For all of the artist and crafters who want to know how to use Pinterest, here’s a little tip I’d like to share with you about how you can use Pinterest to drive more traffic to your website. This is a great (and simple) way to increase the visibility of your work on the Internet, get your art/crafts in front of more eyeballs and generate more sales.
Whenever visitors browse the Pins and images that you’ve uploaded to your Pin Boards, Pinterest will happily serve up a nice image of it to anyone who clicks on it.
How to put your images to work on Pinterest
You may be surprised to learn that Pinterest actually allows you complete control over where the user is taken when they click on one of your pins, you can even send them to a specific page on your website if you so wanted.
This easy-to-learn, simple Pinterest Tip will show you step-by-step how you can change the destination web address (or URL) of your pins so you can use your pins to drive more traffic to your website from Pinterest. You can also use this tip on other people’s pins that you have re-pinned onto any of your own Pin-Boards. And remember, every time someone repins that pin, it’s another back-link to your website that’s being shared to possibly thousands more potential customers who are interested in what you do.
Step-by-step – How it’s done:
Before we start, go to http://pinterest.com and log into your Pinterest account.
…and while you’re there…
Step 1-2:
- Click on your username to make sure you are on your Pinterest home page
- Click on “Pins” to bring up your list of Pins (or you can browse your Pin Boards to find the pin you want to edit the web address for)
Steps 3-4-5:
- Browse through your pins to locate the Pin you wish to change the address (URL) for, and move your mouse pointer over the top of the Pin.
- When your mouse is over the Pin, option buttons will appear on top of the image.
- Click the “Edit” (Pencil) Icon to edit the properties of the Pin.
Stage 6 & 7:
- Paste the new destination address into “Source” (the web URL you wish to send the visitor to when they click on your Pin) (You can copy this first from your website to save you from having to type the address in manually)
- Click the “Save Changes button to save your changes to your Pin.
And that’s it, it’s as simple as that! From now on, whenever anyone click on that Pin they will be taken straight to the page at the internet web address (URL) you entered.
It would be even better if you are able to pin the images into Pinterest straight from the pages of your website as this will copy the web address across with the image for you automatically. All you need to do in install the Pinterest Button in your browser (click the link or watch the video below) or better still, ask your web developer to install the Pin It Button directly on your web pages to make it as easy as possible for you and your visitors to share your images on Pinterest.
Many thanks to Cindy Wider of DrawPJ.com for allowing me to use her coloured pencil drawing of a strawberry in this Pinterest Tips Tutorial. If you would like to learn how quick and easy it is to draw to this level of professionalism, then please take a look at Cindy’s Complete Online Drawing Certificate Course here>
Thanks Ian, this is so helpful and thank you too for using my strawberry, cheers! Cindy
If I change the url link of one of my Pintrest pictures, will it automatically update the link for people who have pinned that picture from my board? The reason I ask is were are changing domains and will need to update url links, but don’t want to lose people who have pinned the pictures.
Hi
Thank you for your tips and I found it very useful.
Hello Ian,
I have a small question. Great information and very useful!! I was wondering what happens if someone saves a pin and at a later date, I revise the link destination of the pin they saved. Does the saved pin take on the revised link as well?
Doesn’t work any more. Do you have any idea how to change URL now? The only way I know – making a new pin, starting with saving the picture on hard drive (now way just to put url for the picture now). Somehow they make it very inconvenient… 🙁
I’ve just figured it out. You could change url only on your own pins (i.e. those you created). You do it pretty much the same way as in the article (some buttons changed appearance and position but it’s recognisable). But if you re-pinned something and then noticed that it leads to dead website or some unrelated one, there are no way to change it. So if you don’t want to mislead your followers, you have to re-do that pin from scratch.
Is it ok to change the URL of someone else’s pins? So instead of the image taking the follower to original website or blogg, it takes them to yours.
Thanks for the info but it doesn’t work now in 2019 🙁 Trying to edit the source links to my new website, but doesn’t work! They have removed the option. So sad…
I don’t always get the “source” input box.
Hi Ian,
This blog is really helpful for a beginner like me. I have a query: what is the difference between organic and promoted pins on Pinterest? How does it work and its significance?
Can I link my web url to others pin on Pinterest