I feel like this is one of those posts that needs a disclaimer right away.
So here it goes…
This strategy is not going to work for every kind of site. In fact, you may find this to be a complete waste of your time.
OK, there.
Can’t say I didn’t warn you. 😉
But hang with me. Some of you will find ways to use this strategy for your own sites.
Let’s Talk About Pinterest
No doubt you’ve heard of Pinterest by now.
If not, where in the world have ya been? 😉
It’s the online image-sharing phenomenon where people (mostly women) share images they find on the Internet with their followers.
It has elements of both Facebook and Twitter because people can comment on and “like” pictures you post, and they can follow you to keep up with images you share on your “boards.”
Boards represent areas of interest. If you like shoes, you might create a board called “Shoes” and share various shoes you like on the Web.
So every shoe you post, can go to your “shoe” board and so on.
Every image that gets pinned to a board links back to the web page the image is on. So as you can see, there is some traffic potential if images from your own site get pinned.
People also pin images because of the associated content. For example, someone might have a board for Pinterest strategies where they pin images associated with articles on Pinterest.
When their followers click the image, it takes them to the article.
What is an Infographic?
Before I jump into my experiment, let’s talk about infographics.
They are typically large images that illustrate data, statistics, etc. People love to share them on social media because they look cool and they make it easy to absorb the information presented.
In a world where our attention spans are getting shorter and shorter, you can say a whole lot with pictures and a few tidbits of information.
These images are a hit with social media!
My Little Experiment
So rather than just sharing other people’s work, which is what a lot of people do, I thought I’d try creating my own infographic in Photoshop.
The plan was to add it to a new page on my site, then share it on my hair-related Pinterest account to see what would happen.
Now, I’m no Photoshop expert. I know just enough to be dangerous, as the saying goes. 🙂
I also have a membership with Photos.com, so I used a couple of cartoon images to compliment my creation.
And instead of just creating an infographic with stats and figures (which is what most infographics illustrate), I decided to make it more tip/instruction-based (often called “instructographics.”)
I tinkered around (literally) in Photoshop, and after about 45 minutes or so, I came up with this image…
I added it to a new Page (not a Post) on my site and then pinned the image to my natural hair-focused Pinterest account, where I have about 1100 followers.
Wait! I HAD 1100 followers when I posted that infographic, but I just went to my account to confirm the number and looks like I’m up to 1800 now. 🙂
OK, back to my experiment…
Within 2 days of posting, the image was shared over 100 times and I didn’t even expect that much.
Three weeks later, the number of pins/shares totaled over 3,000 — meaning 3,000 people shared/pinned this image to their own Pinterest boards.
And of course, the image links back to the page on my site where the images is hosted.
See the screenshot below showing the number of Pins.
For the record, the image was only pinned about 200 times directly from my followers.
The remaining 2,800+ pins came from followers of my followers. So I had a bit of viral action going on!
Now to you Pinterest pros out there, these numbers may look small-ish, but I was happy with the results from my little creation. 🙂
What About Traffic?
Did I get 3,000 visits from those 3,000 pins?
No. Not even close.
This image is still bringing in traffic from Pinterest everyday. But the total amount of visitors in a 3-week period is about 500 or so.
So that’s not a lot of traffic in three weeks (relative to the traffic the site gets and how many times the image was pinned). However, there are a lot of things I could have done differently to maximize the exposure.
For example, I added it to a Page instead of a Post.
As you probably know, when you create a Page in WordPress, it doesn’t go out to your blog feed or email list. So there were no notifications sent out when I launched the page.
I also should have added more content to the page to make it juicier so it would be “Post worthy”.
Low Expectations. High Hopes.
To be honest, I hadn’t seen any natural hair-related infographics on Pinterest before so I wasn’t really sure how mine would be received.
Now that I know people in that niche like this kind of stuff, I have a lot of different ideas for how I can incorporate infographics within existing articles to help illustrate points, educate, etc.
With natural hair being such a visual niche, I think there may be some added potential if I’m a little more strategic with my execution.
There are so many things I could have done and I’m looking forward to testing some more.
Not to mention, I really enjoy creating the images. If nothing else, maybe I can create Photoshop templates for people and sell them.
But that’s a whole other blog post! 🙂
Creating Your Own Infographics
If you know your way around Photoshop, GIMP or any graphic editor, you have a big advantage because you can create your own images for free.
There are no limitations to what you can do.
However, if you don’t have software or don’t care to learn, no worries. There are several sites out there that will let you create your own infographics like PiktoChart or Easel.ly.
Visual.ly even allows you to create and share them.
Want more options? This site has a list of over 20 infographic creation sites and tools.
And if you don’t mind outsourcing, you can hire a graphic designer at Dribbble.com. Yes, that’s “dribble” with 3 B’s. 🙂
More Tips for Creating Infographics
- The images are supposed to be easy and fun to read. Don’t make it too text-heavy or it defeats the purpose. It shouldn’t look like a blog post.
- Most infographics you’ve seen probably display stats, but they don’t have to present that kind of data. You can make an instructographic like I did with the one above.
- Think of information that is relevant to your audience and break it down into digestible bites of information.
- Brand your image with your site URL. Remember, when it’s shared on Pinterest, the image will become clickable and take the person to your web page where the image is located. Even if the image is shared on places where it won’t be clickable, it never hurts to add a call to action. Branding, branding, branding!
- If you add statistical data to your image, be sure to cite the sources somewhere on the image.
- Use Google images (search for infographics) to get inspiration and ideas for your own designs.
- Use them as informational teasers and direct people to your site for more info.
Is This Worth Your Time?
There’s only one way to know and that’s to experiment like I’m doing.
As I’ve already mentioned, there were quite a few things I could have done differently to maximize the exposure, but I was pretty happy with the results of my first infographic creation that took me less than one hour to create.
This seems to be worth my time for my hair site because it’s such a visual niche — the perfect environment for Pinterest.
The other thing I love about Pinterest is I spend less than 15-20 minutes per month pinning other people’s pictures and my own, and it’s my 3rd most popular traffic source for Napturally Curly.
Once you unlock the formula for the right kind of image/content to pin, you can reap the rewards.
But I also believe this can work with all kinds of sites if the image is eye-catching and interesting.
There are a lot of infographics shared related to Internet marketing, social media, etc. So I’m going to be experimenting on this site too.
In fact, you can follow my 2 Create a Website Pinterest account here.
As you can see, it’s a bit vacant since I don’t use it, never really shared it, and I don’t follow many people on this account yet.
If you use Pinterest for Internet Marketing and blogging, leave your username in the comments so I can see how you use it.
This Isn’t a Fad
Pinterest is the real deal and so many people are using it to drive traffic to their sites today.
In fact, when I asked my StudioPress Theme contest participants to name their best traffic-building technique, many mentioned Pinterest.
Cynthia Sanchez, a self-proclaimed Pinterest addict and owner of OhSoPinteresting.com (I love the name!), even created an entire business around the site and she’s ready to help you — so check her out!
I had the pleasure of meeting her at a local meetup last year. I kept her business card handy so I could give her a shout.
Quality Check
The other item you have to pay attention to is the quality of traffic that Pinterest is sending.
Are people viewing more than one page? How long are they staying on your site? What’s the bounce rate?
Remember, not all visitors are quality traffic.
For my hair site, the average person who comes from Pinterest stays 2-3 minutes, views 2-3 pages and the bounce rate is around 50% — which is right under my site’s average.
So it’s decent quality traffic relative to the rest of my referring sources.
In any event, I will keep playing around with infographics. Whether I will focus more on selling custom templates or using my own to build traffic remains to be seen.
All I know is I’m sure having fun experimenting.
Will keep you posted!
Now, it’s your turn. Share your Pinterest experiences.
Update 2014: Listen to my podcast where I discuss more traffic building tips using Pinterest.
Thanks Lisa for sharing this. I haven’t used Pinterest too much but I noticed just by repinning and staying a little active on the site has got repins and traffic back to my website. I’m going to work on several infographics. I think Pinterest has a lot of potential.
Sure thing that Pinterest is not just for pictures alone., we should make full use of it. The post does some help for me, thanks for sharing!
I think your experiment was totally successful! Simple yet informative! It is motivating me to act on the thought of creating one for my photography blog!
hey your post on pinterest is really awesome 🙂
I really like it 🙂
I’ve joined Pinterest. I also often bookmark my post to Pinterest. However, the amount of traffic here is still very small. In fact, as yet to be seen. I still have to learn about it and thank you for your tutorial.
This makes me want to create my own Infographics! My experience has been that I do tend to get pinned a lot but the people who come via Pinterest don’t stay as long as people who come from other places. I find that intersting. Pinterest is really worth trying to figure out.
Wow, after I read this post I’ve started using Pinterest and I have more and more followers. Thank you.
Hi,
Thanks for the article. I was searching for how to use pinterest for some time but i had no idea about it. as i don’t use images on my site i was confused. How about converting a webpage post into image and posting it. Still searching for a webiste witch offers this kind of service.
Thanks
Suraj
http://www.diggbloggers.com
scribd.com and slideshare.com are the websites which accept the image of your post in pdf form.Converting them first into pdf and then uploading it to pdf websites which i described.
My stats jumped significantly after I posted my info graphic. Thanks!
MrsClean.com
Pinterest did not help much better for me 🙁
I learn so many Blog tips from this site. Thanks Lisa :))
Lisa,
In the past you had mentioned that you might create an infographic template. Have you made any progress?
Hi Tony,
I have started creating a few but not really ready to launch yet. Hopefully sometime this summer. 🙂
Thanks for this post. I will will also try infographic now to generate traffic to my website.
Great idea for generating traffic from pinterest.For while i tried stumble upon for generating traffic but traffic provided by them are only instant and it’s too inorganic.
Definitely, a lot of people love to pin infographic on their boards and it can really build traffic from it. Infographic help readers understand faster and save more time.
Hey Lisa,
First of all, reading your post is not a waste of time. Anyway, Pinterest is one the fastest rising social media site today. As we all know, Pinterest serves as a picture gallery site on which many can take advantage with. I have seen many bloggers, online marketers and social media marketers use Pinterest as a means of promoting or advertising their brand. As we all know, pictures and images can arouse curiosity among readers or viewers so it’s very important to have an image that would support your brand or article posts. By the way, the infographic that you just showed to us is very helpful and visually pleasing as well. Might as well use infographics for all blog posts since it clearly summarizes everything.
What a great idea 🙂
That’s good dear i will try it out later. Lisa are you using a payed hosting or a free one?
because if i type http://www.2createawebsite.com, it will take me to another piece of crap so i find it very difficult to locate your website. please help me with your correct website address. I want you show me how to remove “powered by WordPress” or “responsive theme” from my website theme. Those came from WordPress and the theme and using but i want to remove them. thanks Lisa…
Awesome experiment Lisa. I think Pinterest also works for event planning blogs especially for those with more specific topics like wedding. I think I will be able to make use of your idea and try it with my event planning blog. Looking forward for more Pinterest tips from you.
What a great idea and I love your graphic! I’m going to give this a try – I think I have the perfect site for it.
Awesome! Good luck, Susan.
We’ve just recently started using a Pinterest button on our website. It’s been a reasonable source of traffic… maybe 50-100 hits per day, but nothing major. That being said, we haven’t put much thought or effort into it like yourself.
Hi Jarret,
50-100 hits per day just by putting a button on your site is pretty good. Adding a Pinterest button is something I recommend to all of my clients for this very reason. Healthy living and health topics seem to do really well on Pinterest. I hope you see that traffic grow.
Hi Lisa
Nice infographic. I am wondering if in future blogs will feature “lite” versions of infographics. Maybe half sized images that are not strictly considered infographics but are perhaps just an orignally created graphic worthy of being repinned. I’m working on images that are half the size of infographics (and take considerably less time) to improve the quality of some of my posts. Most of us defer straight to stock photos but I wonder if these lite versions of infographics will become popular.
Darren, I think this is a good strategy. I’m actually planning to do something very similar in the future. We are such a visual society now and I think if you can create anything that makes your content more visually appealing and inform at the same time, it will help.
Informative Post !!! Pinterest is the new in-thing. Lets see if it can challenge facebook, currently its only in beta so many of the above actions seem avoidable . Infographics is another new concept which is going to work this year.
Hi Lisa,
I always like people who work hard to create a valuable post. Thank you for all the information you shared here. Now, I want to say something about this topic:
You did an experiment and you were satisfied with the results. Good. However, there is something that every experimenter should take into account: Who is the one who does the experiment?
I read, somewhere, a post about an experiment done by an internet marketer called Ryan Deiss. He said something like ” I did so and so and got beautiful results. Try this new technique and you’ll get a lot of visitors fast and easy. You’ll see”. Well, these were not exactly his words but you got the idea.
I have no doubt in my mind that he did the experiment and got wonderful results but, I asked him a question:
“Are you sure those wonderful results are determined by the the technique you talked about? Are you sure those hundreds and thousands of people went to that site and did what they were instructed to do because of that technique?”
It is more likely they went to that site because they knew about him. They knew who is the author of the experiment. They knew it is a powerful internet marketer and they rushed to do all these things hoping they will get his attention.
When you are an influencer you must do things differently.
If you really want to know the value of a new traffic technique, you must conduct a kind of blind experiment. You must create a site and do all those things under a false name. Nobody should know that YOU are the one who does the experiment. This is the only way to know the true value of a technique.
So my question for you Lisa is the following: When you conducted this experiment, did you tell people it was you? Did they know that Lisa Irby was the author of the experiment?
As for me I did an experiment myself with a Pinterest group. As nobody knows me I got REAL results so now I know the value of a Pinterest group is very … “relative”.
Here is the link to my experiment:
http://netmarketsuccess.com/my-first-experience-with-a-pinterest-group.html
It doesn’t matter so much the strategy or technique you apply. However, it matters very, very much who you are and how big an powerful is your network. This is the cold truth.
Thank you very much for taking the time to write this article. I will check the list of infographics sites.
Have a nice day.
That’s a very good point, but if notice in the article I wrote that 2800 of the 3,000 pins came from followers of followers so these were people who did not follow me. I think it would be different if the pins came from all of my followers. The image went semi viral and I really doubt my influence had much to do with it — especially in this niche. This was not my 2 Create a Website site.
I have an article I pinned from my blog and some people are repinning it but more people are actual looking at the article. It says the Smoothie Jump Start diet and I have a picture but to see the actual program, you have to click over to my blog. I’m okay with those results.
Hi Lisa, I did one a while back for one of my retail sites and it worked better than I thought and people are still pinning it. I need to do more of them. Love how you showed us your experiment and the results too. Thanks for the inspiration. I’ve noticed on the “most popular” on Pinterest many are infographics.
That’s great, Lisa! Yep there is a lot of viral potential there for sure. Looking forward to experimenting with more!
Hi Lisa,
Great article. To be honest, I have not much time to work on infographics, but I think it is a way to spread what you want to say or convey. I use pinterest to direct traffic to my website, and it is the fourth largest source of traffic to my website. Thanks for this article.
Howya Lisa (that’s a Dublin introduction)
great post as usual. This prompted me to go check the traffic through Pinterest I use for my Halloween site, which gets great traffic especially and obviously around Halloween, but I keep it regular.
I get excellent traffic through Pinterest since it is all visual, but funny enough, the best traffic I’m getting that tops Pinterest is from Stumbleupon.
But I have never used infographics, and now intend to after reading this post, especially around August to see what results I can achieve for Halloween. The site I now have will be my main site (I closed all other 24 sites) and is still a baby, but still makes decent money. Here is the Pinterest page if you want a peep. http://pinterest.com/howlaween/
A question on pins, if you picture is pinned, re-pinned etc, do these count as backlinks?
Hey Stephen,
Pinterest links are actually nofollow. So I’m not banking too heavily on any SEO love from these pins. So I am more interested in the actual quality of the click traffic.
Gonna have to check out your Halloween Pinterest account.
It’s funny you mentioned StumbleUpon. I just noticed in G.A. it’s been sending a healthy bit of traffic. I’m curious: are you active on StumbleUpon? I wouldn’t say I am. I post the links from my posts when they come out and that is about it. Since I’ve noticed the change I’ve been thinking about it exploring it more, but I’d be interested to know how you use it.
Loved the post! I agree with you that infographics can be great marketing tools. You see them all over, but what I found in creating my own is that actually creating the infographic is only but a small part of the work. You’ll definitely spend more time promoting it (if you want it to gain traction).
BTW I think you motivated me to get back on Pinterest and put some more effort into it. Those are some great results. Congrats!
Thanks Lisa, this article is excellent… my creative juices are flowing 🙂
Something always new to learn from your blog. By the way nice infographic 🙂
very cool to read- helpful….one thing about pinterest is they say you should pin what people want to see and not what you want to see…I dont like this idea cause it is the one place I can go to see all the visuals I love. either way I love pinterest and it was good to see your experiment!
Although many site today now use infographic, but, I have never thought about using it to generate traffic on pinterest. Now you have posted this, I will try see what I can do to tap from this traffic. Thanks.
Thank you for the info on the graphics. I just did my first one.
How did you find the lady on your graphic? I went to photos.com and could not find her. What artist did that?
I think I typed in “afro” or something like that.
I have read a post on a forum regarding Pinterest. They said that if we pin a post to Pinterest and its go viral on Pinterest like or repin its effects on your site SERPs in Search engine. As see above your one post is getting 3K pins. So the concept of SERPs is correct?
As always, very informative and I always learn new tips from Lisa.
I don’t expect to convince you Lisa :), but I’ll say it anyway. I think infographics are overrated.
To me, it seems like you’re giving yourself extra work to create the content (messing around with Photoshop when you could present the same content in article form and create it much faster).
If I’m not mistaken, infographics attracted attention for their novelty, back when the medium was new and different. So back then it may have been worth the effort. But these days everyone’s used to seeing infographics so the novelty has worn off.
Infographics used to get lots of attention because of their looks. Of course, the kind of attention you want to generate is attention to your content, not to its looks. And if your content is good enough, it will get shared regardless of the format in which it’s presented. So why give yourself extra work?
That’s what I think anyway.
If that attracts more people to my site then I’m all for it. I’m thinking about having someone create it for me because I’m not skilled enough.
Thanks for sharing this experiment. Pictures, infographs, and even memes are so useful: convey a message, entertain, and do both with minimal reading. I’ve been trying to use Google Plus recently and pictures do mean a lot. One question: isn’t Pinterest for mostly girly stuff? That’s what I’ve observed.
It is definitely used more by women (I believe 88%) but men are starting to find some hidden marketing gems too.
I created my own and I didn’t know what the heck I was doing. They need tutorials for these sites. My chart did not look like yours Lisa. See my example but promise not to laugh LOL. http://thefrugalexerciser.blogspot.com/2013/05/get-ready-for-dress.html
This makes me want to create my own Infographics! My experience has been that I do tend to get pinned a lot but the people who come via Pinterest don’t stay as long as people who come from other places. I find that intersting. Pinterest is really worth trying to figure out.
Hi Lisa,
Thank you so much for the mention in this post and I’m so happy to hear you had such a positive response to your infographic. I bet that as your infographic gets shared around Pinterst you will continue to see traffic coming from it. That’s one of the thing I love about the platform, pins are really helpful for keeping content alive. 6 months or a year from now you could find yourself getting a whole new wave of traffic because of this one image.
Hope to catch up with you at another meetup soon.
So true, Cynthia! This really got my wheels spinning. So imagine creating several more images that get this kind of viral love. The long-term effects can be great! Thanks for coming by. 🙂 I have been slacking on my meetup attendance (so busy!!) but I hope to start back up again. Take care.
Hi Lisa thanks again for such great info over your platform. I have heard about info graphs but never used them to drive traffic.However after reading the content delivered by you i must try it.
Hello Lisa,
I have never thought of creating infograph for my blog and i have never got any luck using pinterest. I was searching for ways to use pinterest and i stumbled on your post. i’ll try your tips and get back to you. Thanks
My Pinterest board is my second largest source of traffic, right after Google. My website topic is very visual, and I include a lot of photos on my site. I’ve noticed quite a few people pin directly from my website to their Pinterest boards, without going through my own Pinterest board.
I love the fact that I can provide my readers useful photos from other sites, as I can’t always take my own photos of every idea that I would like to share. It’s another way of providing additional useful resources for my readers.
I love the concept of using infographics, which I’ve never thought about before. In fact, I would love to create an infographic from the topic of my most recent blog post. It would be a very helpful way to visually summarize my material.
Thanks for sharing about your experiment!
You should do it, Debra! I’d love to hear how it goes. 🙂
Oh Lisa, I’m so glad I followed you here. YOU ARE GREAT!
I’m just starting down the IM road. Your since of experimenting, discovery, and sharing is so appreciated, Thank You.
I’m not using Pinterest, the demographics are of interest though. For any marketer how could Pinterest not be attractive.
Thanks, Delton! I’m glad you started following me too. LOL I would definitely give it a try. A lot of men I talk to feel it’s only for women but I think more are finally starting to see the benefits. Good luck!
I have never before shared any infograph of my own, nor do I work much on Pinterest.
But considering the increase in its popularity I have started working on Pinterest. I am looking for some strategies and tips on Pinterest though.
And I also tried out Easel.ly and I found it was too easy, simple and attractive.
I am working on some infographs now. Let me see the results at my blog!
Thanks for the guide Lisa 🙂
actually pinterest is very exciting as I have met few friends and their board are amazing you will know what I’m talking about you have to see and is very interesting.
Where did you get the little icons for your infographic, like the hands, moon, etc.
From Photoshop. They’re called custom shapes.
“As you probably know, when you create a Page in WordPress, it doesn’t go out to your blog feed or email list.”
Uhm actually no I didn’t know that! Thanks. 🙂
Well, Good to know that it worked for you. You said that these numbers may look small-ish, but 3K+ Shares are wonderful for me :). I have never seen any website or blog in my niche getting that much Pins. Till now I’ve not even added ‘Pin this’ to my blog, i think am gonna do it now.
With Regards.
Hi Lisa,
I love the Infographic you created for your hair site.
I wasn’t a fan of Infographics at first because I didn’t like the way people would use them to share all sorts of facts and figures based on surveys or without any substantial references. Then I started to explore them more and I found that many people are using them the way you did as a form of content marketing – to make a statement or for instruction. I find those kinds of Infographics very appealing and I even used that concept and had one created by the designers here at my day job. It was a big hit and got a lot of attention when the sales team used it at an offline conference they attended recently.
I used Easel.ly to create the mock up and I loved how easy it is to use and they have some cool icons too.
Cynthia has a really awesome podcast and she and I are pretty active in one of the podcasting communities on Google +.
Thanks for the pointers Lisa. Have a great week!
Hey Ileane! Interesting to hear about your experiment with Pinterest at your day job! Wow, that goes to show how big this site really is now. Cool stuff!
Hi Lisa, I had a great experience with opening a pinterest account.
Thanks
Louise
Thanks Ileane! I love your podcast too! I’d really like to se the infogrpahic you made, can it be found online?
Hey Cynthia,
No it’s not available online but I’ll send it to you on Google+ so you can take a look.
Thanks for listening to my podcast!! 🙂
You are a leader, and an excellent source to learn how to operate Pinterest and Facebook for Traffic. I enjoy reading more information from your blog
-Wendhel Freeman