How to Make Money with Pinterest
“How do I make money with Pinterest” is a question I see a lot in blogging groups! But is it really possible to make money with Pinterest? If so, how?
Let’s start by thinking about what Pinterest is. It’s not social media. It’s a visual search engine, used by people who are looking for answers to questions and for inspiration. It’s your job to make sure your content is giving those answers or inspiration. This is where creating content for Pinterest comes in. Pinterest is brilliant for giving your content a super long lifespan. When compared with an Instagram post that has a lifespan of 24-48 hours, Pinterest pins can live on for years and get saved and saved over and over again. Each time someone saves your pin, they’re effectively sharing your content and promoting you. FOR FREE.
You also have a huge audience on Pinterest, even if you don’t have many followers. Pinterest has over 450+ million active monthly users. That’s a lot of users! If your pins are keyworded correctly they can be seen in searches by absolutely anyone searching for those keywords. 95% of searches on Pinterest are unbranded, which means you have the same chance of showing up in a search as the huge companies or bloggers. Amazing, right?
Many content creators are losing the love for Facebook and Instagram, where Zuck and co only show your content to a small percentage of your followers. My Life with Holly Instagram page has 23.3k followers but a tiny fraction of that sees my posts. Compare this with the Life with Holly Pinterest where the account has 371 followers but has 105k monthly views. Guess where most of my blog traffic comes from? Yup, Pinterest! I use Pinterest to drive traffic to my blog posts where I use affiliate links. As Pinterest will keep showing my pins to anyone who searches for them, there’s a good chance of those affiliate links being clicked on for years to come, earning me extra income without having to lift a finger!
Whilst writing blog posts can seem like a chore at times, you can set aside some time, batch create them and, once they’re done, you can forget about them (well, you can go in and update if necessary). I just create new pins for them every few months to draw in new eyes and keep in the Pinterest good books (you know how Pinterest loves fresh pins!).
How to Use Pinterest to Earn Money
Think about your content and where you make money. Perhaps you have ads set up on your site? Do you sell printables? Maybe you do affiliate marketing and use affiliate links within your blog posts to earn commission for recommending products and services? By working out where you can make money, you can work out what to create pins for and where to drive traffic from Pinterest. Be strategic about your pins!
How to Use Pinterest to Make Money with Your Blog
If you want to use Pinterest to make money with your blog, you’ll need to make sure your Pinterest account is properly set up. You need to create a business account (or switch to a business account if you have a personal one that you use for your blog). You can read about how to create a business account on Pinterest in this handy guide.
Carry out keyword research. This is really important, as this is how people will find your pins. Think about your content, and how people would search for it. Keep it simple – you might know all the terminology and lingo but the average person searching might not.
Optimise your Pinterest account bio using this easy to follow blog post.
Once you have your boards all set up, your Pinterest account all optimised, you’re ready to start creating pins. You can use templates to speed up the process – I like to support small designers by buying from Creative Market or Etsy. The most important thing with Pinterest is consistency. You need to be pinning regularly to ensure your account grows. Don’t pin 100 pins one day then nothing for a month! Try and focus on pinning your own content, but it’s absolutely OK to pin other users content too, especially if it will benefit your ideal client.
How to Make Money on Pinterest with Affiliate Marketing
You can’t actually monetise your Pinterest account itself, but you can use Pinterest to drive traffic to your blog page, your YouTube channel, your Instagram account etc where you have affiliate marketing or ads. Affiliate marketing is a brilliant way to monetise your blog – you get to earn money while you sleep! There are many affiliate networks out there, so do some research into what best fits with your niche. Don’t just opt for a high commission rate – choose affiliate programmes that you would actually recommend and that are relevant, as your readers will be more likely to purchase. Some affiliate networks you could consider are:
Each of these networks lets you choose from a huge variety of companies to partner with, so you can choose some that fit within your niche or area of expertise and that are relevant to your readers.
How to Make Money on Pinterest Without a Blog
No blog? No problem! If you don’t have a blog, you can still use Pinterest to drive traffic to your other accounts. Maybe you are an influencer who does promotional work on Instagram. You can use Pinterest to drive traffic to your Instagram account. Use it to get more views on your YouTube channel, or more people listening to your podcasts. Use Pinterest to drive traffic to a landing page where you have an email sign up or a sales page where you sell your products.
Using affiliate links, you can also make pins that lead to the products but with your affiliate link. Be careful though, and be sure to mark your pins as affiliate. Don’t make too many and be spammy. Definitely don’t make loads of pins for the products and spam them all over Pinterest group boards – this is so annoying! Note that some platforms eg Amazon don’t allow you to use affiliate links on Pinterest, so always check the rules of the programme you’ve signed up for.
It’s easier than you think to use Pinterest to earn money from your blog. Whether you use it to drive more traffic to your affiliate links or get more web views on your ads, Pinterest is a valuable tool to monetise your blog for the long term. Will you be using these tips to monetise your blog?
this is such a well-explained blog. great advice.
Thank you so much for reading!