Pinterest for Food Bloggers! Is it worth using Pinterest to increase Food blog Traffic?

It is been long after my "How to start a food blog"post. I felt it is high time to come up with the next installment from the same series. I was about to publish the 2nd part titled as "Social Media and Food Blogging" but I realized that post required a few positive catalysts to support it. Being said that, Social media and why it is important for the bloggers to use it. This is altogether a vast subject to discuss and hence each and every social platform we use needs a separate post. On this thought here's my first positive catalyst: Pinterest for Food Bloggers. One platform, I believe is really important.

Pinterest for Food Bloggers!

Pinterest is a social media platform being used by the food bloggers for the last several years. Here's what Wikipedia is saying about Pinterest:

Pinterest, Inc. is a web and mobile application company that operates a software system designed to discover information on the World Wide Web, mainly using images and, on a smaller scale, GIFs and videos. The site was founded by Ben Silbermann, Paul Sciarra and Evan Sharp.

Before going further with the worthiness of Pinterest let us see what is Pinterest about! Here at this point, I will be talking about the two basic things: Pin and Board.

Pin: Pinterest's heart is Pin. A pin is an image which either can be pinned directly from a website or can be uploaded and then be linked with a website. Pins can be saved from different websites if a Pin it (now Save) button is there.

Board: Boards are the places where one can save their Pins or Pins from other websites. You can create N number of boards to save the Pins.

Is it worth using Pinterest to increase Food blog Traffic?

Here comes the big question. Is it worth using Pinterest to increase Food blog Traffic? The answer is both Yes and No. Being said that, I have been using Pinterest since long (last 4-5 years ) however, the initial years were a total failure. Yes, I must admit it. In fact, I stopped using it at one point in time. In one hand, I used to hear all my food blogger friends talking about the usefulness of Pinterest to support the blog while on the other hand, I was not sure what was wrong with my pins. It was sometimes last year I started evaluating my pins. I started reading several posts on Pinterest and also I talked to several food bloggers who have used Pinterest successfully.

This is then; I asked a few questions to myself and to my fellow food bloggers and food photographers  Being said that, I still am juggling with Pinterest however, I am in way better place than wherever I was a year back. You may find the list right or wrong but the points that are given below worked for me!

Does Pinterest support a food blog/ recipe blog in terms of increasing traffic

• What type of Account should one have on Pinterest? What about linking the blog? How else Pinterest can help one? What If I don't have a blog to link but want to use Pinterest successfully?

First and foremost you should have a Pinterest business account linked with your blog. Talking about linking the blog; a business account can give you access to the blog verification just like mine is verified. This entire process will ultimately give you access to create Rich Pins. These rich pins are ideal for a recipe blog as they provide extra contextual support.

While posting/ pinning a picture you need to link your blog with it.

Now to answer the question; what if there is no blog. You can easily link your facebook/ twitter/ Instagram or any other social media picture with Pinterest. To do that you need to use the Pin builder, where you can upload the picture and then link it with the desired site.

• Properly clicked pictures works Best or not? They say Pinterest calls for drooling pins. Is it true?

My experience says Pinterest is all about the good-looking picture; you like it or not. By good-looking I mean a proper picture showing the food instead of a hazy click or something not appealing. I am providing two examples where one is a pin with a properly clicked picture while the other is not. Needless to say, in my case former worked.

https://in.pinterest.com/pin-builder/

• What about the pin sizes? What is a long Pin? How to hide the Pins?

Here comes the technical part of this post. I am listing out a few interesting and useful details below:

1. Pinterest loves long posts. Being said that, you need to understand what exactly is the right size. Long does not mean something that will be cropped automatically!
2. Ideal Picture Size for Pinterest: According to Pinterest any picture with the ratio of 2:3 is ideal. However, you can use a square picture as well. 600X900 pixels or anything 2:3 can go well with Pinterest. It has been confirmed by Pinterest on March,18 that any pin beyond 1:2:1 will be automatically cropped. To get a simpler idea, it is better to go with pin sizes such as 600 x 600, 600 x 900 and also 600 x 1260.
3. To Hide a picture on Pinterest: This is one interesting thing with Pinterest. Yes, it is very very advisable to hide the long pictures in the blog. The long picture may make Google suspicious about your blog. It may think it is spam and in general, with the design of a blog long pictures do to match.
4. Now the question is how to hide the Pinterest image on the blog? You just need to put a small code in each blog post to hide it. To do that you need to upload the picture in your gallery and the put the code in text/ HTML mode and then you have to modify the code with the pictures link. 

Here's the Code: <div style="display: none;"><img src=""WRITE THE IMAGE LINK HERE"" />

Here's how the edited code will look: <div style="display: none;"><img src=""https://kitchenofdebjani.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/Parshe-Macher-Jhal-Pinterest.jpg"" /></div>

https://in.pinterest.com/pin/514395588685953162/

• How often one should Pin?

As often, as you can but following the proper process.

• How to create boards?

You can create as many as a board as you wish. I prefer to have my boards properly planned. Here's the link of my boards: https://in.pinterest.com/debjanichttrj/boards/.

• What about shared boards?

Shared boards work really well to promote own work as well as to see what others are doing. It helps people to understand the versatilities.

• Do I need to Pin pictures from others?

Absolutely Yes. This is not only to check what others are doing but to follow them; to learn from them and most importantly to get thousands of ideas from their work. I do pin from others a lot.

• Can I use Hashtags while pinning?

Yes, and you must. Like other platforms; Pinterest is also allowing hashtags now and those are working!

• What about Pinterest followers?

We cannot ignore the bliss of having the followers. Can we?

• Is Pinterest Time consuming?

Another Yes. It takes huge time to create proper pins but that it worth doing. I, in fact, give the most time to Pinterest after my blog. It takes time to create long pictures and to then link those with my blog posts.

I hope I have covered all the things a food blogger must know about Pinterest. However, for the ease of the readers below is a to-do list while editing Pinterest friendly Pictures.

• Go for the long posts (2:3 is ideal). Refer to the previous part of this post for the size details.
• Long posts can be created by making a collage with a few pictures.
• Do try to give a visible and clear heading to the picture.
• You may also use the name of your website.
• Hide the long posts. Refer to the previous part of this post for the size details.
• If possible have a "Pin it" button on your blog.

I am giving an example; how a long post looks!

https://in.pinterest.com/pin/514395588685835427/

Here are the links from the Learning series on Food Blog from Debjanir Rannaghar:

1. How to start a Food Blog | Part 1: Food Blogging, the Introduction, and basics
2. Pinterest for Food Bloggers!

Disclaimer: I have tried to cover as much as information possible, however, would love to receive productive comments. Also, I am happy to answer in case you have any question for me.

I can be contacted through [email protected]. Meanwhile, on Instagram, you can use my hashtag #debjanirrannaghar and in addition, you can tag me at @foodofdebjani.

You can follow me on Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest and Instagram for updates and recipes from Debjanir Rannaghar.