Is it still possible to grow your Christian blog with Pinterest? I have found that the answer is a resounding YES! Many Christian bloggers are ready to give up on Pinterest altogether because of all the recent algorithm changes.
Not only does Pinterest seem to be fickle and fleeting when it comes to growing your Christian blog, but we have all heard stories of people’s accounts getting suspended for no reason at all. (Yikes!)
With all the “Pinterest Drama”, it is definitely tempting to throw in the towel concerning the Pinterest platform–but I strongly urge you to reconsider! Pinterest is STILL a powerhouse for growing your Christian blog, and can be a traffic-generating machine.
Several months ago I started getting serious about honing my Pinterest SEO strategies, and the results have been incredible.
Here are 7 reasons why you SHOULD grow your Christian blog with Pinterest as a viable traffic source to your Christian blog.
7 Reasons to Grow your Christain Blog with Pinterest
1. Pinterest is a Search Engine
Despite the ever-changing algorithm changes, Pinterest is STILL primarily a search engine. That means that you can learn how to optimize and leverage Pinterest to grow your blog.
Although Pinterest has various components of a social media platform, it is still a search engine. Just like Google SEO, if you know how to correctly utilize SEO strategies, Pinterest WILL bring you traffic–because that’s what search engines do!
2. Pinterest will Show your Pins to More People
Once you know how to implement effective Pinterest SEO strategies, Pinterest will start showing your pins in people’s home feeds. If you have used Pinterest as a user (rather than just as a blogger), you know that once you add a pin to one of your boards, Pinterest will start showing MORE pins from that same url.
It’s almost like the Pinterest algorithm is programmed to say “Oh, you pinned X pin to Y board. You must like pins about X. I will show you more pins about X.”
For example, as a homeschooling mom, I add a lot of pins to my homeschooling board. Everyday Pinterest shows me more pins about homeschooling because it knows I am interested in homeschooling (hence the word “interest” in the word Pinterest!)
If you are a Christian blogger and Pinterest knows your business account is about Christian living, its job is to show your Christian content to the right people on Pinterest–but you have to strategically tell Pinterest what your pins are about so that it can show them to the right people. (That’s where Pinterest SEO comes in!)
3. Pinterest Traffic Can be Easier Obtain (especially for new bloggers)
If you are a new blogger, it can take months (even up to a year) for Google to understand what your blog is about and start ranking your content.
That’s a long time.
If you are a Christian blogger who, like me, has been blogging for a few years, but never took the time to learn proper Google SEO, it’s like you are starting over!
Ok, confession time.
When I started my blog four years ago, I was so excited to blog, because I truly knew that God called me to start my blog. I KNEW it was from God, because I didn’t even know what a blog was at the time!
I was the least-techy person in the world, and I didn’t even have a Facebook account!
So when I started my blog, I was overwhelmed by all the things that go into starting a blog–setting up hosting, setting up WordPress, choosing a theme, customising your theme, figuring out how to actually publish my first post, all that jazz.
It is all VERY overwhelming, and at the beginning, all the gurus I listened to said things like “content is king”, and “blog about your passion!”. (Does that sound familiar to you too?)
Not one blogging expert I listened to told me the incredibly essential part of writing blog posts for Google–that if you don’t learn to blog with Google SEO in mind,
no one will find your blog posts on Google. Like Ever.
I sure wish someone would have told me that sooner! I wish I would have known that writing blog posts for SEO is very different from writing articles that you would find in a popular magazine.
In fact, I did lots of freelance writing for a Christain publishing company when I stopped working as a teacher and became a stay-at-home-mom, and I never had to think about Google SEO in my writing.
Not once.
So when I started my blog, I assumed writing blog posts was like any other kind of writing.
Well, four years later and over 100 blog posts later, my Google SEO still needs a lot of improvement. (Don’t judge me, y’all!)
Now that I am going back and updating old blog posts with Google SEO strategies (Thanks to LeeAnn from Kingdom Bloggers), it is still going to take awhile before Google will start ranking my posts.
So in the meantime, I have a KILLER Pinterest SEO strategy that is bringing waves of traffic to my blog from Pinterest.
If you made the same mistake I did and didn’t learn proper Google SEO, Pinterest is a great way to get traffic to your website while you wait for Google to learn that your website even exists!
I am not giving up on working on Google SEO, but in the meantime, Pinterest is how I got into Mediavine and was able to monetize my site. (I understand that not all bloggers choose to have ads on their sites, and that’s okay!)
So should we as Christain bloggers still use Pinterest to grow our blogs?
Absolutely!
We as Christain bloggers can totally capitalize on multiple streams of traffic (Goggle, Pinterest, etc) in order to grow our blogs.
4. Pinterest is a Place where LOTS of Christians Hang Out
If you are a Christian blogger and your audience is primarily Christian women and moms, chances are, your people are on Pinterest! There are over 400 million people who go to Pinterest regularly for information and inspiration. And MANY of those people are Christians.
Any blogging expert would tell you that you as a blogger need to go “where your people are”. So many Christian women use Pinterest daily to find inspiration in Christain parenting, Spiritual growth and encouragement, marriage advice, Bible study ideas, and so much more.
Pinterest has a great tool in their Pinterest Trends feature where you can see what topics are trending on Pinterest, and how many people are looking for content related to those trending topics. (To find the Pinterest Trends tool, go to “Analytics” and then “Trends”)
For example, Bible journaling is such a popular trend among so many Christains all over the world.
In the Pinterest Trends tool, you can search for “Bible Journaling” to see what keywords are trending and related to that topic, and what times during the year it is more popular than other times. Did you notice that there was a huge spike in people searching for Bible journaling ideas in March 2020?
In many places in the US, that is when many states were under shut-down orders due to COVID-19. It isn’t surprising that many people were searching for Bible journaling ideas to do while they were stuck at home!
Or take a look at the trends for people searching for Easter-related content around March. It isn’t surprising that Easter searches were hugely popular around that season, and then tapered off after Easter.
The Pinterest Trends tool is very insightful because it can tell you what things Christian women are searching for (and when they are searching for it). You can then create content related to your blog categories that are also trending on Pinterest to grow your traffic.
5. Pinterest Doesn’t Have to Run your Life
Many Christian bloggers are also opposed to focusing on Pinterest because it has been known to be a huge time-sucker. We as Christian bloggers DO have lives, and we can’t spend all of our time pinning on Pinterest!
Although it does take time to initially set up your Pinterest Business account the right way, once your account has a solid foundation, you can use a scheduler like Tailwind to automate your pinning. Even if you choose to pin manually, you can do it in about 15-25 minutes per day.
If spending a little bit of time each day nurturing your Pinterest account will in the end lead to TONS of traffic that you can then monetize, wouldn’t 15-25 minutes a day be a valuable way to spend our time?
Many of us as Christian bloggers spend WAY more time on social media platforms like Facebook and Instagram, crafting detailed posts or answering comments. We do this because we want people to get to know our brand, visit our websites, and essentially BUY from us, right?
The same can be applied to Pinterest. You can build a thriving Pinterest strategy that doesn’t have to take hours each day!
6. You as a Christian Blogger can Leverage “Fresh” Pins to your Advantage
Many bloggers don’t want to bother with Pinterest because it wants more “fresh” pins (meaning, more pins with new images). Although it may seem like a drag to have to create “fresh” pins, it can actually serve as a major advantage.
Pinterest is TELLING us what will work on their platform. Even if you are a new blogger, that means you have more chances to compete with the “big bloggers” out there, since the new Pinterest algorithm favors fresh content from all bloggers.
This means that people won’t be seeing the same pins over and over again that were popular years ago, and for newer bloggers, there is more of a “level playing field”.
If you know how to implement effective SEO strategies AND deliver fresh pins on a regular basis, it is a recipe for more visibility and traffic to your website. Once again, this doesn’t have to take a long time. How long does it take to go into Canva and add a new image to a pin you already created?
Not long at all!
We as Christian bloggers can leverage these new changes to our advantage to grow our blogs.
7. Pinterest is a Long-term Traffic Growth Strategy that we Should not Ignore
Some Christian bloggers don’t want to focus on Pinterest as a growth strategy to their blogs because they don’t see immediate results. Perhaps you have given Pinterest a try, but after a month or so, decided that because you didn’t see results, it doesn’t work.
Hang in there! Just like Google traffic doesn’t happen overnight, Pinterest isn’t a pin “vending machine”, where you pin a few times and expect to get oodles of traffic.
Pinterest isn’t a “slot machine” either, where you pin a few pins and “get lucky” with a viral pin. Your pins can certainly go viral, but you can’t solely rely on viral traffic to sustain your blog.
Because Pinterest ought to be viewed as a search engine, we can expect to get good results from Pinterest over time in ways that bring consistent traffic to our blogs.
Related: Check out how you can set up a Pinterest Business account for your Christian blog.
If you are truly in this blogging thing for the long haul, then Pinterest SEO (along with Google SEO) needs to be part of your long-term growth strategy for your blog or Christain business.
It’s not a sprint–it’s a marathon!
If you are committed to blogging because you know that God has called you to do so, and because you also want to monetize your blog, then Pinterest is totally worth investing your efforts.
And you can do it!
It IS possible to grow your blog with Pinterest traffic and inspire thousands of people with your message of hope through the Gospel!
In Conclusion
Is Pinterest traffic dead? I think not. With the right SEO strategies, you CAN still use Pinterest to massively grow your blog. If you have been discouraged lately with the recent Pinterest changes or have seen declines in your account, don’t give up! I have found that Pinterest traffic ebbs and flows like the waves of the ocean. And like the ocean, you CAN expect continual flow.
Like Dory in the movie Finding Nemo, “Just keep pinning,” and know that you CAN still find success on Pinterest!
Wow Christin! Thank you so much for taking the time to publish this article; it was very aspiring! As a new Christian mom blogger (plan to launch my blog in January), I am constantly hearing varying views on whether Pinterest is a good avenue to explore for gaining traffic. Your article cleared up a few concerns I had. Thanks again for the post, and I look forward to being a new subbie!
Thank you so much Lavonda! Glad you found this helpful! 🙂 Looking forward to seeing your blog when it launches in January! Send me a link when it’s ready! Blessings, Christin
Hey, thanks for the article. How long does it take for Pinterest to generate a consistent amount of traffic? (As long as your consistently pinning fresh pins, etc.).
It takes a lot longer than it used to. Since the algorithm changed, unfortunately the results are not what they used to be.
Very helpful, Christin! I recently launch my blog and am a little overwhelmed by all that goes into marketing on Pinterest! Thanks for the article!
Thanks for reading, and congratulations on starting your blog!