Is having a blog important for your Pinterest success?
There are actually some businesses out there that have great success online with their marketing on Pinterest, without ever blogging AT ALL. Some entrepreneurs and companies find Pinterest helps with promoting their business, even if they don’t have a blog.
Nike, Baskin Robbins, even Wayfair all don’t have a blog to their website, yet, they get millions of followers, create meaningful impact in people’s lives, and make profit.
If an everyday person like your or I were to go this route, our online presence would probably take long to reach the status of importance. Just think about it: these corporations have HUGE amounts of money and very sophisticated smart people working for them (not to say you are not smart!) that know all the best Pinterest tips to get their message out to the masses. What some of us don’t have are massive amounts of corporate money, but what we do have that just as good or even better is Pinterest.
Currently in 2020, there are roughly 600 million blogs circulating the internet waves and there are over 320 million active Pinterest users searching for content. These numbers are huge and only go to show the main question of this blog post: which one is best for our business - blogging or Pinterest? If interested in knowing, read on to find out more.
It has been shown businesses that have a blog get 67 percent more traffic to their site than a business that does not have a blog.
The term “weblog” was made by Jorn Barger in 1997 but the word got shortened down to “blog” by Peter Merholz in 1999 (a little bit of web history here for you!).
In quick form, a blog is an online journal that’s made accessible to the public. You as the writer or creator can document your thoughts to an online space and have other people from around the world connect with your blog, comment, share, and refer their family and friends to the URL you found informative.
You can have personal blogs or business website blog. You can have a blog that talks about your products, links to your social media account, or simply displays photo collages.
What’s the difference?
Some people use the word “blog” interchangeably with website. A blog is something that is updated frequently with new published written content at a scheduled time. This blog is also very interactive where visitors can read and comment on your posts.
A website is connected to the world wide web as a specific location with a URL. Websites are not as frequently updated, say on a weekly basis, like a blog post would be published.
Websites are generally updated every so often when an important change occurs to a businesses missions, prices, service agreements, links, or their bio.
Either way, we all have come across blogs, knowingly or not. One of the biggest things with blogging is knowing how to use SEO (search engine optimization) effectively.
In order to rank high in Google’s eyes, your blog post should be ranging around 2000-3000 words. it should be relatable, informative, and educational.
Consistent blogging efforts create credibility in Google’s ranking and over time (with amazing SEO practices), have your blog or website ranking high on the first or second page.
The more content you create, the more people will link to your site or post, refer your name, or sign up to your email list. In general, businesses with a blog do exceptionally well.
Numerous stories are swirling around of people who have built an amazing business from having a blog with their business.
Take for instance, take The Blonde Abroad who took a hiatus from her corporate management job, travelled the world, blogged about it, and make it into an amazing career.
What was it about her that skyrocketed for her? Quite possibly, it was her blog.
Her blog became the escape for many who couldn’t travel to the places she could, yet, with her amazing imagery and her relatable approach to her blogging style.
She has carved out her own space to attract the right viewership, gain their trust, and convert women to solo travel and experience life on their own terms.
A blog allows people to find you before they buy from you.
If someone visits your site and checks out your products, nine times out of ten, they will not convert into customers right away.
They need to trust that you’re an expert in what you do. These prospective clients/customers/ need to learn about you more before they give you their hard-earned money.
It’s usually not until they see your recurring blog post later on in their discovery that they may be convinced you’re the real deal.
See my friends, that’s when then they would most likely buy from you.
And that’s why having a blog is so important.
Blog posts also give you more “street credibility” in the online space and blogs allow you to showcase your knowledge on topics in your niche.
The beauty about blog posts are that you can customize them in so many ways!
You can add:
videos
graphics
quotes
images
guest posts
FAQs
The list truly could go on! In short, a blog is where a community of like-minded individuals can engage, learn, comment & grow together.
Having a blog is highly beneficial to all business owners so you can expand your reach and gain the trust of your audience.
Pinterest is called the “anti-social media outlet”, which I absolutely love. I’ll dive into this more in a bit.
Pinterest was co-founded by three amazing geniuses Ben Silbermann, Evan Sharp and Paul Sciarra.
Their sole intention is to get people OFF the site and discover the vast amount of content that is out there.
The reason why Pinterest has taken off over the years is because it speaks directly to people where they are in their life.
People want to be engaged, inspired, and motivated to live a better life. They want information that will help them achieve what they are looking for, instead of wading through piles of unwanted information. Pinterest delivers exactly what a reader wants at a greater reach.
Pinterest is called a visual discovery engine with over 100 Billion Pins floating around waiting for you to grab hold of and is reach a whole new audience.
Think about it like this.
You finish writing a blog post, then you create a few Pinterest graphics.
You take one of your graphic images and Pin it to your board.
Someone in your audience sees your newly created Pin graphic, sees that it speaks to their pain point, goes ahead and saves it to their Pinterest board.
To quicken up the analogy, your one Pin can easily now easily be turned into ten repins, simply because once a graphic image is saved to your board, it gets shown to all your audience members who are needing the solution to their problem solved!
That’s ten new leads in the matter of a short time span.
And if you’re a new blogger, influencer or business owner reading this post and you’re not sure how to start on your Pinterest journey, I highly encourage you to sign up for my The Power of Pinterest 5-Day Email Course.
This course is entirely FREE and gives you a solid understanding of what you can change right away to your Pinterest strategy to start seeing an improvement in your audience reach.
My free course has helped so many people really hone their Pinterest strategy for their business, and I want the same for you too.
Pinterest can help your business and blog is so many ways, I want you to experience the freedom that comes from a proper marketing strategy that will target the right people your way.
So what does this all mean?
Well, I know it took a bit to get to this point but I wanted to give you a thorough look into things before I really get down to the details of having a blog for your Pinterest success.
So, here's the thing.
If you find that you really enjoy writing & you can connect your audience better through this medium, then I encourage you to write more blog posts!
Google will reward you with getting your rankings higher up the ladder.
If you are not a fan of writing blog posts (I some of you are out there, and guess what, I’m one of them!), then don’t fret my friend. There are so many ways you can re-purpose your content to Pinterest.
For example, if you are an Instagram user, I encourage you to re-purpose your posts, your Instagram stories, and your IGTVs to Pinterest! These all do amazingly well and can still work as effectively in reaching your target audience.
The only thing you should note is once you re-purpose your content, you do need to optimize your it to fit/suite the best practices on the new platform such as changing out the titles & adding in keyword-rich descriptions with a few broad & niched-down hashtags.
As we know, Pinterest is a visual search engine which means there will be generally less competition in ranking as compared to Google. This gives all brands and business a fair shot at reaching their target audience which I think is awesome.
If you are thinking of starting a blog for your business, I don't want you thinking of it as another ‘thing’ you have to perfect.
The one thing that made me start my blog was literally taking ‘imperfect action’ and not worrying too much of anything.
I want you to think of your blog posts as a way for your audience to connect and convert with you, and your Pinterest as the place where your audience can aspire to be like you.
In conclusion, to obtain great results in traffic, saves and link clicks from Pinterest to your site, having a blog or a landing page that contains written information your audience wants, is key to what your business success.
Just write what you know and focus on providing the solutions your audience can implement right away as a quick win.
The research definitely lets us know that if your business has a blog, you will do better on Pinterest and build the LIKE, KNOW, and TRUST factor with your audience more than if you are without a blog.
Also I leave you with this.
You're not expected to write a full APA-style research paper here as you’re not going to be graded. I just want you to write in your own style because the main reason why people started following you was because of your uniqueness.
Just own it & you’ll be just fine.
Do you have a blog for your business? If so, how has it changed your traffic? If not, what has held you back?