Are you using these essential pin design strategies to increase clicks?
Pinterest is the ultimate content marketing machine. Forget Facebook, scroll on Instagram, Pinterest is where it’s at.
It is a search engine (think of it like a pretty Google) not a social media platform. It’s perfect for service & product businesses.
It is the largest source of traffic to my website and most bloggers and online entrepreneurs websites.
My love for Pinterest is true love!! And I’m not alone, there are over 175m active users on Pinterest every month. If you need convincing then check out these:
The life of a pin is 1,600 times longer than a FB post
Your content is evergreen and your pins can be seen by anyone, not just your followers
You have to link out, so no penalties
81% of all users are female and 67% of pinners are under 40 years old
Millenials use it as much as Instagram
People go onto it to shop. 87% of pinners made a purchase because of Pinterest
Ok so you’re onboard, keep reading to discover my top tips on how to design high converting pinterest pins.
Keen to learn more about building a business that (actually) works?
Check out these blogs with my top entrepreneurial resources, social media marketing & content ideas in:
Ready to Profit from Pinterest? then you should definitely check out my ultimate Pinterest guide.
This free (and highly detailed) cheat sheet gives you my exact 6 step process to attract more leads & make more sales for FREE using Pinterest.
What is the Pinterest Smart Feed?
The Smart feed is the somewhat mysterious Pinterest Algorithm which determines which pins gets shown in a users feed.
It looks at the:
Quality of your pin
Quality of the website or blog that the pin leads to (source quality) and
Magic mystery element which is a rating assigned by Pinterest
So the smart feed content generator determines which pins are best for the smart feed based on the pin itself and how other pins from the same source (website or blog) have performed historically.
So the best pins are shown first rather than the newest pins.
This is brilliant for pinners like you who pin high quality pins with relevant content (try saying that 10 times fast!!).
So how can you optimise the design of your pins and increase the likelihood of your pin being shown in the feeds of your audience?
How to design a Pinterest Pin Tip #1: Get the Size Right
Your pins should always be vertical and Pinterest is shifting away from the very long pins and seems to prefer pins in the ratio of 2:3 (width:height). I use 800 x 1200 at the moment.
I design all my pins on Canva and they have templates set up in the optimal size for lots of different platforms.
You can see what a difference having a longer pin makes, the longer pin stands out a lot more when people are scrolling their Pinterest feeds.
How to design a Pinterest Pin Tip #2: Make them Engaging
You are trying to get people to stop scrolling and click through on your pin, so you need your pins to be engaging.
My top tips for engaging your audience:
Tell a story through your pin
Use an inspiring image which shows a life the audience wants
Make the pinners curious, ask them a question and they only find out the answer if they click through
Write an incredible headline, you can check out my top tips for headline writing here
Create high quality, value packed content that your audience just has to read
How to design a Pinterest Pin Tip #3: Include Freebie Image
Giving your audience a chance to get a freebie like a workbook, cheat sheet or short training if they give you their email address is a brilliant want to really help them with their transformation and increase your email list (winner, winner, chicken dinner!!).
Try to make it relevant to the topic of the blog and ideally that specific blog topic.
People love a freebie so putting this front and centre on your pins can be a great way to increase clicks and traffic to your website.
The images below are for the same blog post, but it shows you how enticing a freebie can be:
How to design a Pinterest Pin Tip #4: Use High Quality Images
You want to use high quality professional images which are eye catching. It is reported that images which are pink in under tone and do not directly show someones face do best on Pinterest. Ideally make it relevant to the pin title.
I like to use website such as Unsplash, and StockSnap for my images, they have a brilliant library that you can use. Canva also has a library of images that you can use.
How to design a Pinterest Pin Tip #5: Use Text Overlay
You definitely want to have text on your pin to tell the audience what it is about.
You want to make sure:
You have the right balance of text. Not too much as it overwhelms the pin, but enough to get across what the pin is about. Balance is key
The font is on brand
The font is a good size which makes it stand out in the feed
The font is easy to read (think about a clear colour which isn’t set on a super complicated picture background which makes it tricky to see properly)
How to design a Pinterest Pin Tip #6: Brand your Pins
You want to build up a brand presence on Pinterest so your pins are easily recognisable as being from you. People will start to associate your pins with great quality and look out for them in their feeds.
You can do this by sticking to your brand colours, fonts and design aesthetic
You can also discreetly brand your pins with your logo or put your web address on all your pins. You can see how easily recognisable my pins are now that I have added a banner with my web address.
Key Pinterest Tip
The main point to remember when designing your pins is that Pinterest wants you to create content that inspires pinners and also encourages people to explore the content further by repinning and following the links.
Also as with any content that you create for your business, whether courses, social media posts, pins, tweets, blog posts, emails or whatever else always think about:
1) What does my audience want to learn about and how?
2) What is my goal in writing this content? What do I want my audience to do once they have read it?
Bonus:
Ready to Profit from Pinterest? then you should definitely check out my ultimate Pinterest guide.
This free (and highly detailed) cheat sheet gives you my exact 6 step process to attract more leads & make more sales for FREE using Pinterest.
