You may have heard that you can make money on Pinterest. That sounds like a dream right?! Imagine scrolling Pinterest and pinning pretty images and seeing your bank account fill up right before your eyes…. Unfortunately, it’s not quite that simple. However, it is completely possible to make money with Pinterest if you put in the work.
I would know, I’ve done it myself!
I hate to break it to you but don’t believe the so-called “gurus” who say you can just create a pin and pin it with your affiliate link and then BOOM instant cash. If it were really that easy, everyone would do it, to be honest. There’s a lot more to it than meets the eye but I promise, it is very possible to make money pinning and I’m going to show you exactly how to do it.
What is Pinterest?
Let’s start by discussing what Pinterest really is. Many people think it’s another social media platform but it really isn’t! In fact, you can gain followers on this platform but at the end of the day, they don’t matter at all. You could have only 5 followers on Pinterest and still be extremely successful. This is because Pinterest is a visual search engine. People come to Pinterest to become inspired, find solutions to their problems, or find something that they want to buy. They are not interacting with the platform the same way you do on social media at all.
Understanding Pinterest Keywords
Since Pinterest is a search engine, this means that keywords are so important! These are the words that people search for when they are trying to find something. So if someone is looking for fall boots, they might search “fall boots” or “fall shoes”. So if you are pinning about fall boots, you want to make sure you include those search terms in your pin, the pin description, and the pin title. This is how people find your pins!
Create a pin in Canva -> Upload it to Pinterest -> Add a title with keywords -> Add a description with keywords -> Add the link -> Add it to a relevant board -> Publish!
If you want to find out what keywords people are using about something you want to post to Pinterest, you just need to go to the search bar and start searching for your keyword. Pay attention to the search terms and phrases that pop up under the search bar as you are typing, those are keywords people are looking for!
You can also look at the top-performing pins in your niche and look to see what keywords they are using and use them in your descriptions. You want to use keywords in a sentence that describes your pin, not keyword stuff. Keyword stuffing is when your description is just full of keywords with no context.
Good description: “Looking for the perfect fall boots that go with any fall outfit? You’ll love these brown fall suede boots. They are perfect for pairing with your favorite cozy fall sweater and leggings.”
Bad description with keyword stuffing: “fall boots, brown boots, fall sweater, fall outfit, fall fashion, women’s fashion.”
Other Pinterest tips: use Pinterest trends to determine what’s trending on the platform for increased chances of success, use good photos and easy-to-read fonts in your pins, create at least 10 boards that are relevant and keyword optimized to add your pins to, and be consistent!
Now that we know the basics of Pinterest, let’s talk about how to make money with it.
Blogging
The first way to make money with Pinterest is by blogging. If you don’t know what that is, it’s what you’re reading right now! You start a blog where you post articles about the topic of your blog. So if you’re a mommy blogger, you post about diaper recommendations, sleep schedules, developmentally appropriate toys for kids, etc. If you’re a fashion blogger, you might post about outfit ideas, product recommendations, favorite places to shop, etc. If you’re into travel, you might post your favorite places to travel, travel tips, travel essentials, etc.
When blogging, the important thing you want to remember is that you should be passionate about your topic because you will be writing about it a lot!
After you have your blog published and your posts written, you can pin those blog posts to Pinterest! Follow the steps above to make sure the right audience can find your blog and consistently post to Pinterest every day.
So how do you make money with this? There are many ways but the most obvious one is ads. Once you reach a certain amount of page views or sessions, you can get accepted into an ad network and begin displaying ads on your site. You get paid by the ad company based on how many people viewed the ads. So you want to keep creating helpful and interesting content for your audience so they keep visiting your site.
This is a long game that takes time to establish but you can make thousands per month doing this.
Affiliate Marketing
If you don’t know what affiliate marketing is, it’s basically when you partner with a brand or store and share their products with your audience using a special link. If someone purchases that product using your affiliate link, you get a certain amount of commission.
So how do you do this with Pinterest? While it might be tempting to just create a beautiful pin and pin it with your affiliate link, this isn’t recommended. Pinterest doesn’t like that! But you can still succeed if you lead your audience to a blog post where you talk about the product, why you love it, and include your affiliate link. So basically they’re going to be directed to a website you own with your affiliate link in the post instead of going directly to the store.
Most brands or companies have affiliate programs so make sure to research the ones you want to work with and apply to be an affiliate. They offer different levels of commission so also keep that in mind. Companies like Target and Amazon have popular affiliate programs but the payout is generally not as high. You can find higher-paying affiliate programs that might be more worth your time. Do your research and find companies you actually love!
Depending on your traffic, you can also make multiple thousands of dollars with affiliate marketing.
Selling products or digital products
If you have physical products you want to sell or digital products like e-books, journals, templates, planners, etc., you can do that on Pinterest! Simply create pins that lead to your products.
Make sure to utilize keywords and visually appealing pin images to drive people to click. You can also enhance your results by using Pinterest ads to get even more eyes on your products.
The income potential is unlimited!
Become a Pinterest VA
This one is near and dear to my heart because it is how I have made a significant portion of my income for five years now! I became an expert on all things Pinterest and used my knowledge to help grow other Pinterest accounts.
Here’s how you become a Pinterest VA or Pinterest Manager. First, get to know Pinterest really, really well. You want to know how to create beautiful pins, how to do keyword research, how to schedule pins, how to properly optimize a Pinterest account, and how to use common Pinterest schedulers like Tailwind.
Once you know Pinterest through and through, you can start creating your service packages. You can price your services hourly (don’t recommend) or you can price it as a package (how I have always done it). Decide what will be included in each package such as the number of pins per month, keyword research, descriptions, pin creation, etc. Decide how much you want to get paid for your services and then use Canva to create a simple portfolio. You’ll want to include a little bit of information about yourself and your experience and then your package information.
After you have this outlined, you want to start finding clients! I have had the most success networking online in networking groups and Facebook groups where my ideal client hangs out. Start conversations and offer value to other group members on the topic of Pinterest.
When someone expresses interest in working with you, you’ll want to get them on a free discovery call to discuss what you can do and pricing. After the call, send a proposal outlining the package you recommend based on their needs.
Once they agree, send a contract, send an invoice (you can use Paypal Business for invoicing), and get started!
There is more to it, and if you want to learn more about how exactly to become a Pinterest Manager or Pinterest VA, let me know in the comments! You can also read my post here about other in-demand services you can offer as a freelancer.
And there you have it! These four ways to make money with Pinterest are 100% legit and you can do it all from the comfort of your own home while taking care of your little ones.
