The Most Important New Pinterest Changes 2018 Every Blogger Needs To Know

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: Pinterest is my number 1 source of referrals. Nearly 70% of all my traffic comes directly from Pinterest. That’s why I dedicate so much time to this platform and soak up all the tips and tricks for Pinterest marketing. In the first couple of months in 2018, Pinterest came out with a couple of new and very important changes to the platform. The problem is, if you don’t know about these changes and don’t adjust your Pinterest marketing strategy accordingly, you won’t be able to keep up and actually lose valuable referral traffic! So here are the most important new Pinterest changes 2018 every blogger needs to know.

Tip: Also check out my resources page with all the tools you need to run a successful blog!

#1 New Pin Size

A seemingly minor change but it has tremendous impacts on your current way of pinning. The ideal proportion for a Pin has always been a 2:3 proportion. Before the change, the ideal size for pins was 736 x 1104 pixels. Now, Pinterest says the ideal aspect ratio for a vertical Pin is 2:3, 600 x 900 pixels. Also note that square Pins can work well too in 2018, 600 x 600 pixels that is. It is also true that Pins longer than a 1:2.1 ratio will be cropped. For example, Pins longer than 1260 pixels in height get cropped and can only be seen in full when tapped.

Why does this matter?

Well, I don’t know about you, but I have several pins that are quite long and will now get cropped. When they get cropped, important information, text, and parts of images gets lost and won’t be seen unless people tap or click on it. This is a big disadvantage and you will potentially lose traffic as your Pins no longer look “attractive” when cropped to the new format.

#2 Sections: A New Way Of Organizing Your Pins

This new feature was actually announced in November 2017 and tested with a small circle of Pinners before going live. “Sections” is a smart way to organize your Pins on your boards. This feature allows you to organize all the Pins on a single board into sections. This allows followers to easily find the curated content they are looking for and are interested in.

This is especially useful for all bloggers out there. We can now highlight certain pins on our boards and make them more visible to our followers. For example, I have organized my board “Linda Goes East”, featuring all my blog content, plus content from my Instagram feed, into sections: Korea Posts, China Posts, Blogging & Photography Tips, Instagram, etc.

Would board visitors be able to find a specific Thailand post I posted over a year ago? Probably not. With sections, however, board visitors can now easily navigate through the organized content and find the Pins they are most interest in. Making use of this new feature will definitely boost the referral traffic to your Website!

#3 The New Profile Cover: Get Even More Exposure

Another big part of the Pinterest changes 2018 is the customizable profile cover. This mosaic-like image highlights the content you want your customers to see first. You can show your latest Pins, pick a specific board to spotlight, or just focus on the most recent Pinterest activity from your site. Another added feature to the profile is a monthly viewer statistic. This shows the total number of people who visited your profile’s Pins over the past 30 days.

#4 Pinterest “Following Tabs”

With the addition of the new “Following Tab”, you can now see all the latest Pins from the people you follow, in the order they save them. Before the Pinterest changes 2018, you only had your home feed, which presented recommendations to you rather than content of the Pinners you like. Now, you get a space specifically dedicated to the people and boards you follow on Pinterest. This means, you get the best of both worlds with personalized recommendations in your home feed and the latest Pins from the people you follow.

Simply tap the “+” button at the top of the following tab to see who you follow and clean up and unfollow if needed.

The new “Following Tab” is very good news for us bloggers because now our pins can get seen by even more people, as they appear in home feeds as inspiration and in the following tabs of our followers! Hurray!

#5 Pinterest “Smart Feed” Algorithm

With the new “Following Tab” also comes a change to the Pinterest algorithm, called “Smart Feed”. Basically, this algorithm determines what you and other users will see on their home feeds.

With this change, Pinterest is now prioritizing content that your followers engage with. Imagine your followers as your critics. If they engage with your content, for example when it shows up on their Following Tab, your pin gets ranked higher and shows up more frequently in search results on other people’s smart feed.

There are three different content pools of content that your home feed is drawn from:

• Repins from users you’re following
• Related pins
• Pins from your interests

#6 Hashtags Have Arrived

While hashtags were no use on Pinterest in the past, they’re EVERYTHING after the Pinterest changes 2018. Now, before you panic and start adding hashtags to all your old pins, don’t bother! The hashtag feed is ordered by freshness, so even if you add hashtags to old pins, they won’t show up – but definitely start adding hashtags to all new Pins from now on! However, Pinterest is also adding hashtags to older posts automatically it appears, if you’ve followed Pinterest directions in the past and added useful descriptions to your Pins that is.

How many hashtags should you add, you ask? According to Tailwind, the ultimate Pinterest gurus, it’s recommended to use up to 20 hashtags on your new Pins.

Join my Pinterest Engagement Group on Facebook!

This group is for bloggers/influencers/creators who are interested in learning how to use Pinterest to their advantage. The aim of this group is to connect, brainstorm and grow with fellow bloggers and discuss current Pinterest trends and strategies.

Want to learn more about Pinterest marketing?

Besides checking out my resource page with great tools to help you with Pinterest, there’s another great way you can learn more about Pinterest marketing! My 4-week ebook Pinterest course on how to increase your blog’s reach through Pinterest will teach you everything you need to know to build a strong Pinterest marketing strategy that will skyrocket traffic to your blog!

You’ll learn

– how to create a Pinterest business profile
– what makes a Pinterest profile stand out
– all about Pinterest SEO
– how to create a viral pin
– the best tools to design a pin
– the best tools to schedule and organize your pins
– how to reach a bigger audience with your pins

… AND MUCH MORE!

Love these tips? Pin them and save them for later!