it can be beneficial to test some new designs and see if they yield better results!
One of my newer clients that I onboarded had templates that were doing well for her. But as I mentioned, I made some new ones in addition for her. During the second month of managing her account, one of the templates I had made for her went viral!
It never hurts to test some fresh Pin designs! Just keep in mind that it does take time for Pins to gain traction and be indexed. This means you’ll want to give the Pins some time before analyzing the results.
13. Use Short-Form Video Content
This is a biggie! If you’re seeing a decrease in your Pinterest stats, but you haven’t started using short-form videos on the platform… you need to start ASAP!
If you haven’t noticed, short-form video is being devoured on some of the biggest platforms.
YouTube has YouTube Shorts, Instagram has Reels, and TikTok… well they kind of started this revolution!
Pinterest is smart enough to realize that it needs to adapt because the alternative is becoming obsolete.
Idea Pins are an amazing way to integrate short-form video. You can also try Video Pins as another way to use video content as well.
Videos just engage and hook in your audience in a totally different way than a Standard Pinterest Pin does. I do want to mention though that this does not mean you should ONLY share video content. It’s all about balance when creating an effective Pinterest strategy.
I think that if you haven’t used video content on Pinterest up until this point, it could be really helpful in improving your Pinterest traffic.
If you’re wanting to learn more about Idea Pins and how to use them to revive your tanked Pinterest traffic, you can learn all about my Idea Pin Starter Kit right here!
14. Bonus Tip: Mindset
Not to get all woo-woo on you, but the longer I’ve had my business, the more I’ve realized that mindset is everything.
And it’s no different when it comes to marketing on Pinterest. Every single platform changes and evolves. And for some reason, I see a lack of patience with Pinterest specifically for some reason.
I mean it, I feel like people love to hate Pinterest!
If you tell yourself that:
“Pinterest no longer works”
“Pinterest is a waste of time for my business”
“My audience just doesn’t convert on Pinterest”
Etc, etc, etc.
Then guess what, all of those comments you’re telling yourself will come true. You have to roll with the punches, embrace new features, and be willing to test and evolve over time if you want to continue to see real growth on Pinterest.
I feel pretty passionate about mindset when it comes to Pinterest. If this is totally up your alley, this blog post might interest you!
Let’s wrap it up!
Here’s a quick breakdown of part two of what to do when your Pinterest traffic is dropping.
Today we covered tips 8-13 and we had a bonus tip!
- Create Fresh Pins Consistently
- Make Fresh Content
- Tweak in Intervals Between Pins
- Tweak in Pins Per Day
- Add in New Pin Designs
- Use Short Form Video Content
- Bonus Tip: Mindset
And if you’re thinking, “Whoa, Emilee, I need to go to the basics first and foremost”, you need to download my FREE Pinterest strategy guide – 7 easy steps to kickstart your Pinterest marketing.
I also mentioned how clients work with me as part of my 1:1 done-for-you services. If you’re ready to just hand over your Pinterest marketing, you can book a free Discovery Call here!
