How to drive website traffic from Pinterest

In Pinterest Analytics, the number to watch is outbound clicks: Pinterest defines them as actions that lead people to a destination off Pinterest. Outbound click rate is those clicks divided by the times your Pins were on screen. Pin clicks are different; they count people opening the Pin in close-up, which may not send anyone to your site.

Saves matter too, because saved Pins keep being shown, but if traffic is the goal, judge Pins on outbound clicks and on what the visitors then did on your site.

Set a baseline before you change anything: note last month's outbound clicks and the visits your website analytics credits to Pinterest. Without it, you can't tell whether new Pins or tactics made a difference.

Source: Pinterest Business Help: Review Pinterest Analytics, checked 15 October 2026

Three free set-up steps help every Pin that links to your site.

None of these changes your Pins overnight. They make sure that when someone saves something from your site, the Pin carries your name and the right details, and that you can see it happening.

1. Claim your website, so Pins saved from your site show your profile and you can see how often your content is shared.
2. Add Rich Pins. Pinterest's help centre says article Rich Pins show the headline, description and author of an article or blog post, recipe Rich Pins show details such as cook time and ingredients, and product Rich Pins show current price and availability. Listicles and image-heavy pages don't qualify as article Rich Pins.
3. Add a Save button or browser-friendly images to your site, so visitors can Pin your pages for you.

Sources: Pinterest Business Help: Claim your website, checked 15 October 2026; Pinterest Business Help: Rich Pins, checked 15 October 2026

A Pin earns a click when it promises something the person wants and makes it clear they'll get it by clicking. Pinterest's creative guidance suggests putting key messaging at the top, visuals in the middle and extra details at the bottom, using a vertical 2:3 image and including a specific call to action.

It also helps to make two different Pins for the same page and compare them over a month: one with a photo of the result, one with a text-led design. Pinterest's creative page suggests A/B testing for ads; the same habit works for organic Pins if you change one thing at a time.

• Promise a specific result: '12 small balcony ideas' beats 'balcony inspiration'.
• Show part of the answer, not all of it, so the page has more to give.
• Use a short headline on the image that matches the page title.
• Add a call to action that fits the page: 'see all 12', 'get the recipe', 'shop the look'.
• Make the Pin title start with the search phrase, since Pinterest says the first 40 characters are the most likely to show.

Source: Pinterest Business: Creative best practices, checked 15 October 2026

Pinterest lists broken links, mismatched descriptions and slow site load among the factors that can hurt Pin performance, and suggests pages load in under 4 seconds. A Pin promising a recipe that lands on a home page loses the visitor and teaches Pinterest the Pin isn't useful.

Pinterest's community guidelines also prohibit linking to sites that are unsafe, deceptive or unoriginal, so avoid redirect tricks and thin pages built only to catch clicks.

• Link to the exact post, product or project, never just the home page.
• Check that the image on the Pin, or something very like it, appears on the page.
• Test the page on a phone over mobile data; Pinterest notes that most people use it on mobile.
• Fix or redirect broken links when you move or delete pages.
• Keep the first screen of the page focused on what the Pin promised, with the matching image near the top, so visitors don't have to scroll to find it.

Sources: Pinterest Business Help: Pin performance and distribution, checked 15 October 2026; Pinterest Community Guidelines, checked 15 October 2026; Pinterest Business: Creative best practices, checked 15 October 2026

One page can support several Pins, as long as each one is genuinely new: a different image, a different angle or a different search phrase. Pinterest's help centre recommends fresh, new content and warns against repeatedly saving the same Pins or uploading content that already exists on Pinterest.

A simple approach is to make two or three Pins when you publish a page, then one new Pin for it each season, aimed at a different search. A guide to 'garden lighting ideas' might get one Pin for patios, one for small gardens and one for autumn evenings.

If you publish a blog, Pinterest can also auto-publish Pins from an RSS feed on your claimed website. Its help centre says you can add as many feeds as you want as long as they match your claimed site, each feed publishes to a board you choose, and new Pins appear within 24 hours of a feed update, oldest first, up to 200 Pins a day. Atom feeds aren't supported.

Auto-publishing makes sure every new post gets at least one Pin. It doesn't replace making fresh, purpose-made Pins for your best pages, because the feed uses whatever image your post already has.

Sources: Pinterest Business Help: Pin performance and distribution, checked 15 October 2026; Pinterest Business Help: Auto-publish Pins from your RSS feed, checked 15 October 2026

Pinterest tells you about clicks; your own analytics tells you what happened next. Add UTM parameters to Pin links, for example with source set to pinterest and campaign set to the board or season, so visits, sign-ups and sales show up clearly in your website analytics.

An invented home-baking blog that also sells an online course. Every number here is illustrative.

In our view the last step matters most. Doubling down on pages that already earn clicks, with new images and new search angles, is a better use of a small team's time than spreading effort evenly across every post.

1. Claims its website and adds recipe Rich Pin markup to every recipe page.
2. Connects its RSS feed to a 'new recipes' board so each post gets an automatic Pin.
3. Makes three purpose-made Pins for each new recipe: a finished bake, a step photo with 'how to' text and a collage for a seasonal search.
4. Tags links with source pinterest and a campaign per season.
5. Each month, picks the five recipes with the most outbound clicks and makes a fresh Pin for each, aimed at a new search phrase.

Zolyp is our product, so weigh this section with that in mind. Making several fresh Pins for every page is what drives traffic, and it's also what most people stop doing after a month. You can point Zolyp's Create at a page on your site and get draft posts for Pinterest and your other platforms to review.

In Create you type an idea, choose the platforms each post is for (Pinterest included) and ask for up to six posts at once; Zolyp writes the caption, designs an on-brand visual and adds hashtags, fitted to each platform. Nothing goes live without your sign-off. Lite is $9 a month per brand for scheduling posts you make yourself; the plans that create posts start at $29 a month, with a 3-day free trial and no card required.