How To Make Money Online Using Pinterest

For a long time Pinterest had been one of those platforms which I never really understood, and it wasn’t until I gave it a proper try that I realised how powerful it really is, especially when it comes to making money online. If you’re wondering how you can do just that then you’re in luck, as not only will I explain why Pinterest is important to growing your business, but also how you can grow your account to up to 1.6 million new impressions per month, as well as how to make money on Pinterest – albeit indirectly.

Making money on Pinterest isn’t done so on the platform itself, but moreso by using it as a gateway to your website, eCommerce store or landing page, to name but a few options. All of which will be suitable platforms for you to sell products & services directly to your customer. Pinterest is a fantastic social media platform, and is a perfect medium for finding your ideal customers and directing them to a relevant point of sale.

As an alternative to sending users to your own website, social media page, blog or store, you can add an affiliate link to your Pinterest pins, meaning that you can make referral income from third-party companies when you successfully send a paying customer to them. Once that customer has been sent to, and made a purchase with, said company then you will receive a share of the total amount of spent.

Be aware though that people are less likely to click on a Pin if it looks like click-bait or appears to salesy. The best pins will be inviting enough to grab the attention of your ideal customer, not only to click on the Pin for more information, but also so that they click on the pin again to click-through to your website.

How you make money online

So now that we’ve clarified that Pinterest only acts as a bridge when it comes to making money online, it begs the question of what else is needed to earn that additional income. To put it simply, one of the best ways to make money online is by selling products or services to your ideal customers. These products can be physical items such as clothing, hardware or books, or they can also be digital items such as eBooks and courses, all of which will require an online store.

Alternatively you can advertise your services on your website, which if you are I would recommend setting up an optimised sales page, which can help to inform, entice, track and convert the user into hiring you. The sales page will act as a long-from brochure of who you are, what you do and how you can help the user. It helps for this sales page to be niche-d down to a specific audience, which is where Pinterest comes in, as you can created optimised pins & boards which can attract the attention of your ideal customer.

If you’re interested in selling physical, or digital, products on your online store, then you’ll want to check out this post I wrote on how to set up Rich Pins on Pinterest, which will allow you to link your products to the pin, increasing the likelihood of a purchase.

How to create an online store or sales page

The missing piece so far when it comes to making money online, is having the end product or service in place, for your ideal customer to be sent to. This final part can be in the form of an eCommerce store, sales page or service portfolio – all of which will require your own website.

With an abundance of web hosting companies popping out of every orifice these days, it can be confusing thinking which one to go for, when building your own website. The average person will want to factor in the performance, ease of use & price, which is why I personally recommend that you purchase your website domain & hosting with Siteground, a great web hosting company that offers fast servers, competitive prices and fantastic customer support.

If you’re looking for a simple guide on how to set up your own website (or blog), then check out this article I wrote which can get you up and running within minutes!

Optimising your Pinterest account for traffic

Organising your Pinterest boards into relevant categories may look nice, but it only solves part of the issue, with the other being getting people in front of your profile in the first place. There is a combination of things that you will want to do in order to attract your ideal customers to your Pinterest account, which includes optimising your account bio to clearly say what you do & how you can help them. A link to your website will also help!

Aside from optimising your bio, you’ll also want to create aesthetically pleasing pins that ‘do what it says on the tin’, for instance if you’re like me and you’re pinning content on specific blog posts, such as “How to get more Pinterest followers” then it should say that on the pin image. Likewise if you’re pinning a product, the product itself should be well photographed in the pin image, although I’m sure I didn’t need to tell you that!

When uploading a pin to Pinterest, you’ll also have the opportunity to include a description of the pin, filling out this section with a relevant and descriptive caption of what the pin is about can help your pin to rank higher in the social media’s search results, as the keywords in this description work exactly the same way they might do on a blog post (for Google search results). I personally like to include hashtags on my descriptions too, which do work on Pinterest.

Here’s a screenshot of my Pinterest stats from June 2019, where I was getting 1.6m impressions per month, crazy stuff!

Pinterest traffic, on steroids.

Now that you’ve optimised your Pinterest account for traffic, you’ll want to know how to increase the traffic in the first place. To put it simply, to succeed on Pinterest you’ll want to post quality content – a lot. When I say a lot, I mean it. It doesn’t necessarily all have to be your own content, and in fact you’ll definitely benefit from sharing other people’s pins too, however you need to be re-pinning content every hour of every day.

Sure you might give it a try for the first day of two, but after a while you’ll realise that staring at your phone for that long is doing damage to your health. That’s why I recommend you check out Tailwind, an official partner of Pinterest which allows you to schedule hundreds, if not thousands, of pins in advance with ease. Using Tailwind, you can join ‘tribes’ which are groups filled with other pinners within your niche, with the intention being to repin each other’s (quality) content and showcase your pins in front of a wider audience.

The great thing about Tailwind is that there is a free trial which allows you to pin up to 100 pieces of content, before being asked to purchase one of the paid options – of which there are many to choose from, allowing for monthly fees or an upfront discounted payment. Like I say, I would recommend giving the free trial a go to see whether you like it, and potentially get results like the ones above.

Conclusion

The key to making money on Pinterest isn’t so much on the social media platform itself, however it can be a great way to send organic, targeted traffic to your eCommerce store, sales page or service portfolio, and thus increase your sales that way. Using Pinterest you can showcase your content & website in front of millions of people, especially when you utilise the power of its partnered program – Tailwind.

How do you intend to make money with Pinterest?

Wondering how you can use Pinterest to improve your website traffic and make more money? Check out this article which explains why you need to use Pinterest - Mike Walters - #pinterest #social #media #money #online #website #traffic
Did you find this post on how to make money using Pinterest useful? If so then please repin this image on Pinterest 🙂

This Post Has 2 Comments

  1. Newton

    I am finding that the PayPal age restriction is 18 or older. What is the work around for some of these companies that offer jobs for a 16yo?

    1. Mike Walters

      Hey Newton, interesting question. Maybe try looking into something like Stripe or Paysend. If neither of those options work, it may be best for a trusted adult to accept the payments on your behalf until you are old enough to do so. Best of luck 🤙🏼

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