Pinterest has been the creative’s platform of choice for some time now. Bloggers who share great how-to articles coupled with amazing visual content, have done particularly well.

But there’s been rumblings recently of traffic from the visual platform, taking a nose-dive. Bloggers are reporting that their referrals from Pinterest are falling and that things generally seem amiss.

There’s even been whisperings of Pinterest going the same way that Facebook has!

To be honest I don’t really agree with this. Today I’m going to share why I think this and more importantly, dig into what’s changed. Then we’re going to look at what you can do to pull your stats out of the dumps and get your boards bustling with life again.

A Pinteresting New Smart Feed

Things began to change in August 2017 when a new way of organizing your Pinterest home feed was born. This spangly new feed is called the Smart Feed, which instead of showing pins in chronological order – or as they’re pinned – now shows something different.

According to this article from Ahalogy, pins now appear based on who you follow, your interests and related pins Pinterest thinks you might find interesting. It’s a blend of all three with the aim of making your feed more interesting, better quality and more targeted to your individual tastes.

So as you can imagine, this is where the fallout has come from. Because pins don’t show up in your followers feeds as you pin them, less people are likely to see them. Further to this, it seems people will be even less likely to see them if they’re not relevant to their interests.

It seems Pinterest is finally putting an emphasis on quality content. No more is it a game of how often you pin or how many followers you have to see your pins. It’s about providing the best value you can offer, in order to warrant showing up in someone’s feed.

Okay. You might be wondering what the heck you can do now that your Pinterest strategy has been turned on its head. The good news is I’m about to share some tips you can start using right now.

What you might find difficult is changing the way you’ve been approaching Pinterest in the past. In a nutshell you need to stop trying to beat the system. Stop trying to find ways around the updates and loopholes you can use to cut corners.

Instead start really using Pinterest, and use some of the tips below to help you along your way. Sure it might sound like a lot of hard work, but as we all know, Pinterest done well can pay off big time.

When Pinning From Your Website

1 – Only create high quality articles.

If you’re not already doing this, start right now. Quality is key here for both Pinterest and your blog. Your readers don’t want to read a post that’s been half-heartedly thrown together, just to fill a gap in your schedule.

Put the time in to making the best content you possibly can. When you combine it with a great pin image, you’ll know you’ve done all you can to make it as valuable as possible.

2 – Create keyword-rich titles when saving your images.

Here I don’t mean when you’ve already uploaded your images to your blog. I mean right there in the creation process, when you’ve designed your image and are about to save it as yournewimage.png.

You might not be able to see the file name once the pin is out there on the internet. Search engines however can. Since pins show up in search results, giving your image a proper file name that reflects the content of your article, will help maximize its visibility.

3 – Title your images on uploading to your blog.

Here I do mean once you’ve uploaded it to your blog. The title of your image (or title tag) is as important as the filename. Utilize the title as another opportunity to describe your content by including your article’s main keyword.

4 – Don’t forget a descriptive alt title for each image.

People often forget to fill in the Alt title area for images they upload to their websites. It’s easily done, I’ve done it many times. If you’re one of those people, go back now and add alt titles. These will appear in pin descriptions, search engines and beyond and will make it easier for people to find your pins.

5 – Make it easy for readers to pin your content.

Consider adding a “Pin-it” button to your blog. This will allow your readers to pin your article images and boost the number of organic pins that come directly from your URL.

Elegant Themes has a beautiful new social sharing plugin that includes media sharing. This is ideal for getting people to share your images.

Alternatively SumoMe offers a free plugin that does something similar. Or you could use the native Pin It button from Pinterest itself.

When Creating Pinterest Boards

6 – Use Pinterest’s search function for board title ideas.

Head to Pinterest and type in a keyword into their search box. After you hit enter, Pinterest will automatically suggest keywords that people regularly search for that go with your keyword.

This is a great way of not just scouting out your competition, but for coming up with board ideas for your content. Since these terms are already popular, you know for certain that people will be looking for them.

If you create boards around those search terms, with pins that further reflect those keywords, pinterest users will ultimately be able to find them quickly.

7 – Title your boards sensibly with descriptive words.

Similar to the previous tip, you can use the popular search terms you’ve found to title your Pinterest boards.

It seems to be a popular thing to name your boards with cute and obscure titles. To me this seems counter-intuitive in that it’s really not helping people find you. If you’re dead set on optimizing your pinterest traffic, you need to start being more sensible with your board names.

8 – Remember to create a rich, descriptive board description.

Again board descriptions are another area people completely overlook. Don’t be one of those people! This is prime real estate for really describing what your boards are about. We might not read them or at the very least skim over them, but search engines do!

When Pinning and Re-Pinning to Pinterest

9 – Repin high quality pins.

In the same way that you should be pinning quality content that you create, the same holds true for other people’s pins. Don’t just pin any old thing you think is relevant. Take the time to dig into the site behind the pin.

Ask yourself, is it useful? Will my audience enjoy this? Will they find this valuable?

If the answer is yes, then go ahead and repin. If it’s no, forget it. A good rule of thumb I use, is I’ll only pin something I would happily read myself.

10 – Create compelling pin descriptions.

As with your board descriptions, your pin descriptions need attention too. Don’t just write the title of your post. Take the time to tell people about the post they’ll read when clicking through. How will they benefit from reading? What will they get out of it?

11 – Keep your keywords natural.

It can be really tempting to just fill up pin descriptions with loads of keywords. You know, just stuff them in and hope for the best. The reality is, if you do this, you’re probably hurting your chances of becoming visible rather than helping them.

Keep your keywords natural, as if you’re dropping them in organically in a conversation. This will help your descriptions read better, as well as naturally making them seem less salesy.

12 – Reconsider your hashtag usage.

Listen. I keep seeing hashtags all over Pinterest. My personal opinion is WHY!? So allow me to clear something up here. Hashtags don’t work on Pinterest if they’re in your board title, board description, pin title or comments. You can’t click them because they’re not linked. If they’re not linked, there’s no way of you seeing a group of pins under that hashtag.

You can however use hashtags in your pin descriptions to help your pins visibility in search results, but it’s not necessary if you naturally include the words you’d tag, within your description anyway. For example you might want to write a pin about a colour palette. Here’s what a hashtagged pin would look like:

“20 Inspirational Colour Palettes To Warm You Up This Winter #winter #colour #palette”

Note the words in bold. These are exactly the same as the hashtags, I’ve just added them naturally into the pin description instead. This means the hashtags are just repeating themselves. There’s no other real purpose to them, so personally I’d get rid.

13 – Tag other Pinterest users in your pins.

There aren’t really any rules of engagement for Pinterest. In fact there seems to be very little of it going on, so why not break the trend and start getting people involved?

Tagging people in pins they might find interesting can be a great way to start a conversation. You might also want to tag people you feature in the post associated with that pin. Tagging them will notify them and draw their attention. This can result in more visibility for your pin, high levels of engagement and potential of more repins.

14 – Be generous with liking people’s pins.

That little heart button on a pin. Remember that? Start using it more often. Use it liberally and generously. Every pin you come across that you like but which isn’t re-pin material, go ahead and like it.

This can only have a positive effect on your profile and may even gain you some engagement in return.

15 – Comment regularly on other people’s pins.

Have you ever looked at the pinterest feed? I mean really looked at it close-up? What’s the one thing that’s lacking? Comments!

Commenting on other people’s pins is the best way to drive more engagement on Pinterest. Because hardly anyone does it, it will help you stand out as someone to take note of.

16 – Have a consistent pinning schedule.

My last tip is an important one because it’s so easy to go through bursts of pinning, with no regard for your followers. With the new smart feed, slow and steady wins the race.

Space your pins out over the course of a day so that you’re pinning regularly and consistently. I use Tailwind to schedule my pins – it’s inexpensive and has some great stats and figures to keep me on the right track.

The reason why this is the best way to go, is because Pinterest will see that you’re regularly providing valuable content, and so will be more likely to show your pins in people’s feeds. In a way it’s a lot like blogging. It doesn’t matter how often or how little you post. As long as it’s consistent, you’ll continue to grow because people will know what to expect.

Final Thoughts

Ultimately how you use Pinterest is up to you. My tips aren’t the law, they’re just what works for me. However I can see the value in taking this approach because I have the results to go with it. Instead of seeing my pinterest stats dive with the introduction of the smart feed, they’ve improved.

The key I believe is to stop trying to game the system. Use it as you would any other personal user and you’ll see things improve. Try to manipulate it, and your results probably won’t be as favourable.