How to Design High Performing Pinterest Pins

August 18, 2020
37 Comments
by yolanda

Tips to Create Beautiful Pinterest Designs That Drive Traffic!

Table of Contents

Today I’m sharing the various elements that go into creating high-quality Pinterest designs that will get you clicks!

These components will give you a much higher chance of enabling your pins to show up in Pinterest searches and give you more website traffic. This is the goal for everyone after all!

To make a pin successful you must remember:

You need to keep the Pinterest algorithm happy,
AND keep the actual Pinterest user happy.

By keeping these 2 pieces in mind will help you use Pinterest to drive more traffic to your website, blog or online store.

So, make sure to save this post so you can refer back to it when you’re creating your pins.

Before we get started, I’m going to assume you already know how to design a pin 🙂 However, if you need a little help in this department, you can download my free Pinterest pin templates here…

>> FREE Pinterest Templates – Easy to Customize in Canva

Let’s begin!

8 Tips to Design High Performing Pinterest Images

#1. Do not use the same Pinterest template for everything.

Mix it up! Different Pinterest designs and text will appeal to different people so try various background images, colours, fonts & copy and see what works for you.

I have noticed many people use one template for every single pin design. Let me tell you why I think this is a mistake:

If you take part in Pinterest Facebook threads, your fellow bloggers will think they have already pinned your content as it all looks this same. This means fewer shares for you.
Pinterest has visual search components that help the algorithm determine the type of content. If all your content looks the same, Pinterest will take much longer determining where to place it within Pinterest. This means less impressions for your pins.
As you will see in the 4th tip below, it’s important to try different designs to improve your pin performance. This too relates directly to the amount of traffic you drive to your website.
Make sure your images relate to your content. Pinterest is a visual search engine. If your image is a photo of yourself, but you write about money (or any niche topic) does this relate? Absolutely not. If your image doesn’t relate, Pinterest (and users) will have a hard time understanding what your pin is about.

>> Check out 17 of the Best Free Stock Photo Sites you can use for your pins

#2. Text in Your Pin Must Stand Out

You need to make sure the text in your pin design is easy to read.

The majority of Pinterest users are scrolling through pins on their mobile devices, so if your pin designs are too fussy people will keep on scrolling.

The goal is to catch their eye and encourage them to tap to see the pin closer.

There are some easy parameters to follow for this.

Do not use more than 2 or 3 fonts in one design.
Consider making an important word bold or a bright colour so it stands out. Example: If your pin is about awesome bullet journals – make sure ‘bullet journals’ is made bold, not ‘awesome’. This helps people quickly understand what your pin is about.
Be careful how you use script fonts as many are hard to read. Always look at your pins on your mobile phone and see how easy to read they are. Also, ask what other people think. 2nd opinions are a good idea.
When using script fonts, use it for the complimentary text only. In the bullet journal example above you could make the word ‘Awesome’ in a script font.

Pinterest Design Tip: Text in your pin must stand out. Get more tips to help your pins go viral! #pinterestmarketing #pinterest Click To Tweet

#3. Ask Yourself. Is Your Pin Helpful?

You must remember that a pin is being read by real people! Therefore it’s important to cater to the Pinterest users needs and make your communications personal to them.

When creating a pin always think about how you use Pinterest. You are looking around on Pinterest to help you accomplish a task or find a solution.

Let me ask you this. What pin title are you most likely to click on?

“How I spend my summer weekends with the family.”

“8 Fun & Affordable Summer Weekend Activities for your Family.”

I am going to bet that most people would click the 2nd example. Why?

The pin copy is about them. It’s personal.
It’s enticing.
Best of all, it provides a solution and is communicated in a positive manner.

How? Someone searching for this might be in debt or on a very low budget, but this pin takes that problem, solves a problem and makes it attractive to learn more!

The general rule of thumb when writing pin copy is:

Solve a problem. Provide a Solution. Make it Easy.

#4. Create Multiple Pin Designs for Each Post Or Product

Start with 2 or 3 Pinterest pin designs, see how they perform and then create more of what’s working.

Test out different colours, fonts, background images and designs. Trying different design techniques will give you an idea of what designs work best for your content.

You’d be surprised that even the smallest change can make an impact on your pin’s performance.

This is a key component that will help you drive more traffic to your website over time.

Note: If you use my Pinterest templates still make sure to customize your designs to keep your pins unique to your brand.

>> Grab These FREE Pinterest Templates – To help you save time!<<

#5. Test Pin Copy & The Call to Action

On top of testing the visual look of a pin, it’s just as important to test your communications within the pin design.

A call to action tells people what to do. Sometimes you might need to write ‘buy now’ or ‘learn more’ or ‘here’s how’.

Try different call to actions and see if this makes a difference to your overall pin performance and specifically your click thru rate*.

*See tip #8 for details.

#6. Do What Works for You!

Test your own theories. You will get advice from everyone (including me lol) but don’t let that deter you from testing things for yourself.

Example: I have always heard that pins with images showing a face don’t do well as they are apparently distracting, yet they perform extremely well for my personal development blog content. Check out this pin that drives more people to my personal development site than any other pin!

When I started blogging I also used to hear that red never did well, yet this pin is another top performer!

I think different styles of pins can work for different niches, so test your own theories.

Moral of the Pin Design story:

Get creative, try new things and see what performs for you!

How are you improving your Pinterest game? Grab these 8 design tips for high performing pins. #pinterestmarketing #socialmediamarketing Click To Tweet

#7. Use The Right Keywords in Your Pin Description

Utilize Pinterest search to see what keywords people are using to search for content. Now, make sure to use these specific keywords in your pin descriptions.

How can you find the right keywords in Pinterest?

It’s super simple. Simply go to the Pinterest search bar and start typing in your query.

The results that are auto-populated are also some of the top terms people are searching for.

If you also just search for your base keyword – example ‘bullet journal’ and click enter you are given a load of relevant keyword suggestions.

These are used to help the Pinterest user narrow their search, but this also helps content publishers understand what keywords to target in their descriptions.

Use The Pinterest Trends Tool

Another helpful tool you can use is found in the dropdown of the Analytics tab in Pinterest’s navigation.

You can check out this week’s trends, but even more helpful is adding a topic/keyword to the search bar, like I did below.

(It’s pretty apparent if you write about bullet journals January is the time this content blows up!)

This is also a great way to do a little research in advance to help you come up with content ideas.

#8. Understand Your Pinterest Analytics

Figure out the click-through rate of your most popular pins. This will determine how well your content is actually performing. After all, your #1 goal is to drive traffic to your website.

Your CTR Formula: Link Clicks divided by Closeups x 100. If this number is over 50%+ you are doing well. Keep working hard to increase this number even more.

With the above example, the CTR is 68%. This is a great click-through rate, but of course, I am always testing different tactics from this page to keep increasing it!

It’s also important to look at your Pinterest metrics every month so you can see what’s performing over time. This is a great way to keep track of the traffic Pinterest is driving to your website.

*To begin tracking your Pinterest metrics, download these FREE printable Pinterest metrics & optimization worksheets…

A final note. Designing High Performing Pinterest Pins

The above tips I have provided once implemented will give you more control over how your pins are performing. It might seem like a lot but once you start using these tips it will become second nature.

Also, know that how a pin performs is down to consumer interest.

If your topic is really niche, it may have a lower impression count, but really high link clicks or repins. Or you might have a really popular topic that has high impressions and a lower click-thru rate. This is down to stiffer competition.

By understanding what works for your pins and how they perform will enable you to understand trends and will ultimately help you improve performance over time.

Best of luck!

Yolanda

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Leave it in the comments below!

Full Circle Digital

I'm Yolanda: Pinterest Expert & Digital Marketer for Entrepreneurs