3 Mistakes You Are Likely Making With Pinterest

Pinterest is definitely one of the “next big things” in the social media realm these days. But oftentimes, many online marketers find it much more difficult to monetize then some of the other social media outlets.

Fortunately, there are a lot of common mistakes many people are making in their efforts to monetize their product, service or website on Pinterest, and we’re going to be talking about these mistakes today. You know, in the interests of you not consistently making said mistakes over and over and over again…

Specifically, we’re going to talk about three of the most common mistakes. So let’s get started, shall we?

>> 1. Lacking a Clear Call to Action

If someone is arriving on your website after clicking something on Pinterest – or even to buy a product, if applicable – having a clear call to action to purchase this product or subscribe to this service is absolutely crucial. Believe it or not, though, many people tend to not provide a very clear call to action so as not to scare away potential customers.

In addition, many people make the mistake of simply providing one call to action to purchase said product or subscribe to said service when they could easily provide more than one call to action to increase the odds of a conversion.

Ensuring your website is easy to navigate – especially when it comes to the About Us and Privacy Policy/ToS pages – is also crucial for readers who are a bit more selective and careful about who they do business with online.

>> 2. Lacking a Specifically Optimized Blog Post/Website

With all of the web traffic you get from Pinterest, you ultimately want them to stay on your website, correct? Well, while most of the traffic you get from Pinterest is laser targeted (a la, coming from the image linked to a blog post or product page), some of it is random. And while you can coax the path of the laser-targeted traffic directly where you want it, the random visitors are a different story.

Essentially, you’re going to want to highlight all of the pages, products or services you’re specifically promoting/selling while also ensuring the aforementioned About Us pages are easy to access and informs visitors exactly what you’re all about.

Links to more content, a list of your most popular posts and even a sidebar/widget with basic snippets of info about the products, services or offers you’re trying to promote (with links to learn more about them included) are all excellent ways to take full advantage of all of the traffic you get from Pinterest.

>> 3. Relying Too Much On Other People to Pin Your Products/Services/Offers

While this is ultimately necessary to a certain extent, a lot of people who are trying to make money with Pinterest don’t even participate in the slightest outside of spamming pins to their own pages/sites exclusively.

Actually becoming involved within the particular niche you’re operating within on Pinterest is an excellent way to not only make a name for yourself, but could also lead to mutually beneficial partnerships with other similar people doing similar things on the social media site. Exchanging links or even promising to help promote each other’s pins are both things that are going to help you monetize your website or product on Pinterest, not hinder it.

All in all, trying to make money on Pinterest is just like trying to make money on any other social media outlet. It’s going to take time and you’re going to have to put some serious effort into it if you’re ultimately going to want it to be worth it.

Out of all of the above mistakes many people make when on Pinterest, not participating is arguably one of the biggest – mainly because it’s so easy to just become even mildly active in your specific Pinterest niche. Getting your account name out there and making friends and business connections is only going to help you down the road, and it doesn’t really take that much effort or work at all.

If you have any special Pinterest tips or tricks that you personally use to promote your website or product, please feel free to talk about them in the comments below. We’d certainly love to hear from you!