Setting Up Your Blog to Leverage the Power of Pinterest for Business

In our previous post, we looked at some very interesting stats about Pinterest and how this can help you determine what niche and demographics to target on Pinterest. In this post we want to look at your niche blog setup and your monetization strategies.

[NOTE: If this is your first time here please note that this is the second part of a series on building a business online using Pinterest.com]

Setting Up A Pinterest Targeted Niche Blog

For better understanding, let’s take this step by step, shall we?

Step #1: Get a Domain Name/Webhost

Though you can actually use free blog software like blogger.com and wordpress.com the truth is investing in your own domain name and web host will give you more value as a business.

In choosing your domain name there are a few things you must take note of. For example, your domain name should reflect your target keywords if you want to take advantages of the search engines in driving organic traffic.  Also adding the word “blog” to the domain name can make it more appealing to your target audience, for example, www.diyhomecraftblog.com

While many advocate a .com extension you can always go for a .co, .pw, .net, or even a .info if .com is not available. Any of these will do for what we have here.

Recommended: How to Choose a Domain Name That Enhances Your Brand

Once you’ve found a domain name that meets your plans, you can use NameCheap.com or GoDaddy.com to register it.

Registering a domain name using any of these two cost less than $10. However, if you purchase a web hosting account with BlueHost.com (Affiliate link) you’ll receive a domain name for free. Here are some of the features:

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Click here to check the full details.

Step #2: Install a WordPress Blog

Frankly, wordpress is my preferred blogging platform for niche blogs. This is for various reasons. One, is the ease with which you can setup your blog using wordpress.org. For example if you purchase a webhosting package from any of the above recommended companies, installing wordpress is simple and can be accomplished in under 5 minutes.

Here’s a video guide on how to install wordpress using fantastico:

It is important, after installing your blog, that you change the default theme. This is how to give your blog a customized look. You can search the wordpress theme depository right from your admin dashboard and pick any one. However, if you want a paid theme (which gives you premium features) I recommend you take a look at ThemeJunkie . Their themes are not only of high quality but you can get a good number of them for a small investment.

Click here to check out some themes available at HappyThemes.com

NOTE: Magazine style themes are proven to work best with visually oriented traffic like the ones from Pinterest.com

Step #3: Optimize Your Blog with the Best of Free Plugins

Ask any wordpress fan any day and they will tell you that one reason why wordpress has become a darling of webmasters and bloggers is the availability of different plugins that can help you to do a whole lot things with your wordpress blog.

Though there are thousands of plugins available for your picking, it is important that you use only the necessary ones. The following are some of the ones I have used with outstanding success:

1. WP Edit  – This is the successor of the very popular Ultimate TinyMCE. It is very useful for content formatting. Once installed you have designing and styling features like shading, coloring, bolding etc.

2. Pinterest Image Pinner – This enables those who visit your blog to easily pin images on your blog to their Pinterest boards.

3. Pinterest Pinboard Widget – This is great to showcase your latest Pinterest pins on your blog as a sidebar widget.

4. Jetpack by WordPress.com – This is a multi-purpose plugin. You can decide to activate only the ones you deem necessary.

Some of the ones I have used in my niche sites are:

Sharing – Gives you share buttons to enable your site visitors share your content on different social media sites. This also has an option to automatically share your posts to G+, Facebook, Pinterest and Twitter once you publish a new post. For me this is really top choice.

Contact Form – Easily add a contact form to your site for visitors to contact you.

Stats – Monitor traffic to your niche blog right from your dashboard.

There are a few others you can choose to activate depending on what you want.

5. Google XML Sitemaps – This will create a sitemap for your blog and also automatically ping the search engines whenever you add new content to your blog. This is really great for SEO and for driving organic traffic to your blog.

6. FV Simpler SEO – This is an alternative to all in one SEO plugin. I started using this recently but I have found it to be great for optimizing your content for SEO rankings. Simple to setup and use.

7. WP Pinner – A powerful and free plugin for scheduling your blog posts so they can be pinned at the time you choose. You also have an option to auto follow other pinners.

8. Yet Another Related Posts Plugin (YARPP) – A great way to cross promote related posts at the bottom of your blog posts.

9. Adsense Explosion – This one is essential if you are thinking of monetizing with Google adsense. With this you can easily add Privacy pages to your niche blog and also insert and optimize google adsense code to your site easily.

Depending on what you want to do you can always search for other plugins that will help you. The above are some of the very important ones I use regularly on my niche sites.

While installing the above plugins can greatly help you to do a whole lot of things, changing the header image is a sure way to give your niche blog a unique appearance – especially if you are using a free theme.

Related Reading: Put the WOW Effect on Your Blog with these WordPress Plugins!

There are thousands of free graphic software out there which you can use to create a simple header image. However, if you need something more professional then investing in a paid graphics creator is the best option.

Ok, that’s it for now. In our next post we will look at how you can find and create content for your niche blog and the type of content to focus on. Don’t miss it!

As usual let me remind you that if you don’t want to miss our next entry you can always join other esteemed readers who get our free updates by clicking the button below.

Your Turn: I will love to read and reply to your comments on this post on setting up your niche blog for Pinterest targeted traffic. Post your comments below.

Alright, on to…

PART 3: Content & Monetization Strategies for Using Pinterest for Business

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