Pinterest Quickly Replacing Google Traffic for Many Bloggers

Restored from the Empower Network archive (2011–2017), lightly edited to meet our current advertising standards. Views are the original author’s.

Pinterest Quickly Replacing Google Traffic for Many Bloggers

There was a time when many bloggers depended on Google for the majority of their web site traffic. Most web sites weathered Google’s occasional algorithm updates, and even ones that got hit by the occasional update were able to come out of it at a later update. Not anymore. Post Panda and post Penguin, many bloggers are struggling to get back they traffic they have lost.

For those who were hit by the original Panda update, it has been a year and a half of vain effort of trying to get back their former traffic from Google. Many have given up hope and moved on. While some have given up, there are other bloggers who have looked for other ways to gain traffic to their web site, ways that do not depend on Google to send traffic to their web site. For many, Pinterest has been the answer to all of their prayers.

At first many bloggers didn’t take Pinterest seriously.Sure it was fun for personal use, but no one believed it could really be used as a tool to drive traffic to their blog. Many found out by accident that Pinterest indeed was a viable way to replace the traffic that they had lost from Google.

With Pinterest, there is a lot of hit and miss. Often it is necessary to create a number of posts to “pin” on Pinterest, because you never know what is going to go viral on Pinterest.

One post might only be repinned several times, and another post can be repinned fifty thousand times or more. This was a big surprise to small blog owners.

One blog post that has been repinned fifty thousand times or more has the potential to drive a lot of traffic to a blog. Once a post has been repinned that many times, the re-pins just keep multiplying and multiplying for several weeks or more, creating more and more links and traffic to a blog owner’s web site.

To fully take advantage of the power of Pinterest, it is necessary to post at least two or three new posts per week. It is also necessary to actively seek out new Pinterest followers by including the Pinterest logo and re-pin buttons both on the blogger’s web site and in email newsletters. Within several months, it is quite possible to have at least several posts go viral on Pinterest.

It is also vital that good photographs accompany each post pinned on Pinterest. The photo is the first thing to grab a viewer’s eye. The photo should be clearly labeled with the subject of the pin and the name of the blog where it originated.

After Google’s Panda hit, many bloggers thought there was no hope. This is not an update that can be recovered from easily, if at all. While it is still a good idea to improve one’s web site in hopes of being in Google’s good favor once again, it is also important to look at other more reliable sources of traffic.

At this point, Pinterest is one of the primary places where efforts should be focused, both from a social media standpoint, and for traffic sake.

Although Pinterest is mostly composed of how-to posts and photos, with a good photo, many products can also be showcased on Pinterest and received well by Pinterest visitors.

After several months of concentrated effort, Pinterest can quickly outpace Google in the amount and quality of traffic being sent to a blog. And as long as a blogger’s Pinterest following continues to grow steadily, traffic to the blog will also increase steadily, creating a steady stream of traffic that is much more dependable than the on again off again love/hate relationship with Google.