This guide is based on Mixergy’s course with Melanie Duncan.

Melanie Duncan struggled to get consistent traffic for her personalized home décor business, so she marketed her products on Pinterest and her traffic shot through the roof. It was all done by increasing traffic and sales with Pinterest, so we invited her to teach you how to do it.

Melanie is the founder of Entrepreneuress Academy, where she teaches women how to start and grow successful businesses online. She also offers Pinterest training in upcoming webinars.

Here are the actionable highlights from the course.

1. Add a “pin it” button to your site so people will share your products on Pinterest

Melanie says that Anna White added a “pin it” button to her carpentry blog and people started pinning her images, and she now gets 6,000 visitors a day from Pinterest and is able to support her family from her blog’s ad revenue.

Take Action:
Go to pinterest.com/goodies, get the code for the “pin it” button, and add the button to the bottom of your blog posts and to your product pages.

2. Pin your own original content so you can drive traffic to your website

Melanie pinned an image she created and linked the pin to an opt-in page for her newsletter, and lots of people re-pinned it and drove traffic to her page.

Take Action:
Pin an image you’ve created, and edit the pin so that it links to a landing page for your product or newsletter.

3. Open a dedicated account for your business so it won’t mix with your personal one

Melanie has separate Pinterest accounts for each of her businesses that display their names and logos, and she has a personal account for pins that don’t relate to her businesses.

Take Action:
Open a Pinterest account for your business, use your business name and logo for the account’s name and profile picture, and don’t pin personal stuff like your favorite recipes to your business account.

4. Pin your YouTube videos so more people will watch them

Melanie says that Lionsgate Studios pinned its own YouTube videos, and within five days the videos went from 200,000 views to 400,000 views.

Take Action:
Pin videos you’ve produced and posted to YouTube, such as instructional videos about how to use your products.

5. Add calls to action so people will click through to your site

Melanie pinned a video and added a caption that said, “Click here to sign up for a free webinar on how to use Pinterest for your business.”

Take Action:
Each time you pin something, add a call to action by inserting text in the image or write a call to action in the pin’s caption, and add a link to your site.

6. Include hashtags in your captions so your pins will be easier to find

Melanie adds hashtags to her home décor pins using keywords like “bridal shower” and “monogrammed bedding”.

Take Action:
Add keywords to the captions of your pins, and type the symbol “#” before each keyword.

7. Add prices to product pins so people will understand they’re for sale

Melanie recommends that real estate agents add prices to pins of houses they’re trying to sell, because otherwise people might think they’re pictures of homes from a magazine and not houses for sale on the market.

Take Action:
In the captions of your product pins, type a dollar sign and the item’s price.

8. Pin before-and-after pictures to show how your business helps people

Melanie said that a fitness coach pinned before-and-after pictures of his clients, and that gave people proof of what he could do and made him more credible.

Take Action:
Pin pictures that show what your clients’ lives or businesses were like before they used your service and how much they’ve improved.

9. Create contests to get more re-pins

Melanie held a contest for her Luxury Monograms business giving away a free pillow, and 200 people re-pinned the pin to enter.

Take Action:
Offer to give a free product to someone you’ll choose randomly from all the people who re-pin a pin of your product.

10. Track pins and re-pins so you’ll see what content people prefer

Melanie saw that a blog post about integrating Pinterest with Facebook business pages was one of her most re-pinned pins, and she realized that people wanted more information about integrating social networks.

Take Action:
Go to the Pinterest source page for your website, and see which products or blog posts are pinned and re-pinned frequently.

Written by Sarah Brodsky, based on production notes by Jeremy Weisz