Important Update: BoardBooster (referenced below as a Pinterest scheduling tool) is no longer approved or supported by Pinterest. I’ve switched to using Tailwind instead.
Rosemarie Groner is a former state trooper turned blogger and stay at home mom. In the last 12 months, her site The Busy Budgeter has grown from zero to 400,000 page views per month.
More importantly, Rosemarie earned $5000 last month while working on the site part-time.
Want to start a blog of your own? My free video course shows you how.
(For the sake of comparison, SHN was around 73,000 pageviews for the last 30 days at the time of recording.)
I met Rosemarie (and several other members of her mastermind group) at FinCon in September, where she shared a surprising secret weapon to her success: Pinterest.
Ahh Pinterest … a “social media” network I knew almost nothing about.
After the conference, Rosemarie was generous enough to jump on a call with me to walk through step-by-step what I needed to do to start generating traffic from Pinterest, and how to set it up to run automatically.
It was a completely untapped frontier, and her information was so juicy and straightforward I had to invite her back to record a Side Hustle Show session. The result is a killer tutorial on how to set your site up for massive Pinterest success.
You’re gonna love this!
(If you want to follow along as I implement these Pinterest strategies, check me out here.)
UPDATE #1: I’ve seen some GREAT results following Rosemarie’s advice, basically uncovering a new traffic source that runs almost on autopilot.
UPDATE #2: The Busy Budgeter continues to see explosive growth. Seven months after we recorded this, Rosemarie was up to $22k a month in earnings from her site! She put together a guide on how you can begin using Pinterest like a boss and take your blog to new heights.
Free Bonus: Download Rosemarie’s Top Blogging and Pinterest Traffic Tips
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Learn:
- The 3 main ways The Busy Budgeter earns money.
- Why Pinterest is the BEST social network for content marketing, even if your site doesn’t specifically target women.
- How to set your profile and boards up for success.
- Rosemarie’s advice on how to create awesome Pinterest graphics, even if you’re not a designer. (My attempt at an image for this episode is at the bottom of the post.)
- The tools you can use to automate your Pinterest domination.
- Why you have to make sure your site is mobile-ready.
- How to find and get invites to high-traffic “group boards.”
- Rosemarie’s #1 tip for Side Hustle Nation.
Links:
- BusyBudgeter.com
- LivingWellSpendingLess.com (Ruth Soukup)
- Elite Blog Academy | Rosemarie’s Review of Elite Blog Academy
- Rosemarie on Pinterest
- Rosemarie’s Pinterest Guide (affiliate link)
- Side Hustle Nation on Pinterest
- Your Rat Race Freedom Number
- Adthrive
- Pixabay
- PicMonkey
- PinGroupie.com
- BoardBooster.com << No longer supported. Use Tailwind instead.
How to Join Group Boards on Pinterest:
Download the Free PDF "Highlight Reel" from this Episode
With all of my guest's top tips and resources included.
Enter your email to access it now:
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(If it doesn't show up in 5-10 minutes, check spam/promotions.)
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So if she sees a single guy trying to join her group she automatically thinks something is up and they are a spammer.
That is a bold statement.
I definitely didn’t interpret it that way, just a tip to improve your profile on a very female-heavy platform.
“When we see a single dude talk about pinterest, we are like Oh, Ok thats weird”
You even go on to joke “Ok thats profiling”
I just got offended while listening to her spread that to your listeners but then again, everyone is allowed to have an opinion but now as a single guy that is trying to start a legit pinterest following, I have to go and find some stock art clip to use.
Either way, I’m a fan of your podcast and hope my feelings on the matter don’t make you think otherwise.
My impression was that Pinterest in general tends to have a large female base due to the typical content types. Not to say that guys aren’t interested in many of the same things, but the generalization exists for a reason.
Apparently, when contacted by guys in the past – the experience has often been negative (ie: fraudulent). So I think she was simply giving guys a heads up: there’s a perception we have to navigate.
Regardless, the lack of guys on Pinterest represents an opportunity.
Yeah, kinda tweaked me as well. But, it is what it is. You can either keep yourself upset about it, or get busy with the stock photography sites. Or find some good looking woman (friend, girlfriend, wife, mom, random stranger) take a selfie and then get on with it.
(and believe me, I’ve already been searching through the stock art stuff myself)
Nick – thanks for the episode. Eye-opening. Gives me a lot of ideas.
I’m late to the party I know.
But I joined pinterest over a year ago and did not know it was “Female heavy”. I’ve been having a ball the whole time and didn’t know I wasn’t allowed to! Tja, I think I’ll experiment and change my name to Erica, see if it helps. Brgs.
Hey mate! What WP Plugin do you use for the social media share buttons on the top of your post?
By the way, awesome podcast episode! Was actually wondering about Pinterest this week. Pure serendipity :)
Nice! It’s the Floating Social Bar: https://wordpress.org/plugins/floating-social-bar/
This episode is amazing. I never knew you could use Pinterest for your business.
Pinterest is awesome! :)
Nick, this was a great podcast. Rosemarie was really good. I thoroughly enjoyed it. I have been on pinterest for awhile now and love it. I have learned so much more about how to use it effectively. I never knew about the group boards and will definitely being using pinterest more for searches. By the way I don’t think she mentioned it. But you get emails (a lot of them!) whenever someone repins one of your pins. Thanks!
Hi Suzie!
You can go to your board settings and actually turn off notifications for your group boards or it will drive you insane. :) I think my larger boards get about a hundred pins in a few hours.
Pinterest has really been helping my site increase it’s PV too. The only downside of Pinterest is that the bounce rate of traffic is much higher than with viewers from other sources.
Completely true Cat! I’m probably a little “Ad Happy” in order to monetize that traffic, but I’ll take it.
This is mind blowing Nick,
400,000 pages views per month is no joke at all and I think she should be making more than 5k with such traffic.
I created my pinterest account over 2 years ago and since then, I’ve not been making use of it, don’t even know if I will remember my password :).
This is really awesome and I will download the podcast right away.
Thanks a bunch for the show.
You bet! Pinterest is driving some crazy numbers. And with the list Rosemarie is building, the site is quickly turning into a nice long-term asset.
Probably very true Theodore. I’ve only monetized a blog for a year, so while my numbers may look impressive, I don’t actually know what I’m doing yet. I’m getting there though!
Nick, really interesting content, I took a lot of notes and had to pause and rewind several times.
Like you, I’ve never used Pinterest and didn’t know much about it, so your questions were almost identical to what I was thinking to ask.
My girlfriend is on Pinterest constantly looking for travel tips, meal ideas, etc, and it never even came to me that it could be used in such a way to drive traffic.
I’ll try to find you on it and help increase your following :)
Thanks to both of you for the great info
You bet Brian, thanks for tuning in! Definitely an action-packed episode — Rosemarie brought the goods big time!
I’ve looked more into social media lately and have noticed that usually the traffic quality is pretty low. I have also followed bloggers with huge Pinterest following and their blogs are pretty deserted, when it comes to comments and community. This made me improve my strategies a bit (won’t discard social media altogether), but also look for more ways to get quality targeted traffic for my web site. This means people who are actually gonna subscribe to my list and comment on my posts. In this case forum / blog commenting and guest posting are clearly great tactics.
Yeah Rosemarie mentions not to be disappointed if the Pinterest traffic isn’t the most engaged traffic in the world, but says a healthy portion of visitors DO subscribe to her email list. And the rest, well that’s what the ads are for :)
I’ve seen firsthand how amazing Pinterest can be for a website’s traffic – that is, if your site is a good fit! And the traffic is actually not as bad as you would think. Yes, they do buy things!
It’s so saturated now that it’s pretty tough to get a foothold on Pinterest nowadays, but it’s still definitely worth the effort to at least try.
I’m starting a classroom tech website and teachers are on Pinterest. This was the best episode I’ve listened to yet. I know I need to get on pinterest, it’s where my audience is, but I’m going to have my wife listen to this one with me…there was so much actionable advice, this one will live on my phone for a while.
Great show, Nick! A lot of holes in her outline but I can fill in the blanks. She only had a few minutes to give several hours of content but a very excellent show.
-“Mad” Max Speedwell
Great episode, Nick! I’ve been wanting to play around with Pinterest and learn how to use it efficiently. This episode was a perfect primer for Pinterest with a lot of practical and actionable tips. Thanks!
Thanks Brad! I’m on the hunt for a handful of group boards today :)
Fantastic show Nick and Rosemarie, thank you. I am a long time listener, but this is the first show I have played twice to make sure I got every little bit.
I clearly have been underutilizing Pinterest. Time to get busy!
Tremendous episode. Like Zoe, I’ll be listening to this one again, and I’ve never listened to any podcast twice. The Pinterest world is a mystery to a lot of people, and this was the first content I’ve come across with enough depth to make some sense of it. I’ve still got a lot of learning to do before I can make good use of it, so I’m screwing around with a personal account before I set off into the business/Pinterest world looking like a noob; just trying to understand the mechanics of it, and people’s behavior on the platform.
I’m also interested to find out who my Pinterest audience will actually be. I’m doing mountain bike themed t-shirts. The sport is still more male than female, but I’ll have to see the gender breakdown of the Pinterest-using mountain biker. My gut feeling is to be less concerned than Rosemarie with respect to skewing toward the female audience, and instead being gender neutral. And the experiment begins…
Fantastic podcast, Nick. Thanks to Rosemarie for sharing, I actually had no clue about the group boards and just asked to join one today.
Pinterest is really great for driving traffic, I can attest to that. Some of our most popular images have been repinned thousands of times and continue to drive traffic on a daily basis.
Nice! Now you’ll take it to the next level! :)
Pinterest is one of those social sites that you have to really know what you’re doing or else you’re just gonna spin your wheels and waste a lot of time.
I’m just getting into Pinterest after eyeing it for awhile and this podcast and Rosemarie’s tips are gonna be quite helpful.
Thanks Nick for providing this great podcast!
HI there, I signed up to get Rosemarie’s tips and the show notes….the download button is not working. Are you able to send the PDF to me? Thanks…I really enjoyed the show!
Hey Christine, did the file eventually come through? Tested and working OK over here but I’ll shoot a copy to your inbox now.
Hi Nick & Rosemary, I loved the podcast and listened twice. I don’t think you mentioned the Pinterest Marketing class you took and I would love to check it out if you don’t mind sharing.
Thanks!
Hi Kim! It’s The Elite Blog Academy, The class actually deals with monetizing your blog in general but it also focuses heavily on Pinterest. It’s an AMAZING class and I can’t recommend it enough.
Hi, this is has been one of the best Podcast I have listened to. Thank you for the detail info on how to get started and take action today. I’m definitely going to give this try but first things first- a blog!
Yes — that’s the prerequisite!
I’ve been blogging for 4.5 years and make NO money for my efforts. Just joined Pinterest in the last 9 months or so and not for purpose of learning how to monetize my blog. Started researching it about 2 months ago and found both Side Hustle Nation and Rosemarie. She was very generous to share all this. Podcast sound quality was superb.
Owesome tips Rosemary, thanks for sharing
I have been back to this podcast about 10 times already. I already love Rosemarie’s blog and Nick you have become a new favorite! Together you guys and your openness and honesty are like my perfect recipe! This podcast was so incredibly helpful for a new blogger like me trying to figure out how everything works. Thank you both so much! Nick your side hustles are so eye opening to opportunities and resources I didn’t even know existed. I can’t get enough!
Aww so happy to hear it Erin — thanks for sharing! This time next year, we’ll get you on the show :)
awesome post thanks so much for the wealth of knowledge.
I’m late to the show here on this episode, but, this podcast has been responsible for a serious uptick in my traffic. Pinterest has been awesome so far. I’m not relying on it as my primary source, but, either way – thanks Nick for creating this! Definitely one of my favorite episodes.
Love it, thanks Mike!
This was a GREAT podcast! We needed this BIG time. We have been struggling to learn Pinterest but are starting to finally see some growth.
Very detailed and lot’s of information =)
Thanks Nick! I am so glad I found this interview. I stumbled upon it one night and started implementing some of the pinterest strategies right away. It took a few weeks but we eventually started seeing pinterest traffic start coming to my blog. Excellent interview. Debating now whether or not to buy her guide or not.
I understand you want your “best of” board with only your stuff to show as the first board. Does this mean you should create that board first or last? Or how do you ensure that it remains as the first visible board?
Hi Vee, I think you can drag and drop to rearrange the boards.
The interview with Rosemarie was really great! I feel like it might be the turning point for our newly starting blog! It’s 12:45 a.m. I’m on my way home from my full-time job, and I can tell that I’m going to be up till 4 a.m. trying to get this all in place. Super excited! Thanks guys!
This was amazing and I can’t wait to get started. I am a newbie to this whole ” Blog” thing but I am in no rush to perfection. Pinterest is one of my absolute FAV’s and this podcast was a gem…..Thanks Nick and Rosemarie for the tips!!! Bye bye 8 to 5….hello WAHM
I like it the pinterest traffic :)
Congratulations on turning your side hustle blog into a full time income BusyBudgeter.com. :-)
” She put together an inexpensive guide on how you can begin using Pinterest like a boss and take your blog to new heights”
$139 for a 3 page pinterest guide. Really inexpensive.
Do not make fun of your subscribers Nick.
Great post. i downloaded the ebook and will digest it. Thanks
The doors have opened to guys…I don’t think anyone worries about who’s following them these days. I’m only worried about creeps on Instagram. My friend Scott is killing it with Pinterest. https://www.pinterest.com/grillinfools/
This is such a good episode! Was recommended in another podcast I listened to recently so I went back to check it out. I still need to listen to the newer episode with Rosemarie. She mentioned A/B testing. How does she do that?