Blog Tips: How to Create Pinterest-friendly Images For Your Blog
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Oh, hey there. Yup, it’s another Pinterest-related post!
A lot of bloggers still wonder how to use Pinterest. I always tell you guys that you should absolutely take advantage of Pinterest because I personally (well.. not, I, personally, but my blog) have gained A LOT of exposure there. I already wrote several posts on how to use Pinterest to grow your blog and you can find them all right here.
A pin is 100 times more likely to be discovered than an average tweet. On average, a pin is pinned about 10 times and will drive two visitors and six pageviews. One of the blog posts I wrote this past summer was pinned over 50,000 times. How much traffic do you think that single pin drove (and still continues to drive!) to my blog? A LOT.
In one of my recent blog posts, I told you guys that updating your images in older blog posts can be a great way to drive some traffic to your archived content. I also highly recommend that you add some Pinterest-friendly images to those older blog posts, as well. Since Pinterest is hugely image-driven, images matter and they matter A LOT.
PINTEREST USERS LOVE IMAGES THAT ARE:
-vertical
-long
-contain text
-contain quality images
The ideal aspect ratio of a pin is 2:3 (600px wide x 900px high). Longer pins work better because they get more exposure. Most Pinterest users use a mobile app and since pins are organized into columns, vertical images naturally take up more space, making them hard to miss/ignore. I noticed a huge difference in my Pinterest referrals when I started including at least one vertical image (usually containing text or some call to action) in my posts.
CREATING POST IMAGES FOR PINTEREST
To give you an example, I’ll show you how I create Pinterest images for my blog in Photoshop. First, you need to start by creating a bright, sharp, quality image. If you need help creating brighter, clear images, please take a look at the Photography section. I always edit my photos in Photoshop, before adding any overlays/text. I’ll usually adjust the exposure, shadows, sharpness, clarity and white balance. Photoshop turned out to be life-changing for me and I can’t recommend it enough, but you can also use PicMonkey, which I’ve used for years before Photoshop or Canva.
After you’re done editing your image, add some text or CTA (call to action). Adding text isn’t always necessary if you can easily tell what your blog post is about, just from looking at the image. I also highly recommend that you sign up for rich pins if you have a blog. Rich Pins include extra information right on the Pin itself, like your blog name and your blog’s favicon. Setting up rich pins for your blog will give your blog credibility. It will also help authenticate your pins/images. If you want to learn how to set them up, see this post.
Click to enlarge
Okay, so after I’m done editing my image in Photoshop, I’ll often crop it to elongate it a little. Then, I select a rectangle tool and create a rectangle overlay, usually right in the center of my image.
I’ll then change the color and adjust the opacity. By adjusting the opacity, I make my triangle a bit see-through, but opaque enough for my text to be easy to read. This is important because we obviously want our text to be easy to read- which is why I usually like to add the rectangle overlay in the first place. Make sure that your colors go well together, and aren’t too bright which can make your text difficult to read. You can add an overlay to the entire image, like here:
… or you can only add it to a section of your image. For me, it was a bit of a trial and error, before I found which style works best for me and gets the best results (most re-pins). Remember that it’s a good idea to switch things up and over-branding your pins doesn’t work. You do not want all of them to look the same; switch things up a little- you can even upload as many as 4 completely different pins to Pinterest, all linking to the same blog post.
After adding my overlay, I add some text. Play around with fonts and see which one you like the best- stick to it! According to Pinterest, text overlays should be designed for clicks and should lead people to action. Make sure that your pin includes information that will help the user to decide that they want to click and visit your blog. I also like adding my blog address somewhere at the bottom.
After I’m done adding my overlays, I align everything so it looks even. I select my rectangle and text layers while holding shift and select all by holding command+A. I then click on “Align horizontal centers” which automatically aligns everything for me, so it’s nice and even. The last thing I do is saving my image for web and resize it.
Once I’m done with editing my Pinterest image, I save it as a .psd file. That way, I have a template saved for later, and won’t have to go through the entire process again for the next images, which saves me a lot of time. I already have my favorite fonts, colors, and overlays all ready to go along with multiple different templates.
This post was requested a while ago and I’m currently working on another fun Pinterest post, which will outline how I reached 10,000 followers on Pinterest in 7 months, so keep an eye out for that one, too.
To see a full list of my Pinterest tools I use to grow my blog, see this post. For a list of ALL of my blogging resources, including my favorite affiliate networks, see this post.