Seems I am too late to the Pinterest party.

I only just started my Pinterest marketing a few months ago towards the end of 2020.

I was having great results to start off with.

I saw my page views explode over a short space of time, and I was real excited.

But this month, I’ ve noticed that the page views were going down,

They were getting less and less each time I looked.

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Why are my views going down

Here’ s my page views on the 7^th January 2021 — 20.4K views

Heres   my page views on the 18^th February 2021 —  Just 5.9K  â˜¹

This means that this is a huge drop in page views in just a short space of time.

At first I thought that this was something that I was doing wrong.

But when I looked around, I discovered that Pinterest had completed one of their numerous updates which has not favoured many industries.

However, I came across many other Pinterest users who had found a similar drop in their traffic  happening on their Pinterest accounts.

Why have Pinterest views tanked.

Certainly, many of them are more established on Pinterest.

This means that they were more likely to notice these changes much quicker.

As compared to someone new and getting started on Pinterest.

Whether you are established on Pinterest or if you are new to Pinterest marketing, any updates will have their challenges.

Establised Pinterest marketers will have to adjust their strategy.

New pinners will have to learn without having a blueprint to follow.

It looks like it is going to be a learning curve if I am going to add Pinterest to my repertoire of tools.

As a result, I’ ll be following these changes.  

I am going share what I have learnt about this latest Pinterest update in 2021.

Firstly, let’s start with the open letter to Pinterest by Kyla from House of Hipster.

PINTEREST PROBLEMS — AN OPEN LETTER TO BEN AND EVAN

It’ s a long read but Kyla speaks from the heart to the founders of Pinterest Ben Silbermann and Evan Sharpe.

Above all it seems that Pinterest is trying to appease its shareholders since it went public on the stock market.

There have been so many changes to Pinterest over the years.

Importantly, it seems that this one has really got bloggers and Pinterest marketers riled up.

Why Has Pinterest traffic dropped?

To clarify, Pinterest in these changes has been asking users to create fresh content.

Pinterest wants new pins.

Pinterest did not want pinners to keep pinning the same content over and over.

Which is what was happening before.

Content creators started doing what Pinterest asked.

They started creating new content. Fresh new pins.

Therefore, you can imagine how upset they are now, to find that this new content they created is not for their benefit.

What happens now when a pin is viewed by readers.

Pinterest will tag their pin to other products and other sellers (not related to the content creator) to their pin.

All their hard work is tagged to other sellers.

Content creators don’ t get credit for that pin and content that they worked so hard to produce.

What is auto tagging?

Kyla highlights how the new ‘autotagging ‘function on Pinterest has been sending people from her pins to other suppliers.

This is because Pinterest reads images.

For example, when there is a couch on a pin,

Pinterest will auto suggest an approved seller who sells couches.

Now that pin may have had nothing to do with couches, but the reader will be shown types of couches that they can buy.

And will show them a range of sellers who sell couches.

The problem with this, is if Pinterest is suggesting irrelevant information to users, it makes for a poor user experience.

What is Auto-suggest

This autotag feature is auto suggesting non relevant pins to the searched term.

Kyla highlights that this is going to be a poor user experience.

For example, you might have been searching for Parenting Tips.

Because the image shows a person sitting on the couch, Pinterest will show you (yes you guessed it ) couches.

But that’ s not what you are looking for, so you are more likely to click away and search elsewhere.

Kyla breaks it down really well in her post and I suggest you take time to have a read of it.

Kyla plans to have a two week protest by archiving her boards in protest of this latest update.

I will be sure to check back on her updates and hope that Pinterest starts to hear what its users are starting to say.

Let me try to break down what the auto suggest problem is

I’ ve gone to Pinterest and searched Home Décor.

I’ m going to take a look at the pin

“How to Make Bohemian Décor Earthy and Modern — Mommy Thrives ”.

Can you see those white dots on the image.

Those are the auto suggest image readers.

Pinterest is reading what those images are.

When I click the word settee, in the bottom right, I get a range of suggestions to buy settees, all from well know sellers.

I am sure that this is not what this pinner had in mind when she created this pin unless she is an affiliate of all these stores. Hopefully, she is.

Why are Pinterest viewers going down

Next I want you to check out this post

PINTEREST UPDATE 2021 (LATEST PINTEREST CHANGES FOR BLOGGERS AND BUSINESS)

Anastasia Blogger keeps this page updated with all the Pinterest updates that have taken place and gives you her spin on them.

Here’ s what she says about the latest

January 2021 Pinterest updates.

Keyword Research is Getting Harder

We all know that Keyword research is vital to the traffic to your boards and pins, it seems that this is only going to get harder and harder with the updates.

When you searched on Pinterest,

Pinterest used to have these colourful boxes with suggested search terms.

This allowed you to easily look at what people are searching for.

This made keyword research so easy to do.

It seems that some Pinterest users will be losing this function.

As this change has not happened across the board as yet, she wonders whether this is a temporary change.

I haven’ t lost mine as yet.

Here’ s what I mean

When I search Parenting, I get the colourful boxes below suggesting more keywords that I could use to name boards or pins as these are terms that are being searched for.

It seems that this function may go so enjoy whilst you can.

She also provides some further tips about other changes.

Adding Alt Tags

which you many not have realised if you use Tailwind (which I do). You cannot create alt text if you create your pin in Tailwind.

If you create a pin on Pinterest  then you are able to add alt text.

This is in the same way that you would when you upload an image for your blog.

Alt text is for visually impaired. It gives your image a bit more juice, as it will explain what the pin is.

I didn’ t realise that this feature was added.

I guess I will be going back on my pins and adding some alt text.

Tags in the Video Pins for SEO

There is a divided camp with regard to video pins.

It seems that they are not so easy to click through.

However, Anastasia does give some tips on how to add some marketing juice if you are able to create video pins.

She shows how you can add relevant tags to them.

I had started to create some video pins before this update, but they were very basic. I have decided not to focus too much time on them.

When people want video, they want video that is short concise and teaches them how to do something quickly.

Short How To videos do well on Pinterest.

But video is not my thing, if it was I would be on You Tube.

I’ m in several Facebook Groups and the buzz in those groups, is that you should delete all your Video Pins and Story Pins.

Why you may ask.

Because they believe that Video Pins and Story Pins add no value to you, only to Pinterest.

This is because readers cannot click on them easily.

Also, they really only work if you have some really useful relevant video that you created.

Ultimately it seems that we need to keep creating fresh pin content for now until the effects of these new updates in Pinterest are fully understood.

Unfortunately, many bloggers and Pinterest Marketers will feel the effect of Pinterest’ s latest update.

Here’ s a few more pinners who have felt the effects that I came across:-

Why Did My Pinterest Impressions Drop Drastically?

Why your Pinterest monthly viewers are decreasing (and what to do about it) — 2021 update

SUDDEN DROP IN PINTEREST TRAFFIC? — WHAT I DECIDED TO DO — BLOG RECAP 26

That was just a select few and there were many many more when you type in the search term why has Pinterest traffic dropped or why have my monthly views dropped.

I’ m glad I am not the only one, because this means that someone will figure out what Pinterest wants us to do on it’ s platform.

I sure as hell wish they would just say, rather then leave us guessing with each change.

What happened to Pinterest Traffic

It seems that Pinterest is favouring sellers and not just any seller, it’ s favouring major sellers like Wallmart, Bath and Beyond , White Company and big guys and they are pushing aside the little boys.

They have grown pants and want to mix with the big boys now.

Where does that leave you with your Pinterest marketing

Back to the drawing board I am afraid, luckily for me I am still learning so I will learn these new Pinterest strategies as they develop. This the Pinteresting Course I use and recommend

If you are an established blogger then you may need to make some changes and keep yourself up dated.

This is the frustrating part of marketing on any platform.

Pinterest is not the only one to keep updating their platform.

We all know that Facebook, Google, Instagram all keep doing this in search of the ultimate user experience.

Have Pinterest nailed the user experience with this new update in 2021?

Time will tell however early indications don’ t look promising.

Feel free to share, if you’ ve been affected let us know in the comments below.

If you want to keep up to date and learn about Pinterest Strategies, this is the only course I recommend