Nothing is fun about reading a wall of text, so adding images, videos, charts, and quotes to a blog can make it fun!
You may not know that adding images incorrectly to a blog, can slow it down and hurt your SEO and rankings.
You can add your own images from Pinterest to your blog, and if it’s not your own, it’s best to ask for permission.
Keep reading, and I’ll share 5 of my favorite places to get images for free. I’ll also share 2 of the best places to get paid for images. I’ll share 2 ways to reduce the size of an image to make your website faster.
Lastly, I’ll share the #1 way to use Pinterest to grow a Blog.
Adding Images to Your Blog
If you want to add an image to your blog that isn’t your own from Pinterest, the best way is to ask. One way to do this is to message the person who created the pin.
You can find the message button on the board where the pin is located.
Another way to contact someone on Pinterest is to leave a comment on the pin that you want to post to your board.
Click on the pin and then click on comment and leave a comment.
You could probably message and leave a comment to be more efficient. It’s best to ask because someone else owns the image.
How to Get FREE Images for Your Blog
By far the BEST way to get free images for your blog is to take out your phone and take pictures. Yes, creating the images yourself, even if they suck, is the BEST way.
If you’re talking about a topic where it’s hard to use your own images, then another option is stock photos. There are 3 places I love to go to for free images.
There is a 5th way to get free images, and this includes doing a Google search.
After the search, click on “images,” then click on tools, then usage rights, and then on “creative commons licenses.”
Creative Commons license means you can use the image, but you have to give credit to whoever owns the image.
Using Paid Images
Another option is paid images. When it comes to business, I’m a fan of putting yourself into profit “as cheaply” as you can, then using your profits to re-invest.
I would recommend using FREE images (until you make money).
Paid images are an option, and here are 2 places to get paid images.
Stockphotsecrets is the cheapest place to pay for images, while Dreamstime has a HUGE selection. 2 of these resources I hope can help you.
Of course, on the flip side, you can earn money by uploading photos, videos, illustrations, and even audio files.
Last week, I finally got hassled for taking a photo of a garden, by someone. I did defuse the situation, but it’s a wonderful way to make a little extra cash, and I wrote a post on how to get into it HERE.
Of course, there are TONS of other resources when it comes to paying for images.
Resize Images for SEO
There are MANY factors when it comes to ranking in Google and the search engines, but 1 is speed. You want your website to load fast.
We humans, don’t want to wait for anthing right?
What many people don’t know is that pretty images and graphics can “really” slow down a site. If a site is slow, it can REALLY drop in the rankings and hurt how many visitors you get.
The fewer visitors you get, the less money you can earn from the website.
Every image on a website should be optimized.
There 2 main WordPress plugins that will help your site’s speed. It is funny how 2 seems to be my favorite number in the post!
Shortpixel does give you a few free image optimizers a month, or you could spend $20 for 45,000 images you can resize. I just spent the $20 because getting ranked in search and getting traffic was more important than the $20.
When it comes to videos, you could get the plugin Lazy Load for Videos.
Lazy load for videos helps your site speed by replacing embedded videos with clickable videos, and makes your site faster.
If you want more ideas on how to speed up a website, you can check out this post HERE, about pages, settings, and plugins that you should consider in a website.
How to Win with Pinterest
The reality of Pinterest is it’s a woman’s place. 93% of all pins come from women, even if 40% of new signups are from dudes.
Niches that include topics that women are interested in “just” do better on Pinterest.
Good topics would be fashion, beauty, fitness, relationships, parenting, home, couponing, decor, and finance for moms.
If you have a blog about guns, you can use Pinterest, but it won’t do as well as other topics.
Also, if you use Pinterest, a helpful tool is Tailwind. Tailwind is a paid software tool that allows you to schedule pins in advance.
This way, you can be on Pinterest a few hours a week, and it will work for you the rest of the time.
One of the best ways to use Tailwind is with Tribes. Tribes allow people to repin other people’s pins.
The challenge with Pinterest is that they don’t want people to leave the platform! If your pins lead people to your blog, Pinterest could KILL your pin.
Still, when I looked at Google Analytics, one of my top places for traffic was Pinterest.
The way to promote your blog from pins “without paying” is by having someone re-pin your pin that leads someone to your blog.
This is why Tailwind is the industry standard when it comes to using Pinterest for a blog. Tailwind just has the tribes, and it helps if you use it.
You could say Pinterest is more of pay2play – using a video game analogy.
Another thing to ask yourself before sharing a pin is, “how exciting is this pin?” Also, look at the demographics if your pin is -10 hunting knives for survival- how likely will women repin this?
AI and Pinterest
Pinterest is an amazing platform. What is even better is that AI can help with all the metadata, such as titles, descriptions, and tags.
I plug something like this into AI…
I want to create a pin for Pinterest with just text, don’t create an image. The keyword I want to use is “___
” Create for me 3 eye-catching and SEO optimized titles and descriptions for the pin. Along with ideal hashtags.
Then mostly, I copy and paste it.
When it comes to making a pin, Canva, and Vistacreate are 2 places where you can create pins for FREE.
Also, I try to do 3-8 pins a day. 1 pin per domain, but I mix up the designs of the pin.
Conclusion
Pinterest is a great platform that helps me create some momentum. Doing something is better than nothing.
Also, if you combine Pinterest with a landing page and building a list, it can really help you.
What is so powerful about a list is you own the traffic. Plus, there are other benefits such as….
- Can promote multiple offers
- Can contact someone WAY in the future
- Promote your other content
- Do list swaps
- Easier to get accepted into affiliate programs
- MUCH higher conversion rate
- Great for launching products
- Get valuable feedback
- Protects you from algorithmic changes
- More personalized marketing
Even better, I’m giving away FREE guides on how to build a landing page, build a list, and earn money from the list HERE.
I hope this blog post on using Pinterest Images on a blog was helpful. Bye for now.