How to Create Pins that Convert

How to create pins that convert and drive traffic to your site is the golden ticket on Pinterest. How do you create a viral pin? Let’s dive into the steps you can take.

You did all of the hard work and finished the blog post. Phew! You’ve added keywords, photos, and as many words as you can muster and now you have to create pin graphics.

Now you need to make sure your pin graphic gets clicked on. That they are professional looking and not like a 1st grader made them.

Pinterest pin designing does not come easy for most bloggers and business owners. You’re more of a writer and not a designer. Unfortunately, you need these images and you need a few of them per blog post.

The good news is that you don’t have to be the best designer if you know a few tricks. These tips will help you create an eye-catching pin graphic with click-worthy copy.

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Right off the bat check out what Pinterest suggests to do when creating a pin. This list is good but it doesn’t have a lot of details. Read on for more in-depth information.

The best Pins are visually compelling, tell a good story and make people want to learn more. It’s easy to make great Pins—just follow these creative best practices.

You’ll find guidelines for standard Pins and video Pins on this page. You can also download our creative best practices guide to get all the tips in one saveable, printable place. 

1. Pick an eye-catching image
Use high-quality, vertical images that will stand out in people’s feeds. We recommend a 2:3 aspect ratio (ex: 1000 x 1500 pixels). Other ratios may cause your Pin to truncate, or may negatively impact performance.

2. Make your brand the focal point  
Put your product or service front and center. Avoid using abstract images or lifestyle imagery that doesn’t showcase your brand.   

3. Give context
Your Pins should help people understand why your product or idea is the right fit for them. Pick images that show context and bring your topic to life. Clearly show how someone might use your product, try your project, etc.

4. Include your logo
Put a logo on every Pin you make, but keep it subtle. Avoid the lower right corner, since that spot gets covered up by our product icons.   

5. Add text overlay to tell a better story
Text overlay is the copy that goes on your Pin image. It makes your Pins stand out, adds context and enhances your message. Keep text concise so it’s easy for people to read on their phones. If you’re running the same campaign in multiple countries, make sure to create separate Pins for each country so you can translate text overlay into the local language.

Where to Start When Creating a Pin

Head to Canva and create a custom design. You can easily just use the free version but the paid version saves your brand colors and fonts to use easily.

Photoshop is an option too but Canva is the quickest and it saves all of your designs to edit and copy for later use. Plus it saves putting tons of PSD files and images on your computer and taking up a lot of room. Trust me after years of blogging the images I have are countless.

Another tip is that you can resize your pin graphics afterward to use in your Instagram posts and stories. Just hit file resize and it even has them listed to easily resize them andd they are instantly ready to add to Instagram.

Pin Size

Any 2:3 ration will work when creating your graphics. 600×900 pixels or 1000×1500 pixels. Pinterest does suggest using the 600×900 because they fit best on mobile.

Photos

I usually suggest at least one photo in each graphic. You can use it in the middle, as the background, or on the bottom. I would create different ones and see which ones convert better for your audience.

Canva has a ton of free ones you can insert into your photos from the same screen you edit your image on.

Check out this advice from Apple Cart Lane on stock photos for graphics:

Make sure you follow these tips when searching for the perfect stock photo:

• Look for brightly colored pictures. I’ve learned that people are drawn to reds and oranges as opposed to dark colors like brown and gray. Pins that are bright and airy are usually easier to work with than busy pins with a wide range of colors.
• Avoid faces. Although they don’t bother me, people like pins that don’t contain a face. I will mention that I’ve seen some super successful pins that have faces, so it all depends on your audience. Test the waters!
• Size Matters. Make sure the photo you find is large enough, so it doesn’t appear blurry or pixelated, which looks very unprofessional. If you’re cropping or zooming in, be extra careful! And most importantly…
• Be choosy! I love sifting through stock photos to find the perfect one for my pin. Don’t settle the first photo that catches your eye.  Try searching for different keywords until you have a winner. Think of all of the creative ways you can use the photo. Can you zoom in on a coffee mug or a set of hands?  Can you possibly use the background of the photo for a texture somewhere else? This gives you options for using the photo more than once and forces you to create some repetition in your designs. Also, don’t just pull a photo off of Google images and think you can use it, either. That’s illegal, and you can’t do that. 

Some other free sites for photos are Unsplash and Freepik.

Typography – Fonts for Pin Graphics

This is the number one question I get about designing pin graphics. What font should I use? It depends but the best ones are the fonts that are easily read.

I tend to use a combination of block and script fonts and change up the sizing and colors. 

Below are some font inspiration pictures and links to some fonts on Creative Market. 

Powered by Creative Market

Pin Graphic Titles

Titles can be tricky. You want to have something that will be catchy and relative to your post on the image. You can use the same title for the pin as well.

I have been using a title generator to find the best titles. They come up with hundreds of titles instantly and I pick one that works for my post.

For example, let’s search about how to create pin graphics. I was going to search this after writing this anyways…

Look at all those awesome click-worthy titles! All instantly ready for you to try. Some of them will need to be tweaked to use.

• HOW TO CREATE PIN GRAPHICS – Why It’s Crucial To Your Business. Learn Why!

• Learn To (Do) HOW TO CREATE PIN GRAPHICS Like A Professional

• How To Win Buyers And Influence Sales When Creating PIN GRAPHICS

• Super easy way to get Pinterest titles in less than 5 seconds.

Brand Identity

Make sure to add your logo and website to the graphic. It’s not necessary to use both every time but I tend to add both but especially my website at the bottom. 

I have recently just started adding my name and brand name in the description as well. So people who read the description can hear my name and start recognizing it and see it’s not just a spammy bot pinning it. 

For example, start your pin description out with Hello, Corey here from Hudson Design Company…

Call to Action

You want more clicks ask for them. My favorites are click for more, click now to see for yourself, etc…

Add one on the graphic and in the description as well.

Now you have the tools to create a well-converting pin graphic. Let me know if you have any questions.

Check out my latest blog posts to learn more bout Pinterest and other business resources.

• How to Tag Products on Pinterest with Clickable URLs
• Pinning to Pinterest
• Get the Most Out of the Pinterest Community
• How to Use Hashtags on Pinterest
• Pinterest Holiday Trends – When and What to Post

If you want to hire me to create your graphics and save you all of the time and hassle no problem!

Sharing helps me out so much!