Pinterest drove more traffic to Shareaholic's clients' website in August than Bing or Yahoo, signaling increased use of the site as a driver of relevant traffic.

A report from Shareaholic, analyzing traffic sources for its clients, found that Pinterest generated more website visits than both Bing and Yahoo in August. According to the data, Pinterest accounted for 1.84 percent of all visits last month, compared to 1.37 percent of traffic referred by Yahoo and 1.03 percent from Bing.

Pinterest has seen a surge in traffic in recent months, consistently seeing improvements from May through August after a tough stretch to start the year. At its lowest point in 2012, Pinterest drove 0.74 percent of website visits for Shareaholic’s clients. In the summer of 2011, Pinterest took off, as its user base swelled rapidly. The site’s focus on visual content, helping marketers attract prospects with images provided an interesting alternative to Facebook, Twitter and other social media marketing mainstays.

Inevitably, the fad cooled to an extent, but Pinterest’s recent announcement that it removed the invite-only barrier to entry likely helped it win back some of its momentum.

Shareaholic’s data also found that Pinterest drove more traffic than Twitter in the month, as the microblogging site yielded 0.80 percent of visits in August – its lowest total of 2012.

As a marketing tool, Pinterest will likely see more visibility moving forward. Brafton recently highlighted a report from the Creative Group that found 10 percent of marketers are currently considering the addition of Pinterest to their social media marketing arsenal.

Joe Meloni is Brafton's former Executive News and Content Writer. He studied journalism at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, and has written for a number of print and web-based publications.