How to Go Viral on Pinterest (and other pinnable tips)

Originally published for UnskinnyBoppy.com in August 2012. Updated by BethBryan.com in April 2026.

How Pinterest Gave My Blog a Heartbeat

On October 2, 2010, my hipster friend Lisa invited me to join an exclusive, invitation-only website called Pinterest. Her exact words were, “This is a website I think most of us could fall in love with.” Lisa needs to get herself a crystal ball and change her name to Miss Cleo, because truer words have never been spoken.

That was back when Pinterest only gave you ten invitations to hand out. I’m proud to say I was one of the original pinners on the old beta version. I was immediately sucked in — columns and rows of pin boards updating to reveal beautiful recipes, organizing tips, home interiors, and gardens. I became a pinning zealot, staying up late to scour other people’s boards and repin everything I loved.

Fifteen-plus years later, my reasons for loving it have shifted. I still adore Pinterest — but now I love it for what it does for my business. It has been one of the most consistent traffic drivers I’ve ever had, and it still is. The platform has changed significantly since 2010, but the fundamentals? Largely the same.

Let me tell you how it started, and then let’s talk about what actually works now.

The Christmas Tree Photo that Changed Everything

First, let me explain some background history just in case you aren’t a regular reader here. When I look back through my blog stats since 2009, there is a clear shift in my traffic beginning in November of 2011, and I give all the credit to Pinterest.

Screenshot of my actual Google Analytics from 2011 – 2015.

A full year earlier in December of 2010 I had written a short entry with instructions on how to take glowing pics of the Christmas tree.  That post sat on my blog for nearly a full year with just three comments from personal friends and no other activity. Considering I only had about five readers back then, this wasn’t a big deal. But then one night, while perusing my stats, I discovered that there had been thousands of page views to my small personal blog in just a few hours.  Suddenly, all these comments started rolling in for this year-old blog entry.  I was stunned. It didn’t make much sense until I was able to pinpoint the referring URLs that brought such an enormous wave of traffic.  Em from A Bunch of Scrap and Stacy at KidStuffWorld had pinned and repinned the picture of my son in front of the Christmas tree with a description of “How to take Glowing Pics of the Tree”.

And just like that– within the span of a few short hours– the image of my little boy standing in front of our bright Christmas tree went viral on Pinterest.  Those two ladies unknowingly gave my blog the biggest boost of its career. Fast forward 15 years later and that little boy is off to college in a few months. And I’m still here. Chugging along.

Since that first viral post, my blog traffic has grown steadily but significantly, and I’ve come to rely on Pinterest as the main source of traffic generation for my blog. If you are in the food, DIY, craft, interior design, fashion or any other girly blogging niche, Pinterest referrals should be your analytics bread and butter by this point. If you are in one of these niches and haven’t seen a significant boost in your traffic from Pinterest, then keep reading. This post is for you.

What Pinterest Is Doing For Me in 2026 (And What It Is Not)

Pinterest has evolved from a social bookmarking site into a full-blown visual search engine. Users are not scrolling passively — they are actively searching for ideas, solutions, and products. That changes everything about how you approach it.

Viral moments still happen, but sustainable Pinterest traffic comes from showing up consistently with content people are actively searching for. Think less about going viral and more about being findable.

Pinterest Advice for Bloggers & Amazon Influencers in 2026

Write content people are actually searching for. This has always been the foundation, and it matters more now than ever. Your pins needs to tell people how to do something faster, better, cheaper, or easier than they’ve ever heard before.  Or it needs to stand out as something unique that grabs a pinner’s attention and holds it long enough to get them to click through to your site. Pinterest is a search engine. If nobody is searching for your topic, nobody will find your pin.

Create a pinnable graphic image.  Whether it’s a “How To” DIY post or just a beautiful picture that showcases your talents, make sure every post on your blog has an attention-grabbing and eye-catching pinnable image. Every post needs at least one strong vertical image designed to stop the scroll. Think of it as a tiny magazine cover. Clean text overlay, readable font, and a clear promise of what they’ll get on the other side of the click. A 2:3 ratio (1000×1500 pixels) is the sweet spot for 2026.

Don’t ALWAYS cover up great photography with text.  Sometimes a pin needs no introduction because the image is beautiful enough to speak for itself.  Just let the caption do the talking and keep the image free of clutter. “Pinterestizing” photos by placing text labels on them is so common now that sometimes it’s refreshing to pin pretty word-free images that don’t smack of an advertising campaign. Also, it’s sexier not to reveal too much up front, right?  Keep the mystery alive and all that.

Write keyword-rich pin descriptions.  Pinterest’s algorithm reads your descriptions. Be specific and descriptive. Include the words people would actually type into the search bar. Skip vague captions like “love this!” and write something that tells the platform exactly what your content is about. This makes your pins more searchable, which leads to more saves and more traffic.

Give your images descriptive file names and alt text. This takes about ten seconds and matters both for Pinterest’s algorithm and for SEO. When someone saves your image, the alt text or title often populates the pin description automatically. Do the work once and let it work for you.

Dust off your archives. If you are an established blogger, you likely have a treasure trove of pinnable info sitting in your archives. Go find your best older posts — the ones with solid content that just never got the right image — and create a fresh pin for them. You do not have to write a single new word to drive new traffic. Just give those posts a better visual front door. This is one of the highest-leverage things you can do with an afternoon.

Understand the two types of pins. Some pins make people save first and read later — these are your “how to” and tutorial posts that promise a useful payoff. Other pins make people click through immediately because the image or headline is compelling enough to pull them in right now. Both have value. Aim for a mix. The Pin First, Read Later posts tend to build slow, steady, compounding traffic over time. The Read First, Pin Later posts can spike your numbers overnight.

Pin consistently, not frantically.

The algorithm rewards consistent activity over binge-and-disappear behavior. A steady pinning schedule — even just a handful of fresh pins per week — signals to Pinterest that you are an active, reliable creator. Tools like Tailwind can help you batch and schedule so you are not glued to the app.

Make it easy for readers to pin your content. There is a book on web design called Don’t Make Me Think by Steven Krug. The whole premise is: do not make your readers work for anything. If you want your content pinned, put a Save button somewhere obvious. Make your site as obvious and intuitive as possible. Most good blog plugins handle this automatically now, but check yours and make sure it is working.

Don’t post ugly stuff. Sorry. Someone needs to say it. Pinterest is a visual platform. People want to pin beautiful things. You do not need a professional photography setup, but you do need clear, well-lit, intentional images. If your photo looks like it was taken in a cave in 2009, no algorithm in the world is going to save it.

Play nice. Do not steal bloggers’ images and link them back to your own site. Do not copy someone else’s content and repackage it as your own. Just be a decent human. I often use others as inspiration. That’s great.

How to create Pinterest content that will get clicks (and sales)

Here’s what you need to know first: Pinterest has changed a lot. The average person scrolling today is not exclusively the middle-aged homeowner I wrote about in 2012. The fastest-growing audience on Pinterest right now is Gen Z and Millennials aged 25-34, and they come with money and purchase intent. According to Sprout Social, Pinterest users spend 2x as much when shopping on Pinterest as they do on other social media platforms. These are not passive scrollers. They come to Pinterest to plan, shop, and buy. That is why you need to be ready to give them what they want.

Ideas for Amazon Influencers to leverage Pinterest for Sales

So, what do pinners want to buy, and how can you drive them to your Amazon storefront to purchase it? Let’s brainstorm ideas together…

Home decor and interior styling. Show them inside your house. Walk them through a room refresh. Demonstrate how you styled a bookshelf or layered a bed. Like Ludacris says, “Now, tell me who’s your housekeeper, and what you keep in your house?” People have always wanted to look inside other people’s homes, and that is never going to change. So show them! Just don’t forget to deeplink it to your storefront with the product tagged and ready to add to cart.

DIY and how-to projects. If you can show someone how to do something themselves — paint a piece of furniture, hang wallpaper, build a garden bed, make a wreath — you have a pin that will work for years. Link that back to a shopping list of all the items you used for that project, and BOOM…. sales.

Recipes, especially ones with a shortcut. Show them how to make something delicious in under 30 minutes, with ingredients they already have. Recipe content consistently outperforms almost every other category in both saves and click-throughs. Cast iron, air fryers, Dutch ovens, good knives, pretty serving pieces. Link to the kitchen gadget you used in your recipe, and they will come running to buy it.

Organization and home systems. The inner Virgo of the internet never sleeps. Organizing closets, pantries, craft rooms, junk drawers… Room resets. Closet cleanouts. ASMR-style restocking videos. Baskets, bins, drawer organizers, lazy Susans, shelf risers. These are impulse purchases that solve a frustrating problem with a low price point and high visual payoff. An organized pantry pin with every product linked is a conversion machine. Link all those products to an Idea list on your Amazon storefront, and I guarantee people will want to buy them.

Bedding and bath. Linen sheets, weighted blankets, chunky knit throws, Turkish towels. High-ticket enough to earn a real commission, aspirational enough to stop a scroll. Style it like a boutique hotel and let the aesthetic do the work.

Travel gear and accessories. Packing cubes, luggage tags, neck pillows, portable chargers, travel-sized everything — people buy this stuff constantly and replace it regularly. Gift guide angles work especially well here (“everything I pack in my carry-on” or “Amazon travel finds under $25”). This category spikes hard before spring break, summer, and the holidays, so time your pins six to eight weeks out and let the search traffic roll in while everyone else is scrambling to pack.

Candles, diffusers, and home fragrance. Small purchase, high emotion, deeply giftable. These pin beautifully in a styled vignette and are bought year-round with spikes at every holiday. Bundle them into gift guide posts and watch them move.

Seasonal decorating. Speaking of holidays…Christmas, Halloween, Thanksgiving, Easter, spring, summer, fall. These are all PINTEREST GOLD MINES. Create these posts months ahead of the season and pin them consistently leading up to each event. Seasonal content has the longest legs of anything you will ever publish. It keeps getting picked back up year after year. Link EVERYTHING you share as a Shop The Look to an affiliate link.

Budget-friendly decorating. Beautiful home on a real budget will never go out of style, especially when money feels tight. The more specific the price points, the better. Sometimes there are ways to incorporate affiliate links here. Sometimes not (because duh… you’re making them spend money.) You’ll have to figure out what works for you. And not just decor. Budget-friendly ANYTHING is a huge hit on Pinterest. Groceries, clothes, etc.

Fashion and accessories. You do not have to be a fashion blogger to play here. A great cardigan, a pair of earrings that photographs beautifully, a handbag under $50 that looks like it cost three times that — these pins convert fast because the purchase decision is low-stakes and emotional. Style it in your home, on your porch, against a jewel-toned wall. Context sells.

Beauty and skincare. Luxury beauty is one of Amazon’s highest-commission and highest-repurchase categories. Serums, SPF moisturizers, eye creams, Korean salmon sperm face masks. We will literally slap anything on our faces if someone tells us it helps our wrinkles. Before-and-after results pins and “what I actually use every morning” style content outperform product-only pins consistently. Authenticity is the whole game here. Show what WORKS.

Hair care and styling tools. Blow dryers, hot rollers, scalp treatments, dry shampoo, hair thinning treatments — women buy these constantly and replace them regularly. Tutorial-style pins showing how to achieve a specific look with a specific tool drive strong click-through because the outcome is visual and the product is the vehicle.

Gardening and outdoor living. What to plant, when to plant it, how to keep it alive. Garden content pins beautifully and tends to attract a very loyal, engaged audience. It also offers the perfect niche to provide a solution to a problem that can be solved by clicking your link. Deer eating your garden? Click here for my Liquid Fence. Got aphids? Here is some neem oil. Plants dying? Check out what this fertilizer did for my petunias. It’s a treasure trove of affiliate links. Planters, garden tools, string lights, outdoor cushions, bird feeders. A massively underserved category on Pinterest relative to how much people actually buy. Seasonal timing matters enormously here — pin six to eight weeks before the season opens. The downside is that gardening tends to pay the lowest commission rates. But still worth pinning!

Gift guides. For every holiday, every recipient, every budget. These are highly searchable, highly saveable, and they convert. Christmas. Mother’s Day. Father’s Day. Easter baskets. Boo Baskets. Graduation. Weddings. Baby Showers. Never skip a gift-giving occasion without pinning a new gift guide.

Books and journals. Low commission but high trust. Recommending a book or a beautiful journal positions you as a curator, not just a seller, and builds the kind of credibility that makes people come back to buy the bigger-ticket items you recommend later. A good graphic plus a clear description of what they’re getting is all it takes. Then link to an Amazon Media list full of books, and you’ve got a potential off-site sale.

Supplements and wellness. Collagen powders, magnesium, greens drinks, fiber supplements, PROTEIN ANYTHING. This category has always been exploding, and the repurchase rate is through the roof. One converted buyer can generate commissions for months. Lead with your personal experience and be specific about what you noticed and when. Warning- do NOT make any health claims that can get your account banned. Read up on the rules if you’re not familiar.

What Pinterest Looks Like in 2026

Overall, the formula has not changed much since 2012: solve a problem, show something beautiful, make it easy to click through and buy it (or save for later.) The audience has gotten a bit younger and the competition has gotten fiercer, but the person on the other end is still looking for a beautiful, calmer life — and they are willing to pay money to get it.

Pinterest has added a lot since the early days — video pins, idea pins, shopping integrations, product tagging, and most recently, a link to your Amazon storefront feature which is available for select accounts right now (hopefully coming soon for everyone!) The core still works the same way it always has: beautiful, searchable content that solves a problem or sparks an idea gets saved, shared, and clicked.

What has changed is the competition. There are a lot more creators now, which means your images have to work harder to stop the scroll. Invest in your photography, invest in your graphic design, and invest in your keyword research. If you need help, ask AI to write keywords, titles, and descriptions. That combination is what wins on Pinterest in 2026.

And if you have been blogging for any length of time? You already have an unfair advantage. You have archives. You have history. You have content sitting in your back catalog that just needs a fresh image and a good pin description to start sending traffic again.

Climb aboard this wave and ride it. Then figure out what the next wave will be. Just don’t miss this wave entirely!