How Tailwind Doubled My Traffic

This post is two years old. My traffic went from 500ish views per day to 5k average. Pinterest can definitely be a game-changer! To learn more of what I do check out my blogging guide!

You’ve heard the saying “You can’t teach an old dog new tricks.”? That’s unabashedly me. I’ve been blogging for six years and I have a system. I don’t like when things mess with my systems. Focus on Facebook and Twitter and dabble in everything else. “Facebook is where the traffic is.” I kept hanging onto that years’ old advice despite my Facebook posts getting little to no engagement.

I figured traffic would even out eventually. I started seeing Pinterest touted as a great way to get traffic and I resisted. I mindlessly pinned each new blog post but I never paid attention to it. Learning Pinterest seemed like a lot of work, and of course – I had a system.

And then my traffic doubled.

Someone offered me a free trial of Tailwind, which is a Pinterest scheduler/organizer and I was feeling brave (and actually had energy that day – thank you depression!) so I decided to try it. I told myself I’d put in the effort for a week and then go back to The System. I spent about three hours googling Pinterest dos and don’ts, because no one wants to be THAT guy. I researched group boards, image sizes, board titles, and organization, and then I jumped in.

The Stats

In two months my daily impressions went up 378%

My daily views went up 334%

Clicks to my website went up 381%

Average daily visitors went up 326%

Average monthly views of my pins based on the last 30 days? 1,179,946 which is up 524% from February.

Pinterest now makes up almost 60% of my total traffic.

What I Did To Get Here

Holy wow, those are amazing numbers aren’t they? Keep in mind that before joining tailwind I did dabble in Pinterest and I had a bit of a following already but I was only averaging a handful of views a day. If you’re already active on Pinterest you might not see such a huge upswing in traffic. I did have to put in some work and do some research to make this happen. Here are the biggest tips I can give ya!

Sign up with Tailwind

Tailwind helped me to become active on Pinterest without dedicating a huge chunk of time to it. The reason I snubbed Pinterest before was because I either forgot to check in which meant I pinned 2-3 times a week or I didn’t want to dedicate the time to it every day. The experts recommend pinning 20 to 50 times a day, and I just didn’t have time for that. With Tailwind I can put in the time, one or two mornings a week, and reach that 20 pins a day goal that I have for the whole week. Not only does it schedule and spread your pins out over the week, but it optimizes the times so that they get in front of your audience.

It’s been a life saver and it’s done amazing things for my traffic. I can’t recommend it enough.

Join group boards!

If you take a look at my profile you can see the group boards I’m part of by the circle in the middle of each board with different profile pictures in it.

Figuring out group boards was probably one of the more difficult parts of increasing my traffic. I didn’t want to do anything wrong or offend anyone and it was hard to find an etiquette guide! You join a group board by following the board you want to join, and then usually following the creator of the board, and sending them a message or commenting on one of their pins that you would like an invitation. In the board description, sometimes you’ll be asked to e-mail them for an invitation – be sure to use the email address you signed up to Pinterest with!

Some boards have requirements – like for every time you pin to the board you pin one or two others. This is what keeps the pins moving and getting engagement. This helps you by giving you quality content to pin and it gets you more followers. Win/Win for everyone.

Tailwind makes it so easy to keep track of this because you can schedule multiple pins at once from one board. I usually visit each board once a week and try to schedule 10-20 pins from each board to post throughout the week. Works like a charm.

Learn How To Create Great Pins

Verticle pins are what you need! Bright, colorful, stock images work great and so do easy to read fonts. It took me awhile to get the hang of it. You want your images to be over 1000px high. Infographics also do really well. Take a look at other pins and see what phrases/images/styles are pulling people in.

I’ve been going back and making vertical images for my older, more popular blog posts and it’s been so worth it.

My favorite (completely free) websites for stock images are stocksnap.io and unsplash.com

I use photoshop for all of my images but you can also do great things with Canva if that’s not an option.

Keep learning!

Do your research and keep looking for ways to improve. There are so many little tips that make a big difference when it comes to Pinterest. Make sure that all of your boards fit into your blogging/biz niche. Make sure all of your boards have descriptions and that your profile is filled out. Check that your pins are linking back your website and that your website is on your profile page.

Join blogging and business Facebook groups that have a Pinterest day.

If you put in the work for a few days – showing yourself the ropes – it’ll get so much easier and you’ll see more traffic with little work.