How to create highly converting pins.

Do you mean to tell me that a pin design can affect its click through rates, and there is a way to up my pin design game so as to get more clicks?

Yes, yes, yes and yes it surely can designing beautiful Pinterest images that are high-quality and visually look great is important, that’s for sure.

But the visual aesthetics aren’t the only thing makes a pin go viral. The look of a pin is actually only part of the formula that makes it go viral on Pinterest or not.

This is my in-depth case study of how to make pins go viral in the tens of thousands of impressions and re-pins realm. I have the viral Pinterest images formula that’s works and can help you boost your blog traffic too. 

Viral pin formula : How to make your pins go viral.

1. What makes a clickable pin:

No matter the number of impression you have or the number of monthly views showing on your profile. The most important measure on Pinterest is clicks.

     That monthly views metric is a tally of all the impressions for all pins you pin – NOT just your own. So that number isn’t a relevant measure of your reach.

   Now how do I actually measure my actual pinterest reach? stick to reading the stats on your Pinterest analytics page, and your Google analytics. And focus on how many CLICKS you are getting on each pin. Not so much the impressions 😉.

 Well this is because clicks to your blog mean page views, and that’s the whole point of using Pinterest. To drive traffic to your website. 

So then, how do you make pins that people can’t help but click? Alrighty tighty let’s dig into this…

For example’s sake, let’s assume that you landed here on this page because you were on Pinterest, and clicked on this pin of mine:

Now, there are a few reasons that this pin may have caught your attention. It could be the big bold striking font that caught your eye, the chill color or you thought to check it out because of the beautiful design.

But none of those are the reasons why you clicked. Those design tactics may have made you pay attention, but they didn’t make you click to leave Pinterest and read this blog post. 

So why did you click?

You clicked because of the words. Specifically because of what the words did to you emotionally. 

“The secret to making viral pins”  OR " The viral pin formulae" Those words tugged on your curiosity-strings and whether consciously or subconsciously, you thought:

“Hey, I want to go viral on Pinterest, I need to know what that secret is.”

Or “Yeah right, she doesn’t know how to make viral pins. I’m going to read that to make sure I’m right.” 

Either way, I moved you to act, simply by appealing to your curiosity and intrigue. I provided you with an opportunity to learn something new today, or to verify what you already think you know. 

Now that you are here, I’m going to deliver on what I promised in those words. Keep reading!

2. What Makes A Viral Pin?

What makes some Pinterest images go viral and others not is determined by much more than what one looks like.

Knowing how to make viral pins means knowing how to intentionally position a pin for success the moment it appears on the platform.

The design is important, but it’s more so the strategic planning that goes into how the pin is placed after its been designed is even more important.

What I’m talking about is Pinterest SEO, and Pinterest marketing.

Infact what determines a viral pin is a combination of:

Attractive design, easy-to-read fonts, size ( ratio of 2:3 eg 1000×1500 )

Enticing call to action (and then delivering on your promise within the blog post)

Exposure: Get them in as many group boards as you can!

Pinterest SEO, good keywords, & Intentional pinning

Ranking in Pinterest’s category feeds

3. SEO, Keywords, Intentionally Pinning

Going viral on Pinterest is not something that happens randomly even if it may seem so ( and for some that may be the case ), but why just sit around and hope that a pin might go viral?

When you can actually make it go viral by intentionally setting it up to do so.

There are intentional techniques you can utilize to make a pin go viral. If you have the desire to learn about Pinterest SEO, listen, up, ma!

4. Creating Pinterest Images That Go Viral: The Design Elements

You don't have to a design genus to be able to create viral Worthy pins.With free online editing tools like Canva you can create every design element for your blog yourself. Creative market also offers design templates at  really affordable prices and also offers monthly freebies. You can check that out here

Using high-quality stock photos is the first step in creating a viral pin. Here is a list of 36 websites that offer free, styled stock photos.

I recommend you invest in a good styled stock photo membership, too. All of these are fantastic resources for high quality and affordable styled stock photo memberships: 

Styled Stock Society 

HauteStock

Envato Elements

5. Viral Pinterest Images Branding Quick Tips

Select 2-4 colors that complement each other, and use them consistently in your first set of pins

Choose 1-2 fonts and stick with them consistently

Use bold, easy to read fonts and limit your use of script fonts to just 1 word

Make sure your branding is easy to read – the simpler the better

600x900px is the current size recommendation. Longer is good too!

Then following this guideline, create a second and third set of pins for the same blog posts but use completely different colors and fonts than your first set. Having a mix of different looking pins will help protect your account from being suspended for having too many similar-looking pins.

6. Viral Pinterest Images Need Good SEO File Names

Once you have designed your pin, make sure to always save it with a file name full of strong keywords that make sense for SEO.

For example, this is a good SEO file name: DIY HOME DECOR IDEAS.jpg

But this is not a good SEO file name: IMG-0098.jpg

7. Pinterest Images Need A Good SEO 

Description,  And Proper Description & Pin ID Too

Once you have created your high-quality pin, and saved it with a strong SEO file name, its time to upload it to your blog post. When you upload it you will want to fill the alt tag and description with your keywords as well.

Try incorporating videos into your Pinning strategy. If one is doing especially well, promote it with Pinterest’s paid advertising program.

The Pins have a small “Promoted by” designation but they otherwise appear as a regular Pin in your feed. If you target your Pins well, the advertising might work out for you.

The best kind of Pins for advertising are in line with the network’s content. This means that they’re highly visual and useful for your audience. A hard sell of a product won’t perform well here. Instead, Pins like how-to articles, DIY gifts and inspirational home decor are more engaging. It’s content marketing at its core.

Using Pinterest for your business marketing strategy is playing a long game. You create a combination of helpful content, SEO and consistent posting to appeal to the shoppers and doers in your audience. A Pinner might not be immediately buying your cake for their wedding. But they will be saving inspirational Pins on a board for months before making a decision.

Need a Pinterest manager we can do it for you.

 Hope this article was helpful?:)

The next important thing is embedding your Pin ID number.

What Is A Pin ID Number?

Every pin is assigned a number, called a pin ID. The pin ID number is found in the URL of your pin. For example: 

You would just copy those numbers and paste it into the pin ID section of Social Pug. This way, when someone pins your post, Pinterest will know that its a repin of that image, and won’t create a new pin each time it gets pinned. 

Having the pin ID embedded will just create a repin, as per Pinterest’s recommendations.

The next step is to pin your Pinterest images to your most relevant board. ‘Relevant’ means that the board you pin it to matches what the pin and blog post are about. You will want to make sure that the titles and descriptions of the boards make SEO-sense for your pin and blog post.

Pinterest SEO – How To Pin Like A Pro

You want to pin to relevant boards. Boards that have the right keywords to help you rank in Pinterest search results.

Basically, you don’t want your pin about vegetarian pumpkin curry landing in a board about Sailor Moon. Because it’s unrelated.

You want that curry pin to be in relevant boards about food, so that Pinterest can categorize it correctly and show it in search results correctly.

But even more importantly, you need to tell Pinterest what your pin is about so that they can list it in their own category feeds correctly.

This is really the biggest step in what makes a viral pin. The category feeds!

This is really the biggest step in what makes a viral pin. The category feeds!

8. Pinterest Category Feeds

Pinning your images strategically so that you ‘tell’ Pinterest how to categorize them and correctly show them in their category feeds is crucial if you want to go viral.

The Secret To Making Viral Pins – Conclusion

I hope this guide to creating viral pins has been helpful. Let’s stay in touch! Follow me on Pinterest @Smartualcreative