First, here's the proof as promised. Here's the link to my Blogger.com homepage which shows the current amount of page views.
I have now over 850,000 page views and I am currently getting between the low of 600 and the high of 3,000 page views per day. My numbers fluctuate because of my seasonal niche of gardening.
I chose Blogger.com as my blog publishing service because I found its features easy to use. Blogger.com was bought by Google in 2003. The blogs are hosted by Google and generally accessed from a subdomain of blogspot.com. With the Google name attached to it, I trust Blogger.com will be around for some time.
Getting a continual number of page views to your blog, of course, takes time and dedication. I'm sure there are other ways to get the results you want from your blog, but after some trial and error, I found that the following strategy was what worked for me, and I think it can work for you. So let's get to the marketing strategy.
How I got to 850,000 page views
I use Blogger.com., Pinterest, Canva, Pixabay and Tailwind
In a nutshell, the process I use is to create my Pinterest pins on Canva using images from Pixabay, upload them onto Pinterest and link to my blog articles/posts, and then schedule them out to post to Pinterest with Tailwind.
If you haven't yet set up a blogging publishing service like Blogger.com, you need to get that now as the setup for the following platforms will take some initial time to set up and become familiar with.
Let's get started. This article presumes that you already have a blogging site set up, you have some content you've created and you're ready to get page views.
If you need some help in organizing your growing list of blog posts, here is a helpful planner.
Let's go through the platforms listed above one at a time to learn how they work together.
Pinterest is a visual search engine. It's not technically considered a social media platform like Instagram or Facebook. Pinterest is actually more on the level of Google, a search engine, only Pinterest is a visual search engine using "pins." The goal is to catch a user's eye and draw attention to the content you've uploaded enticing them to click or pin.
Pinterest is where 75% of my blog page views come from.
Users go to Pinterest to find ideas like recipes, home and style inspiration, and more. The Pinterest site contains billions of pins and more are uploaded each day. When Pinterest users see a pin they like for a product or for information they are searching for, they can click on the pin to go to the site.
Many pinners will "save" those pins to a board that they've made on Pinterest so they can find it later. The beauty of that for the blogger is that when the searcher saves your pin to their Pinterest board, the pin gets renewed life. Your pin can now be seen by that pinner's followers, and if one of their followers saves it, it will then be seen by their followers and on and on. And that pin always leads to the content on your site.
More Advantages to Using Pinterest for Bloggers
Visitors from Pinterest are more likely to convert into leads or sales faster than from other social media sources. It is estimated that 93% of pinners use Pinterest to plan their purchases.
Connectivity. Pinterest syncs up with many social media apps you probably already use for marketing like Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter.
Pinterest gives you analytical information including platform overview, trends, and audience preferences so you can tailor your pin images and even your content to suit your targeted audience.
So with Pinterest having more than 320 million monthly active users, you may wonder how you, as a new blogger, can compete in that arena?
Well, luckily for bloggers, most users of Pinterest aren't content creators like you who are looking for blog page views. They are just surfing and searching Pinterest for ideas and products they're interested in. Those users won't take the necessary steps you will take to tailor your profile, your boards, and your pins to reach your target audience. More on that later.
Let's start with tailoring your Pinterest account to your target audience.
First, completely fill out your Pinterest profile. Let people know who you are, what you're interested in, what you blog about. Add as many niche keywords as you can think of that your target audience will use to find your content.
If you are new to the world of keywords and SEO (Search Engine Optimization) here's a great book I found helpful.
After you initially upload your new pin, Pinterest will allow you to pin that same pin to relevant boards. That's why you will need to create several different boards that you can pin your content to.
To create more niche boards, go to your Pinterest profile. You will see the buttons for "created" "saved" and "tried." Hitting the saved buttons will show you all of your current boards.
To the very right side, you will see a plus sign "t" which gives you the option of creating a board or a pin.
First, you will want to create a "main" board if you don't already have one. The name of your blog is a good title for it. You will use this board for the initial upload of all of your new pins. This way you can always find your blog pins when you want to repin them later. You can choose to make this board secret if you choose. This board is just for you.
Now create 10 to 15 boards with board names related to your niche. The board names should be general enough that many of your blog posts/articles can be pinned to them, yet different from other board names.
For example, if you're in the gardening niche like I am, you can add separate boards titled Gardening 101, Gardening for Beginners, Best Gardening Blogs, The Well Kept Garden, etc. You get the idea.
As you create each new board, carefully write your board description with as many keywords as you can think of. You want people who are searching for boards related to gardening information or products to find you.
This is important because Pinterest is mainly a visual search engine. More people will find your pinned content by searching for keywords than they will from being included on the feed that your followers will see.
If you don't want to hire a graphics designer, (and who can afford that) Canva is a great free way to create stunning designs in minutes by yourself without graphic designing skills.
With Pinterest, Pin is King so take time to learn Canva's features and how to use them. To get ideas for designing your pins, just peruse the pins that catch your eye on Pinterest and use them as a format and put your own twist on them.
Canva has several images already there for you to use, but realistically they are being used over and over and you want images that are fresh. I would recommend uploading your own images if you have them.
Another great option is to upload images from free sites like Pixabay for use in creating pins.
I use Pixabay images constantly. Pixabay is a large collection of free images and videos. All contents are released under the Pixabay License, which makes them safe to use without asking for permission or giving credit to the artist - even for commercial purposes.
You can download the images to your computer for free, and it's easy to do. Click on the image you want, click download, then choose a size. If you choose the smallest size (which I have found is perfect for later use) you can download the image without going through the steps to prove that you're not a robot, which I find to be too time-consuming.
Once your chosen image is download, you can then easily upload it to Canva to use in your pin designs.
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A little about the text on images
Including text on your pin is very important. You need to let the viewer know what they're going to get by clicking or saving your pin. A pin, no matter how beautiful, without text explaining what it's linked to will be ignored.
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Okay. So now you've got your blog post ready, you've created a visually-attractive pin with a text overlay that lets the pinner know why they should save or click on your pin. It's time to upload it to Pinterest and get some views!
Uploading your pin to Pinterest is pretty straightforward. Here are the steps:
You will see a "Create" button toward the top left of your profile page. Choose the "Create Pin". Upload your pin in the big block on the left. Copy and paste the link to your blog post. Add your title to the top.
The description you give your pin is very important, so take the time to create a description with as many keywords as naturally flow.
Lastly, select your main board and pin it. You have the option of seeing your pin to make sure everything is as you wanted it.
Now that your new pin is officially on Pinterest, you will be able to pin it to each of your niche boards as long as you wait two days between each pinning. You could pin the same pin to several of your boards sooner than that but you risk being introduced to the spam police, and you don't want that.
Now your pin is available for your followers to see.
But you're not going to stop there! You want that pin to be seen by as many people as possible.
In addition to having your followers see your pins and being
seen by people who search the keywords you've used, you can join boards belonging to other users who have made their board a "group board."
Pinterest Group Boards (also known as collaborative boards) are shared Pinterest boards that multiple Pinterest users pin to. The board is owned by one Pinterest user who has given other Pinterest users permission to add pins. When you contribute a pin to their group board, their followers will also see your pins. You want to join as many group boards in your niche as you can.
To find group boards in your niche that accept contributors, go to the Pinterest search and search for "group garden boards" for example.
The first person you see on the list of pinners is the board owner. You'll need to contact that person and ask to be added as a contributor to that group board. Most group board owners will require that you follow their profile before requesting to be added.
Finding board owners who are willing to add you to their group boards will take some time and patience, so try not to get discouraged. Many of these board owners are too busy to answer right away so it can take some time to get a response.
Joining group boards gives you many more boards to pin to in order to get your pin seen. It's a numbers game. The more boards you can pin your pins to, the better the chance someone interested will see them.
When you get to the point where you have a good deal of content to share, maybe 20 to 30 blog posts with corresponding pins uploaded to Pinterest, it's time to invest some money in a scheduler like Tailwind.
Tailwind is a social media scheduler used to plan and schedule out your pins weeks in advance. This is a great time-saver which will leave you plenty of time to do what we love -- creating great content.
While there are a lot of different social media scheduling tools out there including Hootsuite, Buffer, Viralwoot, and Viraltag, I have found Tailwind to be the easiest to use.
Like any other new platform, you will need to spend some time understanding and learning to use the Tailwind scheduler, but after you are familiar with how it works, it will save you much time and energy, and aggravation. I use it almost daily.
Other Advantages to Using Tailwind
You can join "tribes" where bloggers like yourself share each other's pins onto their Pinterest boards. This opens up your pins to a much wider audience.
Tailwind also has an analytics section where you can learn about your profile, board, and pin performance.
One of my favorite parts of Tailwind is the "board lists." This is where those 15-20 niche boards you created on Pinterest and the group boards you joined comes into play. You can schedule one specific pin to the niche boards you created using a time interval of your choice. I have my interval set at two days. So every two days that specific pin will be scheduled to pin to one of my boards on the Tailwind board list.
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If your head is swimming now, I understand. There is so much to learn about each of these platforms that it would literally take a book to go into detail about all of the platforms and their features.
The best way to learn them is to sign up for them and begin to get familiar with all the features. Soon all of what you've read in this article will start to make more sense.
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I hope you've found this article helpful to start your journey into marketing your content.
I love to hear from fellow bloggers, especially new ones because, well, we've all been new at one time!
I love to hear from fellow bloggers, especially new ones because, well, we've all been new at one time!
Feel free to email me with questions or comments at thelearningplace.shf@gmail.com.
And if you want to learn about how you can have a guest post published on our blog, use this link: writer'sguidelines
Susan Coyle Minshall is a freelance writer, garden enthusiast and owner/operator of Sunset Hosta Farm and Senior Dog Retreat. Her work has appeared in magazines including Practical Gardener, Double Talk Magazine, Good Old Days Magazine, Twins Magazine, GreenPrints Magazine, the Journal of Court Reporting as well as several online magazines.
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