Do use a photo editing program
Many of you are saying, I'm not a great photographer. What can I do? Can I succeed on Pinterest? Yes! Consider trying a free photo editing program online like Pic Monkey or Canva. Both have free versions that you can use improve the look of your images. If you have a little bit more money to spend, I love Adobe Photoshop or Adobe Photoshop Elements. I'd recommend Elements for a beginner because it is the less expensive and more user friendly of the two programs.
If you want to rework posts that don't contain vertical images to make them ready for Pinterest, consider creating collages or adding text descriptions. Both are great ways to make your existing images work for Pinterest.
A lot of my oldest posts were created before Pinterest came along and before I knew much about photography. (I still have a lot to learn!) All of my photos used to be tiny and square. Ugh! I've gradually gone back and fixed the images in many of my old posts to make them more Pinterest friendly. Here are a few examples of how to transform square or horizontal images for better traction on Pinterest:
Before (Visit the Post - How to Build a Watering Can)
After
I cropped the image, brightened it up, and added a text overlay.
Before (Visit the Post - Felt Food Sandwiches)
After
I removed the huge watermark, brightened the image, removed shadows, changed the cropping angle, and combined the image with other photos from the post to create a collage. I also added text overlays.
Before (Visit the Post - Halloween Finger Puppets)
After
I brightened the image, added more negative space between the hand and the overlay, and added another image to make the pin extra long for Pinterest.
Rosey
I have been using my Pinterest as social media. You're right though, it def. could be considered more of a search engine, and I could change up my tactics to increase traffic. It's one of my favorite places to visit, and I'm happy to have read this information.
Heidi
I guess it depends on your purpose, Rosey. If you are trying to get traffic to your blog, then you should definitely step away from social media strategies on Pinterest. Good luck.
Marcie W.
These tips are excellent, especially for beginners. I have heard plenty of success stories regarding marketing on Pinterest, but certainly have more to learn.
Heidi
Thanks, Marcie. Pinterest is my best source of traffic, so I'm happy to share tips so others can benefit from it, too.
Jacqui Odell
These are great tips! Pinterest can be very confusing. It is something that I am working on.
Heidi
You're welcome, Jacqui. I think the key is understanding that it is not social media. It is a search engine.
Kristi
Some really great tips and suggestions. I love Pinterest and fun to learn a little more about it and how useful it can be.
Heidi
Thanks, Krisit. Pinterest is a great tool for those of us searching for ideas, but it's also a great deal for those of us trying to build our business.
robin Rue
I have been wanting to up my Pinterest game and this is a huge help. I am going to follow some of your tips for sure.
Rosey
Me too, Robin. It's one of those sites I love to visit for myself, but as far as my blogging goes, haven't really tweaked to work in an optimal way. I do have plans to up my Pinterest involvement too though, eventually! I def. appreciate coming across articles like this one that will help.
Amber Myers
This is helpful! Pinterest is the account I struggle most with, so I will keep these tips in mind for sure.
Heidi
Thanks, Amber. Pinterest can be the best driver of traffic, so I hope you get it figured out.
Ashley
Thanks for the info! This is really helpful. I'm trying to up my Pinterest involvement.
Heidi
You're welcome, Ashely. Good luck working with Pinterest. It's worth figuring out.
Sandra crespo
These are great tips! I did not realize how big Pinterest was for my business until the last couple of months and boy has it made a difference in my traffic!
Heidi
Definitely, Sandra! When it comes to driving traffic to your website, Pinterest is the best! I love it.
Nellwyn
This is all great advice. Treating Pinterest like a search engine and not a social media platform is definitely one of the most important things to remember. Adding alt-tags to images also helps with Pinterest SEO.
Heidi
Thanks, Nellwyn. Adding alt-tags to images is really important. I should have included that! When I upload an image to a post, I always add a keyword rich title, alt tag and description. (The same thing for all three.)
Author Brandi Kennedy
Man, I'm doing Pinterest ALL wrong. Sigh.
Time to work on that and get my graphics up to snuff!
Heidi
Don't get discouraged, Brandi. Just start small with your newest post. Gradually you'll start to see a big difference!
Author Brandi Kennedy
I hope so. I've an changing my graphics to vertical over the last few posts, so we'll see how that works out, and as I pin my posts, I'm trying to be a little more careful of what I pin them AS.
Elizabeth O.
I think pinterest is not that confusing we just have to figure out how it works. This is such a good guide especially for those who are just starting out or those who would like to improve their page.
Heidi
Thanks, Elizabeth. I agree. It's not confusing. You just have to treat it as a search engine. As long as you use great vertical images and strong key words, you'll be a success.
c
How cool! I think it's nice to have a guide like this especially since I don't use pinterest for marketing. I should really start studying how it works.
Heidi
Thanks, "C." Some days I wish I could just use Pinterest for fun! It's a great tool for marketing and just for finding great ideas.
Carol Cassara
Pinterest is something that I have not paid much attention to. I think it's awesome that you shared this with us. I learned a lot while going through the pages.
Heidi
Thanks, Carol. I'm glad you learned something. If you are trying to market a business, Pinterest is definitely worth understanding how to use.
Amanda Love
I don't focus all my marketing on pinterest but it's great especially when you're running a business. I'd love to bookmark this guide that you shared!
Heidi
Thanks, Amanda. I wish I knew which spot to focus the most attention on for marketing. I'm sure it's different for every business. For me, Pinterest sends me the most traffic.
Igor Mozek
We use Pinterest and I absolutely agree with everything you said. A lot of people are using it wrong. Hope that you will reach some of them. ;)
http://www.tripblogpost.com
Heidi
Thanks, Igor. It sometimes makes me sad when I see people trying really hard to get people to come to their website, but they don't know the techniques that really work. I hope I reach them, too. No one likes to put in work that gets them nowhere!
Kim
Wow such helpful tips! I was not aware of how helpful Pinterest is!!
Heidi
Thanks, Kim. If you are trying to market your business, Pinterest is a great tool. (Provided that you use it correctly!)
Agentszerozerosetter
These tips are really interesting! I'll sure follow some of them to grow my Pinterest account!
Heidi
Thanks for the compliment. Good luck growing your pinterest account. I hope these tips work for you.
aish das-padihari
I have been using Pinterest to pin my recipes and its not helping me much. May be I need to learn more about Pinterest.
Heidi
Hi, Asih. Sometimes it's tough to get started with Pinterest if you don't have many followers. I would suggest focusing on posting great vertical photos, and then try to get yourself added to some group boards. That way, you can reach more followers.
Cameron - Diary of a Southern Millennial
Great tips! I personally love using Canva to do all my blog images, which makes it easy to do those long pins you mentioned. Thankfully making my pins look like the ones I like to see has worked for me!
Heidi
It sounds like you've figured Pinterest out, Cameron. It just makes sense to copy the pins that you like to see.
G&D Blog
These are great tips! I'm starting to use Pinterest as one of my social media for blog, but yah, still learning. But for my photos, I so love to use Canva for posts, either blog graphics or social media posts, and again, still learning.
G&D Blog
oooops! You're right, Pinterest isn't a social media, indeed. :D
Heidi
Good luck as you continue to work on your blog, G&D Blog. It sounds like you are off to a good start.
G&D Blog
Oh thank you. I can say that for a first-timer who entered to blogosphere, I feel like I'm doing great. Increasing pageviews, good number of social media followers (not on YouTube, but working on it :D ), and the most important, learning from different bloggers out there, it's really fun.
Blair villanueva
Thanks for your tips! I'll need to give time and focus on updating my Pinterest and incorporate it to my blog.
Heidi
You're welcome, Blair. Any time you put into working harder and smarter on Pinterest will be worth it!
Sapana V
I agree, Pinterest is much more than social media. Powerful images are more important
Heidi
Definitely, Sapana. If an image doesn't catch the eye, no one will want to repin it. They might not even notice it. (Then all the time you spent creating the image is just wasted.)
Evelyn
I think Pinterest is a good tool. I usually use it as reference source.Thanks for your tips, they are so usefull.
Heidi
You're welcome, Evelyn. I love to browse Pinterest to get ideas for myself, but it's also a great source of traffic for my blog.
Emily Brathen
We use Pinterest and I absolutely agree with everything you said. Now I'm learning how to use it correctly.
Heidi
Thanks for your comment, Emily. Good luck with Pinterest. I hope you are able to get it to work well for you and your business.
Ashlea
These are great tips. I really need to work on my Pinterest account. It is definitely lacking in all aspects.
Heidi
Thanks, Ashlea. Good luck with your pinterest account. I still have a lot to clean up in my boards to make them more useful, too. (But that's a different article for another day.)
Sapana V
A very well said statement, Pinterest is not social media. Completely agree with you. Great tips.
Heidi
Thanks, Sapana. I hope you checked out the other tips as well.
Leo Tat
Thanks for this Pinterest guide. I have been growing my twitter and facebook followers but have been procrastinating on using a Pinterest account. It's because I find it more complicated than facebook and twitter. Facebook we just post to our page, and Twitter we just tweet on our profile. With Pinterest, there are different category boards and settings to allow others to post in your boards. It's like analysis paralysis. I need to make a firm action plan to start posting on Pinterest soon. My articles have infographics which I feel could be shared well on Pinterest.
Zhade
I love stock photos! They make my life so much easier! I love advice on the description. I still dont understand the difference between ALT text and description either!!!
Madi
I always thought pinterest was a social media site. It's been on my agenda to create an learn how market on there.
Do you use a business account for your website or a personal account on Pinterest?
Heidi
Hi, Madi. I use a business account, and I highly recommend it. Pins from business accounts have a lot of added great features. Good luck!
Julia Martin
I always love Pinterest and Twitter. Both of these platforms are great ways to get instant traffic to brand new websites. I will surely use these tips to grow the traffic and brand awareness of my websites.
Thank you very much for this resourceful post :)
John Fitt
Thanks Heidi for this post!
I'm actually thinking about publishing weekly infographics about healthy eating and nutrition to grow my followers on pinterest!
Thanks again and have good day!
Regards,
John Fitt
Sachin Singh
thanks for sharing these greate tips. I will surely use these tips to grow the traffic and brand awareness of my websites
Md Redoy Hossain
I just love this article. I've found it useful for my blogging purposes. Thanks for sharing your helpful thoughts.