Pinterest Case Study by Russell Lobo

So as many of you may know, I am a die hard Google fan. I love the free traffic it sends and my earnings for the past 7 years which now are in the low 5 figures monthly have been majorly through it. However I like to try new sources of traffic and Pinterest is one that has been coming up often.

I tried my hand at Pinterest Promotion for getting traffic to my website in 2016 but they were half hearted efforts which didn't give me the returns or "proof of concept" that I was looking for. A major reason is that I have a more analytic mind rather than a visual leaning. In Jan I decided that I should get serious on Pinterest and dedicated a new website to focus only on Pinterest traffic.

So here goes my quick brief on it:

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1. I created a site which was visually attractive. Lots of images with brief descriptions

2. I made a well optimized Pinterest profile (Use the same things that you use for Google on-page SEO i.e. keywords in the Board title, description, etc) 

3. Created 2 or 3 images per post that explain the posts with CTAs on them.
4. Scheduled posts to be published at a time I felt my potential audience is online. I posted at (2-4PM and 8-12 Midnight EST)

5. Followed relevant audience. I followed the followers of my competitors. Commented on their pins, liked it and and repined it.
6. Identified relevant pins and pinned them too on my boards (I like to keep a ratio of 1:2 one of mine for every two I repinned)
7. Join groups (I didnt do this as yet as my following at the moment is low and I may not be accepted. I will try this once I cross 1,000 followers)

Point 1 to 4 were one time efforts. I guess I may have spent 8-10 hours doing it.

Point 5 & 6 are daily efforts though it should not take you more than 10-15 min per day to do it. You can also use a tool like Viraltag, Boardbooster or Tailwind to schedule your pins.

My results after the first month i.e. Results for Feb:

1. 193,407 average monthly views on Pinterest for my images -source: Pinterest Analytics (screenshot 1)
2. 1,820 visitors and 3,818 pageviews. source-statcounter (screenshot 2)
3. And the most important metric: $119.62 in Google Adsense earnings via 178 ad clicks source: Adsense (screenshot 3)
Note: Pageviews of the two images may differ as some posts are not monetized with Adsense.

Whom this will help:
1. If you have a new site and are not getting traffic, this could help bring in a good amount of traffic
2. If you have a site and want to increase/diversify your source of traffic
3. If you struggle with content writing or link building and would
want to start a visual focused site.

Additional Points:
1. Google seens Pinterest repins as a social signal and a nofollow link so it helps in Google ranking
2. Increased traffic to your website from Pinterest could be a ranking factor (I have seen this on other websites)
3. I like this source of traffic as even on days I didnt promote e.g. weekends, etc, traffic still came in.

An income of $100+ from the very first month is something that will help new website owners validate the potential of online earnings so I thought should share

Hope this helps :)