Already month 3 (and 4!) of my Pinterest manual pinning experiment with a new blog (launched in 2021).
I wanted to see if I could get traffic to my new blog using Pinterest, since organic traffic was (and still is) slow as F.
This is my first blog, and I have zero previous experience with blogging. Also, I think it’s getting harder and harder to see success in the blogging world (with the growing competition, the rise of video formats, and the different algorithm updates from Google and Pinterest), so this is my way of testing if it can still work.
And finally, I blog about mental health, mostly, and this is not an easy topic to rank for, on either Google or Pinterest.
So, I’m curious to see if this will work.
Keep reading to know how I’m growing traffic to my blog using Pinterest and how I got my first 1 000 pageviews to my new blog.
And stay tuned if you want to follow along with my blogging progress! I plan on posting regular updates, at least for the next few months.
If it’s your first time here, you could start by reading this:
How I gained 20k impressions on Pinterest in 30 days with my new blog (in 2021)
Now, this is what my traffic from Pinterest looked like after approximately 3 and 4 months of consistent, manual pinning.
My daily traffic increase between November-December 2021:
Some context on my blog and this Pinterest manual pinning experiment
When I started this experiment on September 10th, 2021, I had about 1 000 impressions on Pinterest and 27 pageviews (i.e., outbound clicks) to my blog.
- 3 months later, on December 10th I had reached 55k impressions on Pinterest and 607 pageviews for the last 30 days.
- And by December 31st, I had over 72k impressions and 1 002 pageviews to my blog (last 30 days).
December is the first month I was able to reach my first 1 000 pageviews or outbound clicks to my blog in one month (yay!). So, it took me a little over 3 months of consistently pinning 3-5 times per day to get my first 1000 visitors to my blog with Pinterest.
I know, in this series, I’ve been counting data from the 10th of the month because I officially started pinning on Sept 10th (or 9th?) and I wanted to be accurate.
However, as of January, I’ll start tracking the data month by month to make it easier for me (and for you). So next month, I will make an update for January 1st-31st and not from December 11th to January 10th.
This is why in this post here I will talk about my results from November 11th all the way until December 31st, 2021.
If you want to know more about what my blog is about and what my strategy has been for the first 2 months of this experiment check out these other blog posts:
- How I gained 20k impressions on Pinterest in 30 days with my new blog (in 2021)
- How I gained 40k impressions on Pinterest in 60 days with my new blog (in 2021)
- 6-month update for a new blog launched in 2021: Search Console, Google/Pinterest Analytics, and more stats
Why manual pinning?
I chose manual pinning over the use of a scheduler like Tailwind, for now. I had tried creating pins using Canva in the beginning and it was taking me a lot of time. Because of this, I didn’t see the use of spending money on a scheduler and spending even more time figuring out how it worked when I had already so many things to learn as a new blogger.
I decided I’d start pinning manually first, and if I ever felt the need for it, I would then later switch to a scheduling tool.
So far, 4 months into my manual pinning experiment and I still do not feel the need for such a tool. Pinterest’s built-in scheduler works just fine for me!
Highlights
A few things happened in November and December.
I had my second “viral” pin in November
That was fun, but very brief.
Pinning 5 times per day
In November, my traffic and impressions were stagnating at best, and even dropping (?). During the whole month of November, I was losing both impressions and clicks to my blog.
Pinterest traffic (outbound clicks) slows down in November
So, around November 16-17th, I decided to pin more and went from pinning 3 times per day to pinning 3-6 times per day.
That’s how, for the next couple of weeks, I started pinning mostly 4-5 times per day; rarely 6, and sometimes 3 times per day on slower days. For me, slower days for Pinterest traffic seem to be Thursdays, Fridays, and Saturdays. More on this ‘pinning 5 times per day’ business later.
Stagnation in November; sustained growth in December
Ever since that burst of pinning 5 times per day in late November, my outbound clicks, i.e., the number of pageviews to my blog, started increasing a lot more in December. And it hasn’t stopped since.
What my daily impressions look like on Pinterest after 4 months of pinning consistently (Sept-December 2021)
Number of pageviews (outbound clicks to my blog) from Pinterest after 4 months of manual pinning (Sept-December 2021).
I’m not sure if it’s due to the consistent pinning, the pinning 5 times per day, or if it’s simply the Pinterest Gods blessing me with their light as my account gains in age and consistency.
But who am I to complain?
Also, my outbound clicks seem to grow faster than my impressions.
See my next point.
I’m still pretty satisfied with my click-through rate
For the month of December, my CTR is at 1.39 %. Alsmost double what it was in the previous months!
As mentioned in this post here, I think that’s a pretty good click-through rate and I’m happy with it. Especially since it keeps improving with time.
About manual pinning
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On manual pinning 5 times per day
I pinned 4-5 times per day for about 2 weeks. By December I stopped because pinning more than 3 times per day is labor-intensive and I can’t keep this up. (I was already struggling with pinning 3 times per day, imagine 5!).
So now, I’m back to pinning 3 times per day, but I still pin 4-5 times per day on Sundays.
On the time it takes to create pins and to pin manually
I’ve complained about how much time it takes me to create pins. Not to mention actually pinning them or scheduling those pins using Pinterest’s built-in scheduler. (And I only pin 3 times per day! Honestly, to this day, I still don’t understand bloggers who claim to pin 30 times per day. I mean, really?? How do they manage to create so.many.pins?? What do they know that I don’t?).
Aaanyway, my pinning game seems to be improving slowly. I’m getting better at Canva and faster at creating pins.
It now takes me about 2-3 minutes to create a pin. That is, compared to the 8 minutes it was taking me back in October-November (and that was already a major improvement compared to last spring).
This means I can now create pins 3 to 4 times faster than before but I also think my new pins look better than my old ones.
So, all in all, that’s an improvement, and I’m satisfied.
However, I still waste a lot of time perpetually checking (and “studying”) my Pinterest (and Google) analytics. (Sigh)
I’m hoping that the more I learn about Pinterest and traffic, the less I’ll be obsessing over my analytics. Fingers crossed!
My current pinning strategy
As mentioned above, I rely solely on manual pinning.
This means I create pins that I then upload to Pinterest using either the “Create new pin” button, Pinterest’s built-in scheduler, or by pinning directly from a blog post.
Pinterest courses I use
For the past 3-4 months I’ve been following all of Carly’s tips from her course Pinteresting Strategies. I’m still using the same strategy detailed in my previous posts, here and here.
I also apply most of the things I’ve learned from Alex and Lauren’s Pinterest Traffic Avalanche course except the use of a scheduler like Tailwind. I know their teachings focus heavily on Tailwind but their advice is still relevant for manual pinners. For example, the bonus lesson/Ninja secrets are insanely valuable regardless of your use of a scheduler or not.
Boards
I still use mainly 3 boards but I’ve been experimenting with more boards. Nothing too exciting to report for now. It takes time to “build up” a board and create content for each board.
What I’m hoping to achieve in the next few months
My (crazy) goal is to reach 30 000 pageviews to my blog by September 2022 with the help of Pinterest and consistent pinning.
Yep. It took me a year to reach 2 000 pageviews total (organic AND Pinterest traffic), and here I am aiming for 30 000 in the next 9 months.
Oh well.
I want to pin consistently for 12 months while following everything I’ve learned about Pinterest in the past year and a half.
That doesn’t mean that I’m not learning and adjusting my strategy along the way. I mean, when you’ve created over 600 pins over the course of a few months, you’ve had time to play around with different pin layouts, titles, descriptions, fonts, colors, etc. And you slowly get a better idea of what type of articles perform best.
Through this experiment, I’m also hoping to learn more about who my target audience is and how to serve them better. This will allow me to create the appropriate lead magnets to start collecting emails.
That’s the whole point of this manual pinning/consistency challenge/Pinterest experiment: see what works, what doesn’t and learn how Pinterest works. And ultimately figure out if, despite all the changes and algorithm updates, new bloggers can still make Pinterest work for traffic in 2022.
Are these courses (Pinteresting strategies and Pinterest Traffic Avalanche) still relevant for new bloggers in 2021 and 2022?
Well, that’s what I’m trying to find out.
Having bought my fair share of crappy (and good) Pinterest courses, I can attest to the quality of these two courses. Pinterest Traffic Avalanche also gives you access to a pretty useful Facebook group where you can exchange tips and struggles with other aspiring bloggers. When you’re blogging alone, that’s v-a-l-u-a-b-l-e.
Now, will new bloggers achieve the same growth as Carly’s Mommy on purpose or Alex and Lauren’s Avocadu in the same amount of time? Well, probably no. It’s no longer 2017 people.
But I’m curious to see if we can still grow a blog (even if it takes more time) using the same tactics in 2021-2022. Or what it takes to drive traffic to a new site using Pinterest in 2021-2022.
Basically, my goal is to see if Pinterest is still relevant for new bloggers. And what better way to find out than to try on my own new website/blog?
If you want to see how this works out for me, follow me on Pinterest. Or you can ign up to my mailing list (bottom of this page) to be informed of new blog updates.
Tailwind
In December, I finally signed up for a Tailwind (free) account. I wanted to see how Tailwind works so I can eventually try out Tailwind Communities. I have a feeling this could be a good addition to my current strategy.
But first, I wanted to see how manual pinning works on its own and the results I could get from applying the lessons from Pinteresting Strategies before introducing something new to the mix.
To be honest, I spent exactly 2 days exploring Tailwind, but then I got way too busy. (Also, it’s not exactly my priority yet).
So far, I haven’t done much with Tailwind. But once I do, I’ll let you know what I find.
That’s it for this month’s update. December was a good month. I reached my first 1 000 pageviews from Pinterest to my new blog and almost reached 2 000 page views in total, counting both direct and organic traffic and traffic from social.
Are you a new blogger? Do you struggle with slow growth? Let me know what you struggle with or if you found this post useful!
