Episode 570: Why Pinterest is One of The Best Time Investments To Boost Your Blog’s Traffic with Heather Farris

EBT570 – Heather Farris

Intro 00:00

Food bloggers. Hi, how are you today? Thank you so much for tuning in to the Eat Blog Talk podcast. This is the place for food bloggers to get information and inspiration to accelerate your blog’s growth, and ultimately help you to achieve your freedom. Whether that’s financial, personal, or professional. I’m Megan Porta. I have been a food blogger for 13 years, so I understand how isolating food blogging can be. I’m on a mission to motivate, inspire, and most importantly, let each and every food blogger, including you, know that you are heard and supported.

Megan Porta  00:37

Pinterest is such a good and relevant and trending topic for food bloggers right now, which is why I love getting so many different perspectives from different Pinterest experts as the platform relates to food blogging businesses. Heather Farris from HeatherFarris.com joins me in this episode. She is a Pinterest expert. She gives so many insightful tidbits that I’ve never heard before you guys honestly, she talks through trends, Pinterest trends in a way that nobody has ever talked through Pinterest trends for me before I just got it, something clicked. And I hope that you find the same thing with listening to this episode, she talks about other things such as using it as a search tool as it is the same way you use Google as a search tool, what types of pins you should be making. She talks about your descriptions, your titles, the keywords, you should be putting in those things to think through when you create your pins in Canva, video pins, animated pins. We also touch on it being consistent with a workflow and how to get that up and running. So much great stuff here. I hope you’ve loved this. This is episode number 570. Sponsored by RankIQ. 

Sponsor  01:49

Food bloggers, have you experienced traffic loss after the recent Google updates. Are you feeling confused about how to move forward? I get it. I have been a food blogger for nearly 14 years. And I’ve been through the wringer with industry changes and business changes. You name it, I have been there. When I look back over my tough times. The thing that pulled me out of slumps and traffic loss and disappointment was always people. We need each other right now more than ever. You are in this food blogging game for the long haul I know you are. And that means you need to find people to collaborate with to connect with and to learn from. Eat Blog Talk has two great options for you coming up. The 2025 Eat Blog Talk mastermind groups and in person retreats. We are now taking applications for the 2025 mastermind groups. This year we’re splitting the group’s in two. It’ll be intermediate and advanced and beginner. We also lower the price to accommodate traffic and revenue dips a lot of us are experiencing apply now as the first four people let into the group will receive 20% off the whole year. Go to eatblogtalk.com/mastermind to apply today. And there are still a few spots remaining for the 2020 for Fall Retreat, which is also discounted this year due to revenue loss for so many. Join us in October in Minnesota. It is my favorite time of year here in Minnesota for three incredible days filled with laughter, great food, tons of learning and connecting and honestly, they’re just so much fun. You will not regret attending this retreat, head over to eatblogtalk.com/retreat to apply for that today. I hope to see you in one or both of those spots. I can’t wait for the next 12 months and to see all of your businesses explode. And trust me having those people in your corner is going to help. 

Megan Porta  03:49

Heather Farris is an accountant and bookkeeper turned blogger and Pinterest Marketer since 2016. She has helped hundreds of Pinterest creators grow their traffic and sales through both organic and paid ads. She regularly helps creators understand how to spend their time and money to grow their businesses on and off Pinterest. Hello, Heather welcome it to Eat Blog Talk. How are you doing today?

Heather Farris  04:12

I’m doing so well. Megan, thank you so much for asking and for having me. Yeah,

Megan Porta  04:16

I’m excited to get your perspective on Pinterest. It’s a hot topic. It’s so hot. It’s

Heather Farris  04:21

it’s like it’s brand new again.

Megan Porta  04:23

It totally is. It’s so funny. I was looking through my episodes and prior to 2024 I’d had just a handful of Pinterest episodes. And now all of a sudden, all of these different Pinterest perspectives are popping up which I think is so great. I love it. I’m just eating it all up. So excited to dig into that with you. But first before we get to that good stuff, do you have a fun fact about yourself to share?

Heather Farris  04:47

So a lot of people might not know this about me or even find this relatively easily but one fun fact about me is that I have traveled full time in an RV with my family. And while it was so much fun, and it looks so lovely on Instagram, it was the hardest year of my life.

Megan Porta  05:10

Oh, that’s we do the same. We don’t we haven’t done it for a year, but we used to. We travel every summer as well. So the I totally know what you mean. It looks glamorous and wonderful. But it’s hard, right?

Heather Farris  05:22

It is, it is.

Megan Porta  05:24

What was your favorite thing about doing that? And where did you guys go?

Heather Farris  05:28

We hit 35 states, I believe it was 35. And we pretty much traveled as far west as South Dakota. Like that was as far west as we got in the year. And we we pretty much went everywhere from South Dakota east, we covered a lot of ground except for the Midwest states, like in the middle of the flyover states because we’re from the Midwest, so we didn’t cover those as much. However, one of my favorite things on the entire trip was staying north of New York City on this little place called Croton on the river or something like that. And listeners, if you’re from that area, you’ll you’ll be able to correct me I’m sorry. But we took the train into Grand Central Station for four days in a row. And we just explored New York City for the four days. So out of the ordinary, not in the RV. Without the RV, we wouldn’t have been able to do that at that time. It was right before COVID too. So we didn’t have any restrictions or anything like that. So much fun.

Megan Porta  06:30

Oh, that’s so cool. That’s so we did one big trip one summer, the first year we got our RV. We did like a six or seven week trip. And we’re from Minnesota. So we actually did the opposite of you, Heather, we went west, we did the whole western loop like to Seattle down through Southern California and then up through the desert, and then mountains. But we would love to go explore the east coast as well. That’s on our agenda.

Heather Farris  06:56

It was so much fun. It is very difficult traveling the East Coast and a 37 foot RV with a 17 foot Jeep tied to the back.

Megan Porta  07:04

Yeah, I think that’s why we haven’t done it.

Heather Farris  07:09

Tolls and the weight restrictions and trembling old, old parts of the country like that, that were developed back in the founding of the country to is is very interesting. So I highly recommend it. That’s my fun fact. Megan, thank you for asking.

Megan Porta  07:25

Oh, I love it. And we we have a bond there we have the RV travel bond. I know I know what it’s like. It’s an adventure. Like every day there was something like Oh my gosh, I never could have anticipated this how crazy that this happened. But it was it’s so fun to Well, thank you for sharing that Heather. And then I would love to hear more about your business. So would you mind telling us just like when you started, what do you do? What’s your focus all of that? Yeah, yeah. So

Heather Farris  07:53

I started a mom blog back in 2016. And prior to that I had been searching Google primarily for work at home opportunities. I’d actually done some work at home stuff while I was in college working for AT and T’s business phone customer service line. So I knew there were opportunities out in the world. And after my daughter had reached close to a year old, I was really unhappy at work. And I started in 2015, researching it again. And that’s what led me to Pinterest. I use Pinterest every day as my primary search engine since it came out at that point. And in 2016, I was finally at this point with my youngest daughter who had just turned one, let’s see 17, 16 That yeah, she’s born in 2015. I always have to say that out loud. So in 2016, when I started my blog, like she had just turned a year old. And I had been doing all of this work and research from the spring in 2015 up to that point. And I knew I needed to use Pinterest through just my everyday usage of the platform. But then also reading all these blogs that were putting content on Pinterest as well talking about getting traffic with Pinterest, and you really need to use it. So that’s what I did. And I very quickly grew my mom blog from no pageviews to be consistent 5000 page views a month 7000 and growing. And this was before there were really any networks that did low page view display ads. So I was working to get to like 25,000 page views. And I think we call them sessions. We still call them sessions today, but it was paid for us back then. So I just had worked really hard and I got really good at Pinterest and by 2017 I wanted to quit my job. I had a bad experience at work. Okay, I quit that day. And I came home and told my husband I quit my job today. My last days’ on Friday. This was a Monday morning that I given my one week notice I’m done on Friday, and he came home the same day and he’s like, Well, I’m getting deployed in five weeks and I just started like laugh crying. And I’m like, Well, I guess it’s a sign that it’s time to do this business like full-time. And by this point, I’d actually generated enough money to replace that jobs income, which is why I was like, Okay, I’m quitting. Friday is my last day, I don’t really care. I didn’t need it. And the business was kind of born out of that season and doing, you know, Pinterest through referrals from other friends in the space that, you know, they’d seen the results I’d gotten, I filled in for someone while they were traveling got amazing results for them. 

Heather Farris  10:35

And it just kind of snowballed to this point where today in 2024, we have any, at any point in time, we have a client roster of around 20 to 25. People, a lot of those are one off projects that we’re doing for people getting them set up for Pinterest or optimizing their profiles, I do a lot of strategy setups, and VIP months and things like that these days. And then we have a regular roster of just Pinterest clients that have been with us for years or are fairly new. And they’re looking to just get established on Pinterest, I do a lot of establishing clients on Pinterest. And eventually we send them on their way and their internal teams takeover. And it’s such a beautiful partnership where we empower them, create the strategy and then empower them to take it over. 

Megan Porta  11:21

Wow. 

Heather Farris  11:22

And then in 2019, somewhere in that travel full time, timezone, I kind of realized I probably should be on YouTube, I should, I should probably be on YouTube. At this point, we were doing a YouTube channel for the travel blog. And honestly, looking back on it, my husband and I talked about this a lot. If we would have just done YouTube for my Pinterest business, instead of the travel blogs, no one really cares about your travels unless they’re invested in you. And we just didn’t have that connection with an audience or anything. So I started YouTube for the Pinterest business in 2019. My first video, I’m actually standing in a field in a RV park in Maine. And I look at those videos now. And I’m just like chuckle to myself, because I just I wish I would have started sooner. And that has really propelled the business through, you know, COVID season in 2020 clear to today. The success and the authority just in the space on Pinterest these days. So long story. I’m so sorry. I could talk forever.

Megan Porta  12:24

Oh gosh, no, I love I love hearing people’s journeys, especially people who started their businesses kind of back, you know, like 10 ish years ago. It’s so interesting to hear how things kind of transpire over the years because things change so much different platforms emerge different platforms change all the time. So I loved hearing that. Thank you for sharing all of that. Yeah. And then just kind of in general. So Pinterest was a completely different situation back then what are your thoughts on that, like how it’s evolved over time, do you still love it as much as you used to?

Heather Farris  12:58

I do, I still love it as much as I used to, I still give it a lot of credit these days where others have kind of fallen off. In this kind of world of Pinterest experts. There’s there’s not many of us who have been around for as long as I have. I mean, there’s a few few names that have been, but a lot of people will come and go. And then there’s a study gals that have just been here all along. And I still love the platform as much as I did in 2010 when I joined in beta. By the way, your audience might find it funny that I joined Pinterest simply to learn how to cook. I did not know how to cook. 

Megan Porta  13:33

Oh, interesting. 

Heather Farris  13:36

I’ve cooked over I want to say close to 2500, somewhere in there recipes from Pinterest over the years. All of them I’ve cooked all of them, it has changed a lot. So you know, when Pinterest first was born, it was obviously you could get to the bottom of the feed. And you’d have to come back another day in order to continue to see new stuff. And then eventually it got to where you know, by 2015 to 16 when I started using it to research working at home opportunities, and then I started using it for my own business. It was obviously very easy with group boards and with, you know, mutual sharing to get your content in front of huge audiences. Very, very easy. It’s one of the big reasons why my mom blog took off so quickly. And then kind of fast forward to 2019 when e-commerce was really introduced on the platform. They had been introduced slightly on the platform, but they really took a stand and like stuck a stake in the ground and was like Well, we’re doing e-commerce. That was 2019 and I started doing ads and things for clients in 2018 for e-comm mostly physical products, mostly shipping in the United States and we got incredible returns. And then over time as the platform has shifted more towards the younger audience. We’ve seen two big shifts, one away from genetics to millennials and in the second one right now is happening towards Gen Z. As the platform that audience decreases in age, and we’re bringing new people on, that’s when you see these big shifts and these big efforts to do things differently and use new features and have new tactics and fun things. The invention of IDEA pins was really to compete with the likes of Tik Tok. And you see that evolution over time. But I really do think that without us, without creators, like ourselves, none of these platforms would exist. So even with kind of that, during 2019, to 2021, big push for IDEA pins, even into 2022, because they have the Creator program. Even with all of that happening, it’s still possible to get more organic reach and traffic to your website from a platform like Pinterest than it is Instagram.

Megan Porta  15:49

Yeah, that’s so interesting hearing you talk through just the Age Changing for people who are on the platform and how that changes. The platform. I think that is something we don’t discuss. Often we just, we see the changes, and we get confused and overwhelmed and stressed out by it, instead of just saying, oh, there’s probably probably a reason for this. And maybe it’s the user of the platform is changing the platform itself.

Heather Farris  16:15

Yeah, and we don’t want our audience to age out of us. But at the end of the day, I don’t think a lot of creators even think about that either of our, you know, it’s okay for your audience to age out of you. And for you to fill those gaps with new people, new younger people, eventually, you want people to graduate and to go on and do things on their own. It’s one of the reasons why I run my business the way that I do. And I do a lot more strategy creation and setup and smaller amounts of management for clients. So my, you know, average, the last two years of, of management for Pinterest clients has been around three to six months, because I really want to empower businesses to have a healthy profit margin and to maintain more of that income in their businesses. And to do that, you know, someone on their team taking over the Pinterest strategy, because as long as your strategies there, with a platform like Pinterest being as foundational as it is, it doesn’t change as much or as often, you know, those those important foundations to your strategy don’t change as much or as often on Pinterest, and they haven’t like Instagram, or Tiktok, or any of these other platforms, Facebook being a big one. So if you continue to do those things, and you’re looking at embracing these new younger audiences, you will really have a more sustainable business, in my opinion, long term.

Megan Porta  17:34

Okay, I absolutely love that perspective. So much. I wrote all of that down embracing the younger perspective, younger audience and their perspective. Okay, love it. So let’s talk about Pinterest as kind of a keyword. It’s a search tool, right? So how do we use a keyword strategy on Pinterest, kind of like what we do on Google? Or is it different? What are your thoughts on that?

Heather Farris  17:59

Yeah, a lot of people don’t realize just how much Pinterest is search based. So there’s really two sides of this algorithm. There’s an engagement kind of social algorithm. But there’s also the search based algorithm, it does take longer, just like Google, just like getting your blog posts ranked on Google to rank and to see that consistent organic traffic over time, I’m talking like consistently nine to 12 months of work before, you’re going to start seeing huge returns. And when I say huge, I don’t mean like 20,000 pageviews a month like we we did circa 2014. But the difference in platform traffic could be monumental compared to you know, if you’re looking at other platforms. So as you’re thinking about your keywords, and how to use them on Pinterest, one of the tips that I give is that you can look at what your Google keywords are. And you can test them out on Pinterest by going to the search bar and searching for them. So if you are making a recipe, blog post about, you know, lemon meringue pie or something like that, and you have your list of Google keywords, take the same lists to Pinterest and type them into one of three places your trends tool, your search bar, which is just your everyday search bar and or the ads manager and just see what other keywords are coming up in relation to your set of Google keywords. If you’re not seeing your Google keywords, also populating on Pinterest with the autofill, it behaves the same way as Google with an autofill. And also in the search results has those related searches the same way that Google does at the bottom of the page. I know there’s an elephant in the room with Google changing things right now. Okay, but I just want you to envision what you’ve always known to be Google with the 10 blue links and the related stuff at the bottom. You’re going to take that list of Google keywords, you’re going to pre populate them on Pinterest and just see what comes up. I think a lot of people get in their heads about Pinterest keywords and using them and where to use them and how many to use, when in reality if you just take your list of Google keywords and you look for them on Pinterest, and You just use them on your pins, you have set yourself up for success without having to do all of these mental gymnastics.

Megan Porta  20:08

Okay? I mean, that simplifies it a lot. So you’re doing the research for Google. And then you’re just taking those same words, and popping them into Pinterest to see what comes up.

Heather Farris  20:21

Yes. And a lot of times the same keywords are gonna pop up there, because of the nature of Pinterest. Because how pinners are using Pinterest as their main search engine. I don’t know if you heard it earlier in the conversation. But I said that for the first five years of Pinterest being on the internet, I use it as my main search engine for everything. So people on Pinterest, pinners on Pinterest are doing that the same way that I did that. And they go to Pinterest, and they search for things like easy dinner recipes. Instead of going to Google, they’re going to Pinterest, and they’re using the same search terms, which has indexed those into the Pinterest algorithm. So you’re gonna see a lot of the same search terms in both places. 

Megan Porta  21:03

And you mentioned nine to 12 months for traction, that’s a really long time. And I know a lot of people are like, nope, not worth the investment. I don’t want to do it. That’s way too long. But it’s so worth it.

Heather Farris  21:15

I have a thought around that if your audience would like to hear it. So I talk a lot about longevity and sustainability and business because I don’t want to burn out and I don’t want to have to be always be on the hamster wheel, I want to retire at 60 I want to be done. And one of the things that I’m always thinking about in relation to the way that I live my life is also in in relation to the way that I treat Pinterest. So I treat it like a parking lot for my content. And I joke that if you hear anyone else say that it’s they got it for me because I treat it like a parking lot for my content. So you go to the airport, you parked your car, and you go to the you go get on an airplane and you fly away, and then you come back a week later and your car still parked there. It’s so hard to treat any other platform like that. Because on Instagram, if you think about your feed, you’re just burying your posts and your your stories expire, right? No one is scrolling back on your feed back back back back back for months. And it’s really difficult to get found in the search bar on Instagram. There always has been their searches, atrocious. But on Pinterest, you’re parking your content there. So I don’t want people to stranglehold their Pinterest strategy, or their Pinterest profile, or even worry about looking at their analytics for a while. Because you have so many other things in your business to worry about. And you’re consistently writing new blogs. And maybe you’re creating freebies, to get people on your email list. And you are also doing social media stuff. So as you are creating your workflow, and I think we might be talking slightly about workflow today. But as you’re creating your workflow for your blog post, you’re incorporating creating Pinterest pins in there, I just want you to think about Pinterest as a place where you’re just parking your content a couple of times a year, do a big batch of Pinterest trends research to figure out when you need to be creating recipes for the platform. And for your blog. A lot of food bloggers are already creating Christmas stuff in the summer, because we need to get ahead, right. It’s the same as like going and shopping at Target and in August and seeing Halloween stuff on the shelves. But that’s the mindset I want you to adopt for Pinterest. It’s just a parking lot for your content. If you do the right things, if you use your keywords if you’re using a kind of mix of creative types. Over time, Pinterest is going to index your keywords pinners are going to find your content and ultimately land on your website.

Megan Porta  23:35

Great visual. I love that the parking lot. I’ve never thought of that before. But now it’s in my head. Thanks Heather. So can we talk about pins a little bit? Because food bloggers I mean, this is a question that runs around our circle all the time, what types of pins how many pins per URL, what’s a fresh pin, anything you have on that topic would be amazing.

Heather Farris  23:55

Oh man, the fresh pin conversation. So I pretty much just run this framework. If you are consistently creating new pins for your content, you’re consistently sharing those blog posts to Pinterest. Again, I just want you creating new pins. Don’t worry about repinning the old ones. If they’re in your blog post for your audience to pin. That’s great. That’s a really great way for you to continue to get Pinterest traffic and exposure. But if you are consistently putting your content back into what I like to call a pin plan, so every month I sit down and create a pin plan, I choose 30 different URLs to create pins for and will create two to three pins for each of those which can result in anywhere from 30 to 90 pieces of content going out on Pinterest, and I like to bury the creative types. So even for food bloggers, I’m creating infographic style pins where you can kind of list the ingredients or like the benefits of creating a recipe. It’s easy to make it’s you know, a 30 minute meal or it’s a 10 minute meal. The kids love it. Things like that are really saveable. So if you’re thinking about the different creative types, you have different options and Pinterest is going through this evolution where it’s simplifying pin types right now. And I don’t know if you guys have heard about it the simplified pins and tailwind?

Megan Porta  25:11

No, let’s hear about it. I don’t know what that is. 

Heather Farris  25:14

I don’t quite even understand the concept or why they did it. It’s it’s more of coding on the back end for Pinterest. But they’ve now introduced this thing in tailwind where it’s called a simplified pin. Basically, it’s less signals for Pinterest to have to understand. And they just either classify your pin as a video pin or an image. So those are the two terms now. But within your video pin and your image pin format, you can use different creative types. So you could create like an infographic style pin. And a lot of food bloggers, I don’t see them doing it. But any, any of the ones that I’ve run across, that might be using infographic style pins like you could mix and match or create meal plans on a Pinterest pit. So here’s five recipes to make for the week. And you’re giving people kind of a visual of different things that are on your blog that they can see these are highly saveable. Again, they’re highly saveable. Another creative type that you can make is obviously your standard image pin with the recipe and the text overlay. A lot of people are actually pinning things to Pinterest these days without any text on them, especially in the creative space of like photography, videography, fashion, I’m seeing more of it in food as well. So just a really beautiful picture of your food and your logo. So that’s another creative type that you can add in. And then on the kind of the flip side of that for video, you can do animated pins. One thing that I like to do to repurpose my content that I’ve created is three months later, after it’s been pinned as a standard image pin, I will animate it in Canva, the Animate button, and I’ll export it as an mp4 file and re upload it to Pinterest as a video, it’s a new format, it’s the same image, it’s going to the same blog, it’s a new format, if you’re really worried about Pinterest not seeing it as a new pin, which they will because it’s a new format, you can change the image slightly or you can change the text slightly to mix it up. But then you’re not having to spend 10 minutes creating one pin, you’re just changing a couple of things and exporting it as a different file type. So you’ve just reduced your work your work time by maybe eight to 10 minutes, on how long it takes you. So in the world of creative, I just encourage people to create new pins. It’s also a way for people to get indexed a lot more often. If you’re using more keywords and more Pinterest images it’s more opportunity for you to get indexed for the set of keywords that you want to be known for.

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Megan Porta  29:14

So you mentioned highly saveable a couple times in the food niche. I mean, that can mean a handful of different things like you mentioned the just single image you mentioned image with text overlay Video, Animated pin, like there’s so many different things. So where do we start with that?

Heather Farris  29:33

You always start with a standard image pin no matter what. Those are going to become your legacy pins, the pins that are going to drive a lot of saves. Obviously in the food space, there’s your pins are probably going to get saved a lot because people are recipe shopping is what I like to call it. It’s what I did for years I still do it. I make my teenager do it for me now. I don’t do it as often, but their recipe shopping so you’re gonna see a lot of sales on your pins. Where’s your elbow? Click ratio might be lower. And that’s because people are pre planning their meals for the week for the holiday whatever event or moment they’re planning for. So as you’re thinking about the Pinterest algorithm, and how you’re going to get served more to the people that need to see your content that are going to visit your website and make your food, you need to be thinking about ways that you can get saves saves to Pinterest is the number one signal that people are interested in your thing and that they should show more of your content to the audience. I think saves are more important than follows. Because people can find your content without ever finding or following you. If they save your content, they’re going to start seeing more of your content in your home feed and their home feed. And their related feeds. And also in Pinterest boards now. So within their Pinterest boards, Pinterest is actually showcasing more related content than ever before. It’s just like a close up on a pin. That’s, that’s an old term. So when someone clicks on your pin and makes it bigger on their screen, that’s what they used to call a post that yeah, I remember they do that on boards now. So if you scroll down below a board on desktop, you’re gonna start seeing a lot more related content on there. And you have every opportunity to show up in all of those surfaces if people are saving your pins.

Megan Porta  31:17

Okay, I like that perspective, too. So the save is important. Yeah, so anything else about pins specifically, that we should think through as food bloggers.

Heather Farris  31:29

Always. So with, most food bloggers have a set of like topics that they’re blogging about. So I always encourage every creator, especially food creators to have a list of branded keywords. And I feel like a lot of food creators are leaving out the more general keywords like easy weeknight meals or, you know, easy lunch recipes. And they go for more of that the direct keywords for the actual topic at hand. But you have kind of this subset or these parallel keywords to the topic. So don’t forget to be using those supporting keywords those parallel keywords to the topic. So you might be making, you know, Italian roll ups with cream cheese, but also, that’s a really great make ahead meal or lunchbox meal. So don’t forget to use those keywords and use your keywords often. And we’ll just write one sentence. And then also a lot of food bloggers, if they are relying on their recipe tool to bring the metadata over to Pinterest, don’t forget to include some Pinterest keywords in that tool in the backend. So when you’re writing a little snippet about your pins, or your pin description, and you’re in embedding that into tasty pins or whatever tool you use, don’t forget to use your Pinterest keywords and that tool because when you pin from that, and the recipe is scraped from Pinterest or from your blog to Pinterest, then those keywords are already in that location. So just like keywords, keywords, keywords, just remember keywords.

Megan Porta  33:00

Don’t forget the keywords. Can you talk about video pins, how important are they? And are there any like parameters surrounding those do

Heather Farris  33:07

you think four seconds to four minutes is your video length these days mp4 file is the most commonly used file. So as far as like your your tactical stuff, if you can stay within those parameters, you’re going to be just fine. A lot of Instagram reels are doing really well on Pinterest that are from the food creators simply because of the way food creators create Instagram real content. I would never say this to someone that’s like a business coach or something because a lot of cases they’re doing things that are highly searchable or topical based on their social media accounts that can be found on Pinterest so if you are already creating video for social media channels, in a lot of cases, you can simply repurpose that. You can even do it with Canva without ever having to pay for another tool because a lot of us use Canva so if you connect Instagram to Canva you can bring reels in remove the watermark and mute the audio that was copyrighted to Instagram and then you can simply repurpose that and download it fresh. Point it to the recipe and now you have a click clickable video pin and Pinterest in the last since they got rid of IDEA pins late 22 going into 23 They made it even easier for us to use video and for people to leave the platform with video pins they put a button right below videos that says visit now that was only available on static image pins before so if you are using video try to make sure that you are showcasing the recipe and how it’s made. Hands and pans style or your you know plating it or whatever it is cooking it because those are the things that are going to stop the scroll on Pinterest and get people saving it and always remember you might get traffic from video pins. I still kind of stand by this. This logic and this advice because people on Pinterest have been trained over the years to not really click on idea pins and leave the platform. So they are still also getting used to the fact that they can lead the platform with videos. So your videos might actually lead to a lot of saves. So as you create a video pin also simultaneously be creating image pins. Because if they’re interested in that spaghetti carbonara recipe, and it’s a video, and then you post your image pin of the same thing. Pinterest is indexing categorizing those. And if they’re clicking on that one, Pinterest is going to start serving them your other content and hopefully that image pin for the the one recipes also in that batch.

Megan Porta  35:31

Oh, that was a gem too. Yeah, that’s really good thought. And then you’ve mentioned like four seconds to four minutes, is there something that you see, that’s a little bit more specific in the food niche that works? Or is it really all over the place?

Heather Farris  35:45

It’s all over the place. Most of the videos that I do see on Pinterest, from the food space are those Instagram reel style pins, so make sure you’re showing them how to cook the food, or at least giving them the ingredients because that’s what they came for they came to learn how to cook a meal or they came to find inspiration and ideas for meal plans. Yeah, so as long as you’re kind of fitting into those, you should do just fine with video. And like I said, you can animate the image pins as well. So you can take that standard image pin that you made for your spaghetti carbonara recipe and you can animate that with the Animate button in Canva. And those will likely have a lot less engagement on them. But they do help drive views and reach and we need reach. We need impressions, to get pin clicks to get saves to get out on clicks if you kind of envision it like a funnel. So if you keep all of those things in mind, and you’re just experimenting, and you’re not relying on it for going viral or anything like that, I think you know, whatever you test and try, it’s going to be fine. Use your keywords.

Megan Porta  36:48

And then you mentioned earlier a little bit about trends keeping your eye on trends once in a while. How do you do this? Because this seems like such a, I don’t know something that we just can’t grasp. Like, we don’t know if Pinterest trends works. How accurate is it? Is that where we should be going? What are your thoughts?

Heather Farris  37:07

So Pinterest trends is one of the tools or for organic marketing, it was selfishly introduced in the beginning as a way to help advertisers. But Pinterest trends is a really great way organically to find content that is trending within a certain timeframe, that is going to be rising. And if you can get in when it’s low, and you publish your content when it’s low, then you can ride that wave as it as it rises. As long as you’re using your keywords, you’re creating images correctly, you have high quality images, you have a high quality domain, your domain is claimed, like do all of those foundational pieces. And then also make sure that you are pinning your pins to the most appropriate board. So you’re not, you’re not relying on an RSS feed to pull all your recipes into, you know, my favorite blog posts board. As you create a board or as you create a pin, it’s going to go on the most appropriate board. So if it’s a pin about Italian food, it’s gonna go on your Italian food board first, all of that indexing with your board keywords and your pin keywords, they get married together in the platform. And then as they get served Pinterest is more educated on who to serve your content to so using trends, I’m going to walk you through this I’m actually filming a training on this today for my membership. 

Heather Farris  38:25

So what I like to do is go to trends. And I like to use the top yearly filter. See there’s four filters on trends. It’s taught monthly taught yearly, growing and seasonal, those are the four All right, I don’t, I don’t like to use three out of four of those as often because most of those are really short term. And the chances of getting indexed and seen on something really short term is actually smaller. So if we can think about evergreen long term, then we’re going to have a better chance to get in on those trends. So what I like to do, and I’ve been working on a food VIP month for the last, it’s been more than a month now, because I took 100 blog posts, I did research for all of them, but you’re gonna go into the interest and you’re going to check check the box for food and drinks. And then for each recipe that you have that you want to include in your upcoming pin plans, or creating new pins for your maybe planning some of these recipes to make and that will come up in the future. So right now it’s we’re filming this we’re recording this podcast in June, I’m already thinking about fall recipes. And by the end of July, I will have pivoted to Christmas for some of my clients. So you’re going to be looking at trends for the upcoming months. So you’ve typed you tick the box for interests for food and drink up toggled the trend type to top yearly. Then you’re going to take the recipe and you’re going to put a keyword for that recipe into the keyword filter and you’re going to hit enter. So let’s just say you chose like healthy chicken recipes. And then you put that in, and you might hear me clicking in the background, it’s because I’m going through the process as I’m talking, you’re gonna put that in, and you’re gonna get served a list of keywords. And it literally says keywords on the left. And these are the trends that are happening on the platform. So trends and keywords, you can you use that term simultaneously, that means the same thing. So you’re gonna get a list of keywords, and it can range anywhere from one or two to I’ve seen up to 50 in the list, then there’s a little button to the top right hand of the table that says Export, you’re going to export that, and you’re going to pull it into a spreadsheet, I use Google Sheets. And then you are going to start filtering through those keywords and just taking out the ones that don’t make any sense for you or not related to what you’re doing, or cooking in this case. And you’re going to start to look at those keywords and how you can start putting them into your pin titles, your descriptions, and your text overlays. And then if you do have a board, so let’s say it’s baked chicken recipes, if you don’t have a board on baked chicken recipes, but you have 15 Baked Chicken recipe blog posts, go make a board on baked chicken recipes, and then use some of these keywords in that board description as well. 

Megan Porta  41:13

Okay, okay, I was kinda working as you were talking, so I just typed in chicken recipes. Can you use this too? Do you use it to create new content as well? Or do you just use it mainly to kind of fill in your existing content? Yeah,

Heather Farris  41:29

So I use it in both ways. So let me kind of walk the audience through a couple of like little tips for using this tool. So if you click and open up the trend called chicken recipes, if you just look at the data right there on the first screen, it says For the week, it’s down 8%. For the month, it’s down 10. And for the year itself nine, if you just look at that those metrics, you’re going to think to yourself, oh, well, chicken recipes aren’t trending right now. So I shouldn’t use this keyword, I should only use keywords that are going up. That’s not true. Because if you click open that trend, it’s going to open another screen and you’re going to see a graph on your screen. Now this is the screen that most people have been accustomed to using before Pinterest in 2022 rolled out that new one. So this single graph with the one trend on there, you’re gonna see for the past year, all of this data on this graph, I have a rule of thumb, if your keyword that you’ve searched in trends is below 20, consistently, it is not evergreen, if it’s above 20, then there is some evergreen search volume to that there are ebbs and flows, there’s a really big drop in November, there’s a really big drop at the end of December, but then it picks back up in the winter. And it carries itself through May. But it has never in this entire time dropped below 50 for the entire year. Now Pinterest isn’t really clear on that zero to 100 metric, Is it zero searches or 100? Is it 1000? You know, what exactly is the number there? I’ve never really been clear on that. But if it’s above 20, I’m using those keywords consistently. 

Megan Porta  41:30

That’s a good.

Heather Farris  41:30

 And then as far as your question on using it for existing content or new content, if you’re looking for trends, like Christmas recipes, and you’re seeing things coming up that you’ve never used before, I’ve never created anything on that topic before. That’s obviously where you can fill in those holes for creating new content. But yes, if you look at things in this as evergreen, then it’s probably going to help support your existing content strategy. But there’s only so many recipes you’ve created. And there’s so much more opportunity. So what else can you make? 

Megan Porta  43:40

And then are there numbers that you should be looking at? So I’m looking at the CSV file that I downloaded? And it just starts like chicken recipes, crock pot chicken recipes, rotisserie chicken recipes. Like, how do I sort through this? How do I know what to focus on?

Heather Farris  43:56

on the platform on that very first screen where it still says discover trends. And there’s a whole list where you exported that file, it’s automatically filtered with search volume being the highest, so the highest search volume key words at the top. So as you import that CSV file, and you’re taking a look at it, just focus on the keywords that have the most search volume first, okay, but all of those keywords have some sort of search volumes. So there’s it’s definitely a lot of opportunity there for you to use them all in some capacity. Now, one quick tip that I’m going to give your audience is for food for anyone in the space that similar to this. So food, fashion, DIY, anything where there’s a lot of evergreen volume, but there’s also a lot of seasonal volume is taking if you want to simplify your workflow and you want to simplify how many keywords you’re using or how many pins you’re creating. What I’ve done for my food bloggers in the past, is I’ve actually created a set of pins for an kind of filter through all the keywords So so I’ll find like, let’s say five, five really good keywords for this one recipe. And I’ll make five pins with using all, you know, one keyword per pin. And then all five of those keywords I found as long as it’s related. And there’s a, there’s a theme throughout them, I’ll write a description using all of them. So all five pins, use all of the keywords, and then they each have one main focus keyword. Okay, just scheduling those pins for the month. So maybe you only focus on 10, or 15 recipes for the month instead of 30, like I mentioned earlier, so you kind of narrow your focus down into really what’s happening on the platform in the coming months. And you focus in on that group. And you hit it really hard for a month, and then you move to your next group, and you do the same thing. And you do you go to the next month, and you do the same thing.

Megan Porta  45:52

Wow, I have never heard anyone explain trends like this, this is mind blowing. Okay, thank you so much. 

Heather Farris  45:58

Of course. 

Megan Porta  45:59

Like I honestly, I come in here and I’m like, I don’t even know what I’m looking at. And like you said, you look at something and it’s like, oh, it’s going down, the change is going down and the yearly change is going down. I might as well hop off. But that’s not not the case. There’s

Heather Farris  46:14

no. And then also, if you kind of use that same trends, philosophy that I just explained, where you use a small like a smaller set of keywords, and you make a smaller set of pins for a smaller set of URLs on your blog, or whatever, you can make images so much faster. So you have a set of templates you’re using for your pins already. And if you’re only focused on, you know, 15 blog posts, and you have five templates that you really love and you have five keywords that you’ve chosen. You upload all of your recipe pin or recipe images to a folder. Ideally, you’re uploading them into folders per recipe, so they’re easy to find later. And then you just drag and drop all the images and you pop your keywords in and you mass export those and you use that one description you just wrote, change your title with the main keyword slightly. So just five pin titles, one pin description, five images. Yeah, and you’ve just decreased your time of creating content efficient, by a lot.

Megan Porta  47:13

Wow, amazing. Okay, that is gold. I think that if people can listen and kind of follow along with what you were saying, they’ll see it in a new way. Is there anything else about trends really quick, like any other little nuggets in there that we should look out for? 

Heather Farris  47:27

Yeah, so there’s a couple other filters, I obviously have that favorite filter of top purely, but if you are looking to create content, or get in on trends that are happening right now, because like Coachella just happened, what, like two months ago or something, as these like real world events are happening in the world, you’re going to notice trends starting to pop up that are hyper sensitive right now timely. So that’s where you can use those other trend filters, growing trends is the last 90 days seasonal trends is the last 30. And then top monthly is also the last 30. But it’s really focused in on that month. So right now we’re you know, in June, so it’s gonna be the last 30 days with the date ending for the date that’s in that, you know, filter down below. So you can use those other three is like hyper focused what’s going on in the world right now. So if you are on Pinterest, and you have a few extra minutes, and you want to look at those, you can just see if there’s anything in your roster of blog posts that you’ve written that fit those. And if you can create pins for them really quickly and get them on the platform you you do have an opportunity to kind of get into what’s happening in the moment. 

Megan Porta  48:35

Okay, yeah, that’s a good tip to awesome. Anything else inside of there?

Heather Farris  48:40

No, don’t use the age and gender filters you’re going to, you’re going to really narrow yourself down. If you can filter in food and drinks and then just search by keyword by recipe. You’re going to you’re going to do well, it’s going to be a lot easier.

Megan Porta  48:53

Okay, this this was like, worth it times a million. Thank you, Heather. This was so grainy. Okay, I have a new perspective on trends. And we talked a little bit about videos. Oh, what are your thoughts about just kind of creating a workflow? This is one of the hang ups I think because yes. It’s like something like once you start, you can’t stop. If you’re in it, you have to keep going with it. So if you have any advice on that, that would be amazing. 

Heather Farris  49:18

Yeah, I have so much I have so many thoughts. I could probably do a whole episode just on workflows. So I don’t want you to think about creating pins. A lot of people get caught up in Oh, I don’t know what to pin this week. It’s the same mindset of I don’t know what to cook this week. I don’t want you to think about that anymore. I want you to export your blog posts from your website. A lot of your audience probably uses WordPress. One of my favorite tools for doing this is called all export and it’s Little Octopus. You do not need to pay for it. Just search for the all export by Softly plug in and add that to your website just briefly to export all your blog posts to a CSV file and then open those up into a spreadsheet. Use Google Sheets and then I want you to start categorizing your blog post. If you’ve never done this before, this is going to change your workflow for almost everything that you do in your business. So organize your blog posts into a spreadsheet by promotion timeline. So when is this recipe popular? If it’s evergreen, then market is evergreen, that’s great. I’m doing that VIP month for a few black food blog client right now. And the great majority of the 100 posts I focused on were were evergreen, but probably 30% of them were very seasonal. So I want you to start thinking about 90 days before a recipe really is like, on the platform, and like people are looking for it right now. So Thanksgiving is a really great topic to talk about for US, and kind of to visualize this. So backup Thanksgiving, 90 days. So you’re looking at like July and August. So November, October, September, August, at the earliest August, you can even back it up to July, but you’re starting to create Thanksgiving content, and you’re gonna categorize it in your spreadsheet is when to start making the pins, not when the blog post is popular on the platform. Okay. And if you can categorize it by that, then you’re never going to be wondering, what do I make pins for because right now, in your spreadsheet, they’re filtered into when to start making pins. So I can use filters in Google Sheets to filter all of the blog posts and that have an August tag. So I’m just looking at all the pins that I need to make pins for in August. This is also a really great way for you to keep your blog post updated. Maybe you need to update imagery or affiliate links or sponsorship call outs. If you’re paying attention to sponsored posts of when you can go and remove that sponsorship label or whatever or add links back into those posts. This is a really great way for you to keep track of what’s going on on your website and not forget what you’ve written about. Yeah, so then you kind of have this kind of organization system, where you’re creating pins for content that is highly popular on the platform ahead of time. And that’s the important part here. And that’s where trends also comes in. So if you are using trends, and you are looking for stuff for like Thanksgiving, for example, and you’re doing that in August, then all of your Thanksgiving recipes are probably lumped in August. So you know, you’re going to need to go out to the grocery store and find a new Turkey, if you need to reshoot this recipe or ever, but it’s possible, it’s doable. And a lot of you are already doing it. So if you can kind of change your mindset around your workflows in that way. And then what I like to do is I create a new spreadsheet for every month. And I only focus on the pins I’m going to make for that month for Pinterest. So nothing else kind of enters my mind in that moment. And I also added new content that we’re making. So there’s always new content going into the pin plan. Because at the end, I just make pins for it and get it scheduled when they when those are going out. But the great majority of the content on the pin plan is pins that I need to make all over again. 

Megan Porta  53:02

So it really sounds like it would be worthwhile to create a separate workflow for Pinterest, then like normal content creation, like blog creation.

Heather Farris  53:12

Yeah, you can do this in Clickup, Notion, you can do it in a spreadsheet. I’ve had clients do it in Monday, Asana, Trello, you name it, whatever tool you prefer, you can definitely do this in. And I’ve mentioned this a number of times, so your audience is going to be like yawn, but anywhere from like 15 to 30 URLs for the month. And that’s really what I’m focused in on for for pins for that month. And I’m doing this ahead of time. So right now I’m we already have all June scheduled for our clients, it’s only the fourth because we started creating June content in May. So if you’re struggling to be consistent on Pinterest, I want you to backburner publishing content right now today on Pinterest, and I want you to start focusing on the coming weeks. Because if you can get yourself two, three weeks ahead, you’re gonna give yourself breathing room. And if you’re always working ahead, and you always have a list to work from, like the spreadsheet method I just explained, then again, you’re not at a loss for what to create pins for. You already have a list. And you can just reference that list. Yeah,

Megan Porta  54:16

this is game changing. Heather, I think this is going to really resonate with a lot of food bloggers. I don’t know everything you said, has just been answering these little questions that we have pop up. It’s just putting it into like a nice little package. So thank you 

Heather Farris  54:30

I’m so glad, you’re so welcome. 

Megan Porta  54:32

That’s a great perspective. Okay, is there anything you feel like we should mention before we start saying goodbye?

Heather Farris  54:36

No, just keep at it. I know there’s a lot of upsets with like Google helpful content updates and all of that stuff, but just keep at it because your audience really does care about the food that I mean I’ve visited the same five food blogs for years because I love everything that they make. So you have a loyal audience in there and they may never ever talk to you but they you’re consistently visiting your website. 

Megan Porta  55:02

That’s good to remember too that even though you may not hear from people they’re there and they are loyal followers of yours waiting for your new stuff and your old stuff to resurface. Thank you for that reminder to our and thanks for your time today all this value amazing. You just ended with some inspiring words do you have anything additionally, sometimes my guests like to share favorite quotes or other words of inspiration?

Heather Farris  55:27

I’m not a huge quote person I just because I can’t remember them but I just just I just want to encourage your audience to keep going keep plugging away. And if all else fails, like make your food for yourself and share it because you love to share it food brings people together. It is the single reason I joined Pinterest was to teach myself how to cook something other than Hamburger Helper. So just know there are people out there that want to know what you’re doing in new ways and new methods and new techniques and it’s never too late to share your content and your food with the world. 

Megan Porta  56:03

Thank you Heather. Your shownotes will be found at eatblogtalk.com/ HeatherFarris – FA R R I S. Tell everyone where they can find you Heather

Heather Farris  56:13

everything for myself is on HeatherFarris.com. It’s F A R R I S other varys.com and I have everything from you know a full blog about Pinterest to you know a low ticket offer membership there and a free Pinterest strategy guide. I keep all of my content the great majority of it up to date as best as I can. And if anyone ever has questions they can always reach out on Instagram.

Megan Porta  56:38

Awesome everyone go check Heather out and thanks again Heather for being here and thank you for listening food bloggers I will see you next time. 

Outro  56:48

If you enjoyed this topic, you’ll also love the episode I recommend in the show notes. Click on the episode description to find the link. Thank you and I will see you next time.