Pin Your Archive: Turn Old Posts Into New Pinterest Traffic
Paul
Read in: English Español Français Deutsch
Blogged for a few years? Then you have a hundred posts that already rank, already answer a question, and already have photos sitting in them. Most have never had a decent pin.
That archive is the cheapest Pinterest traffic you will ever get. The writing is done. A pin you make this afternoon can still be sending readers to a post from 2022 in three years' time.
The hard part is getting through it without quitting in week one or turning your boards into a wall of the same thing. Here's how.
Do this now (20 minutes)
- Open your analytics and list the 10 old posts that still get search traffic.
- Check each one has a photo worth pinning and a clear promise in the title.
- Make one pin for the top three, each to a different board, one a day.
Why old posts beat new ones on Pinterest
- They're proven. A post that still gets Google traffic answers a question people search for, which is what Pinterest ranks too.
- They're evergreen. Your slow cooker post is useful every winter. Your news post from March is not.
- They're invisible right now. A post published before you took Pinterest seriously may have no pin at all, or one in an old design.
- A new pin counts as new content. Pinterest favors images it hasn't seen. A fresh pin for an old post counts; re-pinning the same old image doesn't.
Step 1: sort the archive into three piles
| Pile | What's in it | What to do |
|---|---|---|
| Pin now | Evergreen posts with good photos: recipes, guides, tutorials, roundups, makeovers | 2–4 pins each |
| Pin in season | Holiday, seasonal or event posts | 1–2 pins, 60–90 days before the season |
| Leave | News, personal updates, outdated advice, thin posts, anything you wouldn't send a reader to today | Nothing, or update the post first |
Be strict with the third pile. Pinning a weak post wastes the pin and sends readers somewhere that won't hold them.
This is where most archive projects go wrong, by the way. People start at the oldest post and work forward, which means weeks spent on the stuff they wrote before they knew what they were doing. Start with the posts that already earn their keep. You'll see results while you still have the enthusiasm to keep going.
Step 2: find the pages without building a list by hand
You don't need a spreadsheet of URLs. Every WordPress, Shopify, Squarespace and Wix site publishes a sitemap listing its pages. In Made to Spark you paste your site address, and bulk pins reads that sitemap and lists your posts and product pages so you can tick the ones you want, up to 500 in one batch.
It also shows how many pins you have already made for each page, so you can skip what you covered last month and work through the rest.
Step 3: template pins or AI pins
- Template pins use the photos already on the page, dropped into ready-made layouts. Best for recipes, home, travel and outfits: anything you photographed yourself.
- AI pins create a new image. Best for posts with no strong photo: guides, listicles, finance and business posts, or old posts whose photos are small and dated.
Both pins below came from the same home decor blog. The left one reuses a photo from the post; the right one is an AI image made for a post that had nothing worth pinning:
Most archives are a mix, so do two passes: templates for the posts with good photos, AI for the ones without.
Step 4: how many pins per post
Two to four, each with a different image and a different title angle: the main keyword, the number, the situation, the benefit. One post, four pins, four different searches. Never the same image with four titles on it.
Step 5: spread it over weeks, not one afternoon
This is where archive projects go wrong. Fifty pins published in a day looks like spam, puts your own pins in competition with each other, and leaves you nothing to post next week.
A schedule that works for a 100-post archive:
| Month | Posts covered | Pins | Pace |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Your 25 best posts | ~75 | 2–3 a day |
| 2 | Next 25 | ~60 | 2 a day |
| 3 | Next 25, plus the season ahead | ~60 | 2 a day |
| 4 | The rest, plus new posts as you publish | ~50 | 1–2 a day |
Approving a batch in Made to Spark does this for you: pins are spread across the next 30 days, and pins from the same page are kept at least a week apart. You can move or remove any pin before it goes out.
How to do this without spamming
- Vary the design. Four pins from one post should look different, not like one template with the title swapped.
- Space the same post out. A week between pins for the same page, minimum.
- Use the right board. Each pin goes where its angle fits, not all to one "Blog Posts" board.
- Mix old and new. Keep pinning this week's post alongside the archive.
- Don't re-upload an identical image. That's a duplicate, not a fresh pin.
What to check after a month
Look at outbound clicks per pin, not impressions. You want two things: which posts pull clicks, so you can give them more pins, and which designs pull clicks, so you can use those layouts for the rest of the archive. Then keep going. The archive doesn't run out, and neither does the traffic.
Before you start clicking
- Archive sorted into pin now, pin in season, and leave.
- Pages picked from your sitemap rather than a hand-made list.
- Template pins for posts with photos, AI pins for those without.
- Two to four pins per post, different image and angle each time.
- Pins from the same post at least a week apart.
- Two or three pins a day, scheduled across the month.
- This week's new post still pinned alongside the archive.