Pinterest is a popular social platform, but it operates like a search engine. Think about it. When you use Pinterest, you’re often searching for something, whether it’s a creative idea, DIY hack, recipe inspiration, or tips and advice on a particular topic.
It’s more targeted than Google, with visual results that keep users scrolling for hours.
More and more people are using Pinterest professionally to market their content, which can help you make money on it.
Yes, you can get paid to create graphics, pin content, and essentially poke around on Pinterest. If this sounds like something you would enjoy, keep reading to learn how to make money on Pinterest and possibly even earn a full-time income from the site.
Why Choose Pinterest
- Impressive algorithm: Like any search engine, Pinterest SEO can skyrocket your content to the home feed.
- High-purchase intent: Pinterest users often use Pinterest with a purchase in mind, treating it like a catalog for all things interior design, fashion, cosmetics, and more. This makes Pinterest a valuable destination for brands to share their products.
- Evergreen content: Unlike Instagram or Facebook, where posts fade over time, Pinterest pins are searchable and discoverable for years after the first post, giving you a long-term return on your investment.
- Trend-focused: Pinterest is one of the best social media platforms for cutting-edge trends. And sharing on-trend, high-quality content on Pinterest will gain you a larger audience, fast.
- Valuable metrics: A Pinterest business account gives you invaluable insights into your platform performance, sharing the number of pin clicks, saves, reposts, and outbound clicks.
- Still growing: Pinterest users continue to grow, with 498 million monthly active users. We can only expect more growth as consumers and creatives alike use Pinterest as a primary search engine.
1. Use Pinterest to Grow Your Blogging Revenue
One of the best ways to make money on Pinterest is by using the site to grow your blog. Many bloggers focus on SEO to increase their traffic, and this is not a bad idea.
However, SEO takes time to work, and utilizing Pinterest can be a much quicker way to get more eyes on your content. By increasing your traffic with Pinterest, you can earn more money on your blog. Whether you’re monetizing with ads, affiliate marketing, product sales, or services, with more traffic from Pinterest, you’ll be able to increase the income you generate from these methods. Holly talks about her success, both in terms of traffic and increased income, in this article.
2. Make Money From Ads
Ad revenue is one of the easiest forms of income you can make with blogging. It’s completely passive and depends solely on your traffic. The more page views you get, the more ad income you can earn.
Every time you share a blog post, create a few Pinterest images to help you promote it. When people see the image on Pinterest, they can click on your site and interact with your ads while learning something new from the content or even becoming regular readers.
If you syndicate or write content on a platform like Medium, Vocal, or Microsoft Start, you can also create pins for these articles, generating more traffic and ad revenue.
3. Earn Affiliate Income
Affiliate marketing involves you promoting a product or service you like with a unique link. If someone clicks on that link and buys the product or signs up for the service, you receive a commission.
The best thing about affiliate income is that the sky is the limit. You can earn a few hundred dollars in affiliate sales per month or even thousands of dollars, depending on your conversions.
Affiliate income is all about the numbers, the quality of the product, and how well you present it. If you have a solid product, are honest and transparent, and have good traffic on your site, you are bound to make decent money with affiliates.
Pinterest can be used as a tool to help market your affiliate posts with eye-catching images and descriptions. You can also share your affiliate links directly on Pinterest, so if you don’t have a website or blog, you can still make money with affiliate marketing.
4. Market Your Products
If you’re selling something on your blog, website, Etsy, or on a print-on-demand platform like Spring, be sure to use Pinterest to market these products as well. You can create images for your product sales page or even promote content that mentions your product.
If visitors sign up for your email list, Pinterest traffic can easily be converted to sales and a loyal audience.
Pinterest Money-Making Basics for Bloggers
Now that we know all of the ways bloggers can leverage Pinterest to make money, let’s go over how to get started.
Some bloggers may find Pinterest confusing in the beginning, so it’s best to get started and build your presence on this platform at your own pace.
- Start by setting up a business Pinterest profile for yourself and fill in your profile completely.
- Then, create boards related to the topic of your blog. You may want to create one primary board to showcase all your best blog posts.
- Keep in mind that Pinterest favors keywords, so you’ll want to research some common keywords for your niche and include them in your profile bio, board names, and board descriptions.
- If you don’t know where to start when it comes to keywords, begin searching specific terms on Pinterest to see what comes up. Also, consider any common keywords that you use in your blog posts.
- Start pinning relevant content to your boards along with your own content.
- Create bold, vertical, high-quality images for each blog post. You can even create multiple images for a single post to test out different designs.
- Use Canva to help you create your images, and consider using stock photo sites like Unsplash, Pexels, Ivory Mix, and Deposit Photos.
- Consider joining group boards on Pinterest that are relevant to your niche. This will help you connect with other content creators who can share your pins. In return, you’ll share theirs, and you’ll both get more promotion for your pins, which can lead to more clicks back to your site.
- Be mindful that some group boards have specific rules you must follow. Keep applying and following up until you join the right boards.
- You should be pinning content daily. To save time on this, try using an automatic pin scheduling tool like Tailwind. Tailwind allows you to schedule your pins out in advance so that you can schedule for a week or month all in one sitting. Tailwind also has tribes (which are similar to Pinterest group boards) that you can join to promote your pins and pin other people’s content in return.
Executing a solid Pinterest strategy may seem like a lot of work, but it’s not bad when you get used to it. Most bloggers spend only 1-2 hours per week on Pinterest and usually find the work pretty fun.
I strongly recommend batching tasks like creating images, applying to group boards, and scheduling pins to make it much easier overall.
Getting Results
Getting results on Pinterest can take anywhere from a few weeks to a few months. You may need to test your strategy a bit and rely on resources from experts.
It’s inspiring to know that many bloggers have drastically increased their blogs’ pageviews and income in a matter of months.
Kristin Larsen is a blogger whose monthly page views went from 5,000 to 17,000 in just one month of using Pinterest. After about six months, her page views skyrocketed to 200,000 per month, contributing to her blog income increasing enough for her to quit her day job and blog full-time.
Learn more about Kristin’s success in this interview and check out her course, Positively Pinterest, which helps bloggers implement the right strategy to grow with Pinterest.
5. Sell Freelance Pinterest Services
Another way to make money on Pinterest is by becoming a Pinterest virtual assistant. A Pinterest virtual assistant, or VA, helps people manage their Pinterest so they can better market their content and get more traffic to their site.
As a Pinterest VA, you could work with bloggers, local businesses, online stores, and many other clients. You’d perform many of the tasks I mentioned earlier for bloggers.
Some of these include:
- Setting up a Pinterest business account
- Creating custom pins and idea pins
- Creating boards and board descriptions
- Researching keywords
- Finding and applying to group boards
- Creating and paying for Pinterest ads
- Scheduling pins on Tailwind
- How to access insights and perform Pinterest audits for clients
Some people may not have the time or interest to work on their Pinterest account, and that’s where you come in. If you enjoy using Pinterest, learn how to master some of these skills, and you can offer a complete service to clients or even a la carte services, depending on their needs.
A Pinterest VA can easily charge anywhere from $350-$500 per month per client for a full-service, ongoing project.
Plenty of Pinterest VAs are earning steady, part-time, and full-time incomes. If this business idea sounds interesting to you, check out the Pinterest VA course created by Kristin Larsen. This course helps you learn everything you need to know about becoming a Pinterest VA, along with how to find clients, how to set up contracts, how much to charge, tips on scaling up, and more.
The course also includes a technical training and skills section with videos and screenshots to help you understand the different tasks that you’ll likely perform for clients.
If you want to learn about becoming a Pinterest VA, sign up for Kristin’s free masterclass here!
How to Find Pinterest VA Job Listings
If you’re not working for your own brand, finding a Pintrest VA job is surprisingly easy when you know where to look. Social media is huge, and most companies have recognized the power that Pinterest holds.
Try looking for VA Pinterest jobs by:
- Cold outreach directly to influencers or companies, pitching your expertise
- Searching job boards for positions in social media management or marketing
- Browsing freelance boards like Freelancing Females for new accounts
- Advertising your expertise through a clear, SEO-informed business website
- Networking amongst your professional circle, asking for references and referrals
- Build a social media business specializing in Pinterest VA
- Browse Facebook groups in the blogging niche for individuals who need your services
How to Make Money on Pinterest: Conclusion
If you’re looking to earn $500+ per month working from home doing something you love, Pinterest is definitely where it’s at. This could be a great way to establish a new, flexible income stream on the side or even break into a new full-time career.
However, you probably won’t learn how to master Pinterest overnight. This is why I’d highly recommend enrolling in a course like Positively Pinterest to help you (if you’re a blogger or small business owner) or Pinterest VA! (if you want to help other people with Pinterest).
Pinterest is a phenomenal tool, but it’s often changing and updating, so you’ll want to stay on top of the latest strategies and skillsets.
Originally published September 9, 2019. Content updated May 2024.