[Journey] Growing a niche website from scratch with Pinterest as a main traffic source. [Goal: 10m+ monthly Pinterest views]

[korni]

@korni Well done OP for keep going and not giving up for +50 weeks! Would you give some updates on your earnings as well? Wondering how well Pinterest traffic is converting.

I don't share exact revenue numbers anymore. RPMs really depend on the niche. For example, the OG site is getting around $30-$35 RPM right now, while site #8 is only at $5-$10 RPM. You can sort of guesstimate how much these 2 are making, even though the Pinterest analytics isn't that accurate + they get more traffic from Google, Bing, Yahoo, etc.

How many new accounts are currently monetized?

None. I'm waiting for approvals.

Nice one OP!! How do you keep your accounts from getting banned by pinterest? Any tips/hints on multi-accounts?

I've never had trouble with accounts getting banned. I'm doing manual activity on most of them, pinning a moderate number of pins per day (usually 15-25 max) and not spamming the same URLs over & over. I'm trying to separate new accounts into their own spaces with anti-detect browsers & proxies, even though I'm unsure if this step is necessary. This is on top of using a 3rd party automation tool. If you're pinning manually and you're getting banned, there is something seriously wrong with your whole strategy.

 

[LucasOFF]

I've never had trouble with accounts getting banned. I'm doing manual activity on most of them, pinning a moderate number of pins per day (usually 15-25 max) and not spamming the same URLs over & over. I'm trying to separate new accounts into their own spaces with anti-detect browsers & proxies, even though I'm unsure if this step is necessary. This is on top of using a 3rd party automation tool. If you're pinning manually and you're getting banned, there is something seriously wrong with your whole strategy.

May I please ask about the 3rd party automation tool - if you don't mind what are you using and why?

 

[korni]

May I please ask about the 3rd party automation tool - if you don't mind what are you using and why?

I'm using BlogToPin (b2p) because, in my opinion, it's the best third-party automation tool out there. You can check the search function on BHW (filter this thread) to see more of what I’ve shared about it.

 

[Hi I am Mitu]

May Update​

Sites	Posts in May	Total Posts (till 31st of May)
Site #1	4	184
Site #3	19	119
Site #4	0	48
Site #5	40	113
Site #6	0	28
Site #7	36	64
Site #8	79	198
OG Site	24	151

Account #1​

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Account #3​

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Account #4​

View attachment 448664
I think this one is link-shadowbanned even if it gets some impressions on pins without URLs. I'll try to post some inexpensive articles to see if it gets any traction on pins with URLs, but I don't have high hopes for it.

Account #5​

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Account #7​

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Acc #7 escaped the initial sandbox successfully, unlike acc #6, which is my biggest failure so far.

Account #8​

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I'm testing a different strategy for this account to get more clicks, which seems to be working for the past couple of days.

OG Acc​

View attachment 448666
This one got cooked again. I didn't expect this because I thought the account was showing a great trajectory and was growing nicely for about 3 months. All of my best-performing text overlay pins dropped to 0 in one day. It could be a shuffle and not a shadowban, but damn, it's so demotivating to see something like this... I might just try spamming collages again and say fuck it.

I think the niches you have chosen are really good. In my own niche, I couldn't exceed 100,000 views per month, and I was sharing 10 posts every day. Even accounts with very few monthly posts are doing very well. Could you help me choose a niche, or if I tell you about my current niche privately, could you give me a few tips?

 

[korni]

I think the niches you have chosen are really good. In my own niche, I couldn't exceed 100,000 views per month, and I was sharing 10 posts every day. Even accounts with very few monthly posts are doing very well. Could you help me choose a niche, or if I tell you about my current niche privately, could you give me a few tips?

Sure, you can DM me if you're comfortable sharing.

 

[twohkz]

An overall excellent result

Try to contact the Pinterest support for the account 4, check with them why is getting the URL banned,

Are the website verified in the account 4 ?

Keep pinning

 

[seonewbiehere]

I've never had trouble with accounts getting banned. I'm doing manual activity on most of them, pinning a moderate number of pins per day (usually 15-25 max) and not spamming the same URLs over & over.

You mean 15-25 pins on each account in a day ?

 

[korni]

Try to contact the Pinterest support for the account 4, check with them why is getting the URL banned,

I already know how support will answer with their "natural ebbs and flows" templated responses. That account never took off, so it must have been blacklisted early on.

Maybe I was sloppy during the warm-up phase, I don't really remember what I did there.

Anyway, like I said, I'm just going to test adding links to pins again since it does get some organic reach on pins without URLs.

Are the website verified in the account 4 ?

I'm claiming the sites for all of my accounts, so yes.

You mean 15-25 pins on each account in a day ?

Yep. Lately, I've toned it down to like 10-15 pins per day. I think that's the sweet spot for most of my accounts and I wouldn't really recommend going above 25, especially if you don't have hundreds of unique URLs to pin out to.

 

[Drniche]

I already know how support will answer with their "natural ebbs and flows" templated responses. That account never took off, so it must have been blacklisted early on.

Maybe I was sloppy during the warm-up phase, I don't really remember what I did there.

Anyway, like I said, I'm just going to test adding links to pins again since it does get some organic reach on pins without URLs.

I'm claiming the sites for all of my accounts, so yes.

Yep. Lately, I've toned it down to like 10-15 pins per day. I think that's the sweet spot for most of my accounts and I wouldn't really recommend going above 25, especially if you don't have hundreds of unique URLs to pin out to.

Did you experience an unusual drop in visitors to your accounts on June 3? I experienced a significant drop in interaction and visitors to all 3 of my accounts yesterday. All of the accounts are on separate threads, and all of them are accounts where I do activities like a normal user. I pin between 5-10 times a day and I post at random times to act like a real person, I wait at least 20 days to pin to the same link again, and I use the blogtopin site.

 

[1van]

Mine analitics dont show any impressions last 24h .
They something updating

 

[korni]

Did you experience an unusual drop in visitors to your accounts on June 3? I experienced a significant drop in interaction and visitors to all 3 of my accounts yesterday. All of the accounts are on separate threads, and all of them are accounts where I do activities like a normal user. I pin between 5-10 times a day and I post at random times to act like a real person, I wait at least 20 days to pin to the same link again, and I use the blogtopin site.

So you've checked your Google Analytics to confirm the visitor drop? There has been a massive Pinterest Analytics delay affecting the last 24 hours.

All of my accounts are like this. I can't really see if I'm down in traffic because GA4 still hasn't refreshed the data, but I did see active users in the real-time view when I checked it yesterday.

 

[Drniche]

When I looked at the real-time view, I saw visitors. I think Pinterest is trying something new. On one of my most visited pins, the profile visit button above the site visit button was disabled. The site visit button had been disabled twice before, but I emailed support to bring it back.

 

[Ads Sheriff]

Curious — how long did it take before you saw significant traffic from Pinterest?

 

[korni]

Curious — how long did it take before you saw significant traffic from Pinterest?

Usually about 2-3 months. It depends when/if the account gets past the initial sandbox.

 

[twohkz]

Impression seems to be back to normal

Trying to figure out what changed in this new update

 

[bottweaver]

Thank you buddy for your kind information.

 

[alwaysgrinding]

Have you recently tested the feature of deleting under performing pins?

 

[Bipu09]

So, what do we have here? Yet another niche website journey thread.

Yada yada yada... BORING!

But but but...

What if I told you that I won't try to rank on Google, optimize for perfect SEO scores, write HeLpFuL content, and follow everything this bullshit company tells you explicitly NOT TO do but rewards the "blessed" ones that do the complete opposite of what they say?

Now, that seems a little more exciting, doesn't it?

You heard that right. I will be trying to grow the website by only concentrating on Pinterest.

Well, I might get lucky and hit Google Discover, but I definitely won't be actively pursuing it.

Let me try to explain my reasoning and why I decided to open this journey thread.

The Beginning of The End​

Back in 2022, I started a niche website with the idea of monetizing it with display ads.

Things were going fairly well, and in February 2023, I was 2-3k sessions from Mediavine's 50k sessions requirement.

I was thrilled to move away from Ezoic after being stuck with them for almost a year...

Of course, I didn't expect a Google update to slash my traffic by 25-30% in the following days. The February 2023 product reviews update rolled out. Sadly, that's exactly what happened.

View attachment 312550

I tried everything I could to get back to 50k monthly sessions. As you can see, I was getting closer and closer, but then another n-number Google update would kick me in the balls.

I'm at an all-time low right now.

That's my little backstory on why I will no longer focus on search traffic from Google going forward.

The New Journey​

So, you might be wondering: Why don't you use your existing website and grow it with Pinterest?

The answer is simple. Niche sucks for Pinterest. It's too male-oriented, and as we all know, the majority of Pinterest users are females.

That's why I decided to start a new website in a niche that is heavily searched by women but, at the same time, not too girly for me as, naturally, I'm a guy, lol.

I've seen the potential in women's fashion, lifestyle, and beauty, but I don't see myself writing about nails, makeup, and hair, if I have to be perfectly honest.

I know that Pinterest also has algo updates, bans, etc., but I'm willing to take the risk and go all in here.

The Present and Future​

Anyway, enough rambling, here's what I've done so far:

• Registered a short and brandable domain name
• Set up Kadence as a theme
• Customized the CSS and the majority of the theme settings to my liking
• Made a logo with the help of Canva and Midjourney
• Created the Pinterest profile

What I need to do, mostly in order:

• Start doing keyword research on Pinterest
• Decide on what categories I'll be covering
• Cluster the content into categories on the site
• Source images from places like Instagram(potential copyright issues?) and/or make them with Midjourney (need a lot to learn about prompting)
• Start writing the actual content (duh) with the help of ChatGPT/GPT-4 API
• Create pins with Canva
• Create relevant Pinterest boards
• Pin, pin, pin every day!

Later down the line, I might try to outsource some of the work, but for now, I'll be doing everything.

Monetization​

1. Display ads (probably 90%+ of it)
2. Affiliate products (will try to get into higher paying programs than Amazon)
3. Possibly accept paid guest posts since I won't care if I get slapped by Google?

Goals​

My short-term goal is to get into Mediavine.
The ultimate goal is to get to this level and maintain it, maybe earn $10k+ monthly, too, while we're at it
View attachment 312574

I will try to update this thread monthly and possibly whenever I reach a meaningful milestone (total pins, monthly impressions, traffic to my site, etc.)

I'm open to answering most questions you might have, EXCEPT ones related to my niche and domain name.

Best of luck and thanks for your valuable suggestion

 

[korni]

Have you recently tested the feature of deleting under performing pins?

Yeah. I've removed a bunch of pins for 2 accounts. I audited the pins before removal to ensure I'm not deleting something that could potentially start getting impressions. Those were either bad images or ugly designs from the past. I doubt it's done much to the accounts' overall quality score.

 

[Drniche]

After the update, unfortunately, my most active account started losing visitors, there is a 50% loss compared to last week.
Also, the profile link seems to have been removed from my content pinned by others.