How To Make Money On Pinterest For Beginners

I joined Pinterest a couple of years ago to find inspiration for my home and to find unique recipe ideas. While scrolling through Pinterest, I kept coming across pins from bloggers who were making a killing on the platform. I quickly realized how easy it was to make money on Pinterest & started testing different strategies. This post will cover the strategies that have helped me create passive income from Pinterest!

To be honest, I spent many weeks just reading income reports. Afterward, I put together a little game plan on how to not only make some side hustle income from pinning but also how to turn it into a full-time income. I then started a blog and made more than $350 in my second month (this covered all my startup expenses for the entire year!). My blog has consistently generated over a couple of hundred dollars per month. The best part is that you don’t need much to get started aside from your creativity, and perhaps Taxcaster depending on how much income you start generating. It’s not much, but the extra income helps a lot.

Blogging is the best way to make money off of Pinterest, but it’s not the only way. The second best way to make money on Pinterest is to join affiliate networks and put affiliate links directly on your Pins.

Read the latest income report!

Learn how this tiny blog made $5,500 passively last month in my latest income report.

I share some of the affiliate programs that have made me the most money as well as some of the automation platforms that help my small business grow (without costing me a lot of money).

Read More

So the question remains, what is it about Pinterest that makes it possible to make a decent side hustle and even a full-time income? What makes this platform different than others?

Pinterest is not just a social media platform, it’s a visual search engine where people are looking for inspiration and solutions to their problems. Users click pins to go directly to the website which is the reason why Pinterest is the NUMBER ONE source of traffic for most bloggers to build and grow online businesses in any niche.

Around 250 million people use Pinterest every month, reaching 83% of US women ages 25-54. Of this demographic, 39% of users have a personal income of $75k or more. Research shows us that users are using Pinterest to decide what to do with their disposable income, and over 80% will purchase something after seeing it first on Pinterest (For more stats check out this article)

This is why utilizing Pinterest traffic will give you plenty of opportunities to make some serious money. I’ve seen some bloggers make a full-time income and then some just on Pinterest traffic alone.

I wrote this article to inspire you to think about Pinterest in a different way. To go from being just a ‘pinner’ to an online entrepreneur. Yes, I said it! So buckle up, and make sure to save this article for later, as I will be going through a lot of information on how to make money on Pinterest.

For those of you who are new to the blog, welcome! One of my goals is to turn this blog into my main source of income. I plan on sharing tips and tricks I’m learning along the way so make sure to follow me on Pinterest so you too can be part of the journey and be inspired to start your own online business!

Pinterest

If you’re someone who doesn’t like putting your face out there, perhaps you’re introverted like me, or just don’t see yourself talking to an inanimate object for hours on end, but still want to create content – then Pinterest is perfect for you. After some trial and error, I was able to find out what people on Pinterest shared the most – and found the “sweet spot” between creating content that I enjoyed creating and that people also loved reading. It’s really not rocket science and finding success on Pinterest is something that anyone with an internet connection can learn to master. For example, here are my monthly impressions and audience size – and the best part is, I never had to create “provocative” content in order to achieve these numbers.

There are two popular ways to make money on Pinterest:

Start a Blog OR Upload affiliate links directly to Pinterest

The best part is, that both of these options don’t require you to have any prior experience to start 🙂

Imagine being able to use this extra cash to pay off those loans, put into a savings account, or even stop living paycheck to paycheck. CHAAAA-CHING!!!

I personally started with no prior experience and was already making $350 in passive income by my second month. I now make over $3,000 dollars a month with this blog and it’s only 11 months old!

I am not special in any way & I had no idea what I was doing when I first started… but somehow I managed to pull it off because I was really eager to learn. Truth be told, I didn’t put that much effort into building my traffic the first couple of months so I’m sure that if you’re really passionate about blogging you can easily get the same results in a shorter amount of time.

I personally had a lot of doubts in the beginning because I didn’t know how to create a blog and I thought it required technical knowledge like how to code… I’m 11 months into blogging and don’t know a single snippet of code.

Luckily, I found out how to use this platform called WordPress which takes care of all the coding for you. It’s super easy to use. So if you were thinking about starting a blog the following section is for you. It’s a really simple step-by-step guide as to how to make blogging possible and easy.

Want to make some extra money this month? Read these:

15 Creative Ways To Make $100 Every Day In 2024
The Complete Guide To Starting A Profitable Blog In 2024
Learn How I made $3,278 Blogging in September
Freebies: 67-Page Minimal Budget Planner For 2024
How To Land Your first job on Upwork in 24 hours
25 High-Paying Jobs For Introverts
8 Great Podcasts For Ambitious Millennials
How I Take Surveys To Make Extra Money Every Month (Up to $50/hr)

Option one: Start a blog

Blogging has changed my life! Here are four reasons why I think EVERYONE should start a blog:

1. Create a brand around yourself and become an authority figure in a given niche. It’s a great opportunity to share your passions with the world and meet people who have similar interests.
2. Stand out from other applicants when applying to jobs. Having a clean, professional website will leave a great first impression on future employers. A blog is a perfect place to share your expertise on things.
3. Make great passive income. A blog doesn’t sleep when you do. People from all over the world will be seeing your content 24/7. It will generate ad revenue and passive income whenever someone clicks on your affiliate links. Imagine waking up in the morning and finding out that you’ve made $100 while you were sleeping.
4. The cheapest business to start in 2019. It only costs $3.95 PER MONTH for good hosting. I’ll get more into that topic later.

Setting up a blog in 20 minutes

Step one: Pick the best host

Your hosting company is where your blog “lives.” It’s the place where all of your content and files associated with your blog are stored. In the event that anything happens to your blog, you want to make sure that the hosting company is easy to use and has great customer service.

Finding the perfect hosting provider was a big deal for me in the beginning. So I did a ton of research on all of the hosting options available. My main concerns were:

• Reliable customer service – I needed 24/7/365 phone, live chat, and email support. Personally, I’ve called Bluehost support more times then I’d like to admit. No matter what time zone I was in there was always someone there to help me and the support I received was very polite and helpful.  
• CHEAP – I couldn’t afford to pay an arm and a leg for hosting.
• Easy to understand – In the beginning, I had no idea what I was doing so I need something super simple to make blogging possible.
• Full Refund – Bluehost offers a 30-day money-back guarantee if you change your mind. 

In the end, I concluded that Bluehost was the best all-around hosting company for new bloggers in terms of performance and cost. 

I have been able to cultivate a special relationship with the Bluehost team over the past year and because of this, I have been able to negotiate a special discount for my readers.

This page contains affiliate links meaning I earn a commission if you use those links. I only recommend the brands I use and trust. See my disclosure for more.

Step two: Create content that solves people’s problems

Think of blogging a long conversation. When you’re just starting out, it’s really hard to narrow down to a specific niche. You’re just trying to figure out what type of subjects excites you the most. So just keep on writing and worry about choosing a niche later!

You don’t have to be the greatest writer to get people to come back to your blog. You just have to be passionate enough about a topic. People will come back if you write authentic and helpful content.

I wrote a post on self-care last December. In the past four months, it’s been shared over 20,000 times on Pinterest. There’s nothing that special about it, it’s just an uplifting piece of content written with the intent of making someone’s day better. Keep it simple.

Start off with 5-10 posts related to your niche and aim to solve the problems of whoever will be reading it.

Try to find out what people are searching for in a given niche. I like to use SEMrush to see what people are searching for on Google.

If you want to just stick to Pinterest search, I start off by typing my niche in the search bar. Take the keto diet for example,

When you do a search in Pinterest, you’ll see keywords underneath, this is what people are typically searching for in your niche. If I were to start a blog on the Keto diet, my first articles would be about:

• Keto Diet for beginners – where I would explain what it is, what the benefits are, and which foods qualify as being ketogenic
• 7-day Keto meal plan/prep
• Keto chocolate fudge brownie recipe
• 10 Delicious Keto Breakfasts
• Peanut Butter Fat Bomb Dessert Recipe
• 25 keto-friendly meal-prep lunches (I came across one blogger who wrote a post like this and it went insanely viral)

For the travel niche this is how I would plan my first couple of posts:

• Travel Hacking: How to choose credit cards that give you the most redeemable travel points
• 30 quotes to inspire you to travel
• Top bucket list destinations for 2019
• Ultimate USA National Park bucket list
• What’s in my carry-on?
• How to pack for _______ (trip to Europe or India, safari trip, gap year, etc)

Keep this in mind: readers will come to your blog expecting to find an answer to their problems. They’re only concerned with what’s in it for them. Imagine if you came to this blog post and it’s just a daily diary on how I felt while building this blog or what I ate that day. You would get bored and you would never come back. Stick to solving a person’s problem and you should do just fine.

Remember that you DO NOT have to be an expert. Sharing the lessons that you’ve learned along the way will add a ton of value.

Step three: Share your posts on Pinterest

The next step will require you to have a Pinterest account it’s free to use and takes 5 minutes to set up.

Next, turn it into a business account by clicking on this link and filling out your info. You don’t need to have an officially registered business in order to do this, it’s open to anyone. Now that you’re set up you can start sharing your pins

I use a website called Canva to make beautiful pins and it’s completely free to use.

Don’t get discouraged if, in the beginning, you have no audience. Know that If you’re persistent you WILL GET RESULTS. Check out my How to Make your Pinterest Account go Viral article to see how I gained over 12,500 new followers and get over 5 million monthly impressions on Pinterest within a couple of months after starting.

Here’s what my traffic looked like in my second month of blogging. 100% of this traffic came from Pinterest. With a proper strategy and business plan, 20,000 monthly website visitors can generate enough income for you through affiliate marketing and advertising.

Step four: Monetize your website

There are different ways of doing this, but for the sake of not making this article turn into a book, there are really only six different ways that bloggers make money.

Advertising

Many websites have advertising, it is an advert that you place anywhere on a webpage.

Google’s Adsense program is really easy to set up, and you can most likely apply to the program in your first week after setting up a Privacy Policy/Disclosure and have written a couple of posts. You can earn around $1 per 1000 visitors. I earned around $15 during my first month of blogging. Yesterday I earned $2.61 for 857 page views. Understand that placing ads on your website directly affects user experience, so be strategic in where you put ads.

Once you start receiving over 25,000 monthly sessions you can apply to Mediavine. This sounds intimidating at first, but if you’re using Pinterest this is achievable. I’m currently making $18.30 per 1,000 Ad Impressions with Mediavine. Sarah from Chasing Foxes was making over $15k per month from Mediavine alone.

Affiliate Marketing

After you have set up Adsense, your blog is ready for affiliate marketing. With affiliate marketing, you can earn a commission from promoting someone else’s product. You can easily apply to affiliate programs, many don’t have too many requirements apart from having a URL.

Some of my favorite affiliate programs can be found either on Awin or Flexoffers. Hostgator is another popular affiliate program where you can earn $50 per referral.

Sponsored Posts

Companies are willing to throw major $$$ to bloggers willing to write articles on their products. This is where the term influencer marketing comes in. Usually, this happens after the blogger has established a loyal following.

It can happen naturally, by having a company reach out to you through your website’s contact page or you can apply to programs through influencer platforms such as:

• ValuedVoice
• BlogHer
• SeedingUp
• Blogdash
• IZEA
• Massive Sway
• Global Influence Network
• Aspire IQ

Selling a service, ebooks, and courses.

Are you really interested in a certain topic? Make an ebook or a course around one of your passions. Here are a couple of success stories from people doing this:

• Michelle from Making Sense of Cents makes $38,000 a month from a course she created to help bloggers master affiliate marketing.
• Kara & Nate are travel bloggers who created two courses: one on travel hacking and the other one is on how to edit travel vlogs. They make 20k+ per quarter.

Coaching

If you’re skilled at talking one-on-one with people in your niche you might want to consider coaching. Topics can vary, but many coaches focus on lifestyle coaching, mentorship, &/or business consulting. A good example of this would be Natalie Bacon who built a 6-figure coaching business aimed at lifestyle and motivational coaching.

Sell your own products

So you can absolutely make a KILLING with this one, ESPECIALLY on Pinterest! Use Pinterest traffic go to Etsy and Shopify stores.

Sarah Titus created printable journals and marketed them on Pinterest. She now makes over $1 million per year with little overhead costs.

Option two: Direct Affiliate Marketing

This option will require you to have a business account on Pinterest so go ahead and click this link and answer the questions.

Some companies won’t allow you to lead users directly from Pinterest to the product’s landing page. Amazon is one of these companies. Shopstyle will allow you to place affiliate links linking the product on the pin, which is a great way to generate a couple of hundred dollars per month passively. Make sure to disclose that the pin has an affiliate link in it by using a hashtag in your pin description.

Bonus: Become a Pinterest Virtual Assistant

Are you really good at pinning, have access to a bunch of group boards, and already have a tailwind account? You might want to become a virtual assistant. Create an online resume showcasing your skills/success on the platform. You can do this for free Wix. Then you can send the site as a link to businesses that you think can use some help.

I share tips once a week on how to turn your passions into profitable online businesses so make sure come back!

Know some other ways to make money on Pinterest? Let me know in the comments below