Pinterest is easy to dismiss as a place for recipes and mood boards. For anyone running a blog, an online shop or a digital product business, it can be one of the best free sources of website visitors, because people use it to plan and buy rather than just to scroll.
The trick is to treat it like a visual search engine. This four-week plan gets you set up properly.
Before you start: is your subject a good fit?
Pinterest suits visual subjects and things people plan ahead: home decor, DIY, recipes, fashion, beauty, crafts, travel, budgeting, parenting, weddings, and printables or planners. If your side hustle sits in one of these areas, it’s worth the effort.
Week 1: set up the account
- Open a free business account, which gives you analytics and advertising tools
- Claim your website, so Pinterest links your content to you
- Write a short profile description using the words your audience searches for
- Create five to ten boards named after topics people actually look for
Board names should be plain and searchable. “Small Garden Ideas” will be found. “My Happy Place” won’t.
To find the right words, use Pinterest’s own search bar. Start typing a topic and note every suggestion it offers.
Week 2: create your first pins
A pin is an image or short video that links back to your content. The ones that get clicked tend to:
- Use a tall, vertical shape that suits phone screens
- Carry a short text overlay explaining the benefit
- Use bright, sharp, high-quality images
- Show the result, like the finished room, outfit or meal
Pinterest templates in Canva and similar tools make this quick. Aim for several different pins for each article or product, so you can see which design performs best.
Write each pin’s title and description naturally, including the keywords you found in week one. Stuffing in keywords tends to look spammy and perform worse.
Week 3: build a posting rhythm
Pinterest favours accounts that add fresh pins regularly rather than in occasional bursts. Set up a schedule, using Pinterest’s own scheduler or another tool, so pins go out steadily across the week.
Fresh pins don’t always need fresh content. A new image or headline for an existing article or product counts as a new pin.
If you plan to use affiliate links in pins, read Pinterest’s current rules first and always disclose them clearly.
Week 4: connect pins to income
Decide what each pin should achieve. Common goals include:
- Sending readers to blog posts that earn from adverts or affiliate links
- Driving buyers to your Etsy or Shopify shop
- Promoting printables and other digital products
- Growing your email list with a free download
Make sure the page each pin links to delivers exactly what the pin promised, or visitors will leave straight away.
After the first month
Pinterest growth is usually slow at first. Pins can take weeks or months to gather momentum, and early numbers may look small. The reward is that a successful pin can keep sending visitors long after you created it.
Check your analytics once a month. See which pins and topics bring clicks to your site, and make more of those. Give it a few months of steady effort before judging whether it’s working, because Pinterest rewards consistency more than constant activity, which suits people with limited time.
About Shortcuts to Success
Practical, honest guides to earning extra money alongside your job. We cover freelancing, selling online, content income and local gigs, including the costs and risks most side hustle sites skip.