This post contains an affiliate link, which means I will make a small amount of money if you decide to purchase my recommendation. I do, and have, recommended Tailwind whole-heartedly without any compensation. Tailwind is not necessary to put this article into action, it just makes it easier.

If you are desperately racking your brain trying to come up with ways to get eyeballs on your art, look no further than Pinterest.

It may sound cheesy. You may have tried it before with no success. But Pinterest (done right) is a traffic machine. 

There are many ways to get visitors to your website. This one happens to be my current favorite. It's free (or very cheap), it's effective, and it keeps on giving unlike other social media channels. Once a pin takes off, you can get traffic off it for years.

As of February 2019, I get about 4000 website visitors per month. Over half of those are consistently from Pinterest without hardly any work on my part.* 

Here's my 'stripped down to the basics, get traffic to your art website' Pinterest strategy for your stealing pleasure:

1. Post a piece of art on your website

This may sound simple, but to do you any good, the art has to be on your website. You need a URL (website link) attached to your pin to guide people back to your website when they click on it. 

You'll also want, and this is very important, A WAY TO BUY THE ART ON THAT PAGE. Please do not skip this step. Please do not think someone interested will take the time to look for a way to buy it. They won't. It needs to be right there and obvious. Unless, of course, you don't want anyone to buy it - you just want to show it off. Then you can forget this whole paragraph.

2. Create two different pins of your art

Get creative with the imagery. You can use: 

There are a million ways to go about this. You are limited only by the right side of your brain. Look for ideas on Pinterest and Instagram to see how others display their art if you can't come up with anything that day.

3. Create two different descriptions to accompany your art pins

Here's where most people screw it up. You need these pins to be able to be found on Pinterest. How does Pinterest help people find your pins? With the descriptions. 

You want to create as many chances to be found as possible, so you are going to use general keywords and specific keywords. Pinterest also likes it when you create descriptions in a paragraph form.

Examples of general keywords: wall art, art for sale, oil painting

Examples of specific keywords: art for gardeners, vase of flowers, pink tulips, thick texture

The description of the tulip painting above could be something like this: Original oil paintings by (artist name) make stunning wall art for gardeners. Her art for sale includes this painting of a vase of flowers, specifically pink tulips, painted in a thick texture to make the art jump off right the canvas. Click the pin to see a more detailed description and purchasing options.

Pick between 1 and 4 of your boards that you could add this pin to and make sense. This may mean it is time to rethink some of the boards you have on your page. A commissioned painting of a couple in black in white could go on: 1. Jessica Craddock's art, 2. Commissioned art examples, & 3. Black and white paintings.

Next, make a schedule to keep the pins spaced out as to not overwhelm your followers with the same thing over and over. Using a week's time in between AND mixing up the pins/descriptions should allow plenty of space so no one sees the same thing more than once.

Here's an example schedule you could use:

If you created a new pin every week to add to this schedule, you'd get quite a bit of content going out in no time. 

You can use scheduling software like Tailwind to put these pins out for you, or schedule reminders into your calendar. For time's sake, I use the software. The base plan is about $10/mo. That's super cheap advertising.

If you're short on cash, it really won't take long to add a pin once a week if you know exactly what needs to go out ahead of time.

Do the work & create your luck,