Pinterest is an amazingly powerful tool for travel bloggers. But as with most amazingly powerful tools, figuring out how to use it can be totally overwhelming. There is so much strategy that goes into creating a successful Pinterest that drives traffic to your travel blog. Whether you’re just starting out on Pinterest, you’re experienced with using Pinterest but feeling like you might be missing something, or you’re still trying to get up the courage to create your account and dive in, I want to help you master Pinterest to drive traffic to your blog! I’ve created a 1-on-1 Pinterest Consultation program tailored to all levels of experience with Pinterest – but before I start telling you about the Pinterest Consultation I’m offering, first let me give you a bit of background about why I created it in the first place.
Please Note: I am no longer offering consultations.
BUT, you can find a ton of juicy Social Media content and Pinterest guides at my social media resource site, Slaying Social! I’ve also created a few Pinterest Courses that will give you the same information I used to provide in my consultations and audits. Purchasing a Pinterest course will also give you access to our exclusive VIP group. We do provide our VIP Slayers hands-on attention and, occasionally, 1 on 1 audits.
How I Use Pinterest for my Travel Blog
In January of 2017, 6 months after we started our travel blog, we had our best month of blog traffic ever: just shy of 35k visitors. We were ecstatic. We managed to go from 0 monthly page views to 35,000 views in just 6 months.
I shared my success with my favorite travel blogger group, Female Travel Bloggers. In addition to congratulations and support, I kept getting asked the same question: what’s your blog traffic secret?
Well, it’s not much of a secret: my blog traffic was coming from Pinterest. In the month of January, 74% of our 26k unique blog visitors found us through Pinterest, to the tune of nearly 20k visitors from Pinterest.
Here’s a look at my Google Analytics dashboard for January:
Check out our sessions from Pinterest in the upper right hand corner! Almost 20k – that’s 74% of our monthly traffic for January 2017.
And here’s my Pinterest traffic from June, still steady at around 20k:
I receive 20k monthly visitors to my site from Pinterest. My Pinterest traffic has been steady for the past 6 months. It’s been the key to my blog’s success.
The response from the travel blogger community was overwhelming. As the comments piled up, I found myself dishing out Pinterest tips to travel bloggers with way more established blogs than mine, whose work I respected and admired. I was shocked that they weren’t using the same techniques I was already. Apparently a lot of travel bloggers haven’t yet tapped into the treasure trove of Pinterest, and somehow I’d managed to stumble across the crown jewels.
So when a few fellow travel bloggers suggested that I start charging for my advice, I was intrigued by the idea, but unsure.
Did I really know my stuff when it came to Pinterest? Or had I just gotten lucky?
I spent the next several months figuring that out.
Testing my Pinterest Strategy
I was thrilled with my Pinterest traffic in January. But also? … I was nervous. What if January had been a total fluke?
I grew up on a farm in Kentucky, and even though that’s about the extent of my farmgirl-ness, my childhood was primarily spent ignoring my mother’s good advice, most of which, for some reason, had to do with chickens. Like, “don’t count your chickens before they hatch.” And “don’t put all your eggs in one basket.” With Pinterest, I felt like my eggs were all in one basket.
So, I put Pinterest on the backburner.
It sounds nuts, right? To take my best source of traffic and … stop focusing on it?
But I wanted to spread my traffic out more so that I wasn’t relying entirely on Pinterest. I was also exhausted: to earn 20k visitors from Pinterest in one month, I’d spent 6 months tirelessly pouring my soul into Pinterest. I was on Pinterest 1-2 hours a day, every single day. I wanted to see if it was possible to earn sustainable traffic from Pinterest without continuing that same level of effort.
And as I slowly untangled myself from the mass of Pinterest tasks that had been eating up my entire life, I picked them apart 1 by 1 and analyzed them until I had created a Pinterest strategy worksheet: a step-by-step how-to guide to achieving Pinterest Success, built upon what I’d done for the first 6 months of my travel blogging career.
And then, I put my Pinterest strategy to the test with 2 travel bloggers. But we’ll get to that in a bit.
4 months later, here’s the verdict:
As you can see, my traffic from Pinterest peaked in January and then fell slightly after I stopped spending as much time on Pinterest. But overall? My traffic has remained fairly steady. January wasn’t a fluke after all!
The biggest differences from January to today: Pinterest now accounts for only 60% of my traffic… and I used the time I’d freed up from Pinterest to TRIPLE my high quality organic traffic from Google, which now accounts for 12% of my traffic, up from 4% in January.
Instead of spending 1-2 hours every single day on Pinterest, I now spend around 2 hours on Pinterest … per WEEK. Having 12 more hours a week devote to my blog is incredible. In 12 hours, I can write a whole extra post. I can optimize 2 older posts for improved SEO. I can pitch to companies and create sponsored content. And all without having to worry about my traffic taking a hit from time I’m not spending on the social media grind.
In the span of 10 months, I’d gone from starting my blog from scratch to developing an advanced Pinterest strategy that would sustain my blog traffic from Pinterest without eating up all of my time.
You can find these pins and about a zillion more on the Practical Wanderlust Pinterest account!
The Powerful Effect of Mastering Pinterest
Since January, my monthly traffic from Pinterest has settled into an average of 15.5k sessions … AND I now spend significantly less time on Pinterest than I used to.
I had tapped into one of the great benefits of Pinterest: because Pinterest is a visual search engine, not a social media platform, the traffic it generates is long-lasting and reliable – much like Google.
I learned that a well-circulated pin will continue to generate traffic for MONTHS after a post is published. Astonishingly, my best converting posts on Pinterest are some of my earliest blog posts. I keep waiting for the traffic to dry up, but it’s steady … and the re-pins just keep coming.
My success in driving traffic to my blog from Pinterest has also granted me some prime opportunities for converting Pinterest visitors into subscribers. I took my most popular post on Pinterest and turned it into my best converting post, netting me over 1k subscribers in the past few months. Then, I used my freed-up time to figure out a newsletter strategy – so those readers keep coming back again and again!
I can’t stress enough how beneficial Pinterest has been for the success of our travel blog. From driving traffic to generating subscribers to raising my earning potential – that’s right, people pay me for sponsored posts on my tiny baby 10-month old blog! I can hardly believe it! – mastering Pinterest is the key to my early success as a travel blogger.
And I’ve taken the time to analyze what I did to achieve that success, step by step – and tested it.
Pinterest Boards from the Practical Wanderlust Pinterest account!
How can I help you achieve your Pinterest goals?
When I first started blogging in July of last year, I was looking to build traffic volume above all else, and Pinterest helped me achieve that goal.
Now that I’m happy with my traffic volume, my goals have changed: I want to refine and improve the quality of my traffic – things like the amount of time visitors spend on my site and the number of email subscriptions I get – while focusing on monetizing the traffic I have, all while spending minimal time hustling on social media for traffic. Pinterest helped me achieve that goal, too.
Now I want to help you achieve your goals!
I mentioned before that I’d developed a Pinterest Strategy step-by-step guide to achieving Pinterest Success. But I needed to make sure that what worked for me would work for other travel bloggers, too. So I tested my strategy with 2 travel bloggers. 1 of them had been using Pinterest for her blog for a while, but wasn’t generating much traffic. The other one had no Pinterest account at all. Several hours of Skype calls later, here’s what one blogger had to say about the Pinterest Consultation program:
Before working with Lia, I didn’t have a Pinterest account, and I was overwhelmed by the amount of things I needed to learn to make Pinterest successful for me. Lia’s guide to achieving Pinterest success was broken down in a clear, straightforward manner, and it’s a resource I go back to on a weekly basis. She was incredibly encouraging during our calls and available whenever I had questions. Learning from someone who is an expert in her field — trust me, she’s got the numbers to back it up — has been invaluable for me. I highly recommend her Pinterest consultation to all bloggers, whether you’re a beginner or more advanced!
Oh, and her blog traffic? It’s doubled.
There are a lot of “Pinterest for Travel Bloggers” guides online, but even the most saavy blogger can be overwhelmed by the task of mastering yet another social media platform. But Pinterest is different: it’s worth the effort. It really pays off. But why spend months and months figuring it out?
Together, we’ll establish a Pinterest strategy that works for you, fits your blog like a glove, and matches your level of Pinterest expertise (or lack thereof). I’ll make sure you understand exactly what each step of the strategy is and why it’s important, so that by the time we’re finished, you’ll feel like a Pinterest expert!
As for my other Pinterest Consultation guinea pig, she’s enjoying a surge of traffic from Pinterest as well. She says the most valuable part of the consultation was “being able to ask a million questions about Pinterest and have someone who understands how to use it answer them. It’s all well and good reading tutorials online, but sometimes you need feedback in the form of human interaction.” Plus, I make a lot of bad jokes. That’s a plus, right?
Since the launch of my Pinterest Makeover Consultations, I’ve helped several travel bloggers turn their Pinterest profiles into kickass traffic-driving machines.
Pinterest Services Offered
If you’re sick of your eyes glazing over while you read yet another “how to drive traffic with Pinterest” guide and you’re ready to kickstart your Pinterest into high gear, hit me up. I’ll send you a copy of the Pinterest Strategy Worksheet I’ve developed, and together we’ll evaluate what level your needs are.
1 on 1 Pinterest Consultations
I offer 3 levels of Pinterest Makeover Consultation for beginner, intermediate, and advanced Pinterest users, so whatever level you’re at, let’s chat! Whether you’re ready to make your first pin or desperate to fine tune to your Pinterest hustle, I want to help you succeed.
Our Consultation will take course over video chat, where I can demonstrate specific techniques to you by sharing my screen and guide you as you share your screen with me. I’ll also provide worksheets for you to follow along on your own as well as during our calls.
Pinterest Audits
If you’re looking for a cheaper option, a Pinterest audit is the perfect fit.
For a flat fee of I’ll either record a video of me giving your Pinterest account a full audit, OR write a complete audit (depending on how you prefer to learn). You’ll also receive my step by step worksheet to help you work through each item I discussed in your audit.
Please Note: I am no longer offering this service.
BUT, you can find a ton of juicy Social Media content and Pinterest guides at my social media resource site, Slaying Social! Purchasing a Pinterest course will give you access to our exclusive VIP group. We do provide our VIP Slayers hands-on attention and, occasionally, 1 on 1 audits.