Pinterest is my #1 way drive traffic to my business, so naturally, it is a major part of my social media strategy. Not to mention, I get about 60% of my traffic from Pinterest alone.

It is a powerful tool to grow your business if used correctly.

This post may contain affiliate links.

It was a game changer for my other site, Frugal Fanatic. It helped me to 10x my traffic in 3 months. I went from getting 10,000 page views per month to more than 100,000 page views in a month.

The important part is having a plan. You need to create viral, pinnable images that are consistent with your brand for all of your content.

Today, I am going to share with you my viral pin blueprint, so that you can replicate the process to create your own beautifully crafted, pinnable graphics for your website.

Before I go into the makeup of a viral pin, I want to mention that you should already have created a Pinterest Business Account and applied for Rich Pins.

If you haven’t, then stop and do that now.

Done?

Ok, let’s move on.

In the past, Pinterest displayed the newest pins first, so your followers would see your pin in their Home Feed as soon as you pinned it.

Now, they have a ranking system, where they will display the best pins first just like Google, or any other search engine.

Instead of seeing pins in chronological order from pinners you follow, Pinterest has introduced the Smart Feed and ranking system.

Now, you could have a huge following, and if your pin is not ranked high, then very few people will see it.

There are a lot of factors that go into the Smart Feed, and how Pinterest ranks your pins:

High-quality content
Consistency
Repins
Pin descriptions

There is a greater chance that people will discover you and your pins from Pinterest's search, rather than seeing it come up in their Home Feed. This is why it is extremely important that you are strategic, and why I am sharing with you how you can create viral pins.

Viral Pin Blueprint:

#1 Brand Elements

The first thing you want to do is stay consistent with your brand. Use the same fonts and colors that you already use for your business.

It is important to stay consistent with your brand to give your audience a cohesive experience. You want your pins to visually stand out and become recognizable to Pinterest users.

If your color palette consists of a lot of different colors, don’t worry; you don’t have to use every single one of them in your images.

For right now, I just want you to jot down your fonts and colors that you use, because we will be referencing them in a minute.

ACTION STEP: Use the Image Style Guide with this post and fill in your brand’s colors and fonts.

#2 Size

Vertical pins are more visually appealing on Pinterest. These images stand out better, so you always want to make sure that you include a tall image in all of your posts.

The optimal size for Pinterest images is 735 x 1102 pixels.

I use Canva to create my images and graphics. It is free to use and they have a pre-made template that already has this size set up for you.

Watch my totally awesome Canva tutorial.

You can also use PicMonkey, PhotoShop, InDesign, or any other program that you are familiar with.

#3 Photo

Use photos that are clear and bright. Pins with a warm palette tend to be pinned more often than those with a cool palette. Try to avoid faces in your images because they are not repinned as often.

If you do not take your own photos, then I recommend using a stock photo site. You can purchase images individually, or pay for a monthly membership. Here are a few you can check out:

BigStock.com
Pixabay.com
Stocksy.com
PicJumbo.com
Depositphotos.com

You can also make your own branded images. You want these images to follow the same criteria that we already talked about. Here are a few examples:

source: Caitlin Bacher

source: Elle & Co.

Each of the images represent the pinner’s brand. It is consistent with their business and their style.

As soon as you see these images on Pinterest, you can quickly identify who’s brand they belong to.

You can also make these images in Canva. If you choose to do this, I recommend making a template that you can use over and over again. It will make the process easier and more efficient.

You can create a few options and then switch out the text (see more about this below), or even place your stock image in it for new content.

#4 Text overlay

This is an important part that you don’t want to skip. You want to put a text overlay on your images that clearly portrays what your post is about.

Use the fonts that you wrote down from above that are consistent with your brand. You can incorporate your site's colors into the text as well.

You want the text overlay to be large and easy to read.

This can be the headline of the post or something else that entices people to click over to your website.

Here are a few good examples of headlines that grab people’s attention and compel them to click over to read your content:

Want to have a cleaner house? Try this!
The perfect way to organize your closet in 3 easy steps
Secrets to getting more done every single day
5 Common Blogging Mistakes

Check out these examples of pinnable images that have a text overlay. Each one is easy to read and stands out on Pinterest.

source: By Regina

source: Heather Crabtree

#5 Description

Having great images is only one step of the process. The picture is what will get people to repin it, but having a compelling description is what will get people to click through to your business' site.

Each of your pins needs to have a great description that is compelling, and includes:

Keywords or phrases of what you think people would type in the search bar that would be relevant to each of your pins.
Call-to-action, like, “click to read it now” or “click through to read this guide.” This just tells people what to do next.

Focus on writing better pin descriptions, using the same SEO principles as you would for your website, to rank higher in search engines.

Your goal is to make it easy for people to find your pins.

Brainstorm ideas of what you think people would type into the search bar that would be relevant to each of your pins.

And don’t forget that call to action! Be sure to tell the people who see your pins exactly what you want them to do.

Oftentimes, I like to provoke a frustration, or struggle, and tell them how my post will help them to solve that problem.

Here is one of my pin description examples:

Optimize your site's images for Pinterest by adding in the seo-friendly description in the alt-text and uploading the image with your keyword phrase.

#6 Call-to-action

I just mentioned how you want to have a call-to-action in the description of the pin, but you can also have a call-to-action on the image itself.

By having this on your pin, you are letting everyone see what they will get when they read your post. This immediately shows what value you will provide in your post, and why they should click over to your business website.

I always like to include the content upgrade that I am offering from that post. I will even put a small image of it directly on the pin itself.

See how these pins include a call-to-action:

source: Megan Minns

source: Melyssa Griffin

#7 URL or Watermark

The last thing you want to do is add your website's URL or watermark to your pins. This will help to create brand awareness and keep your images consistent.

These seven elements will help you to create your own pinnable images. Here is an overall picture of each of the items we just covered:

ACTION STEP: Check out your Analytics and look at your top 10 posts that receive the highest amount of traffic. Edit those images to be consistent with your new photo style and then start pinning them to your best boards frequently.

I mentioned before that it makes it super easy if you create templates and then just pop in your new information for each post.

If you don’t create templates, you need to keep track of exactly how you create the design for your pins, so that you can duplicate it over and over again.

This is important if you add any specific items, different size fonts, or even change the transparency. Plus, if you have a team or want to outsource your images, this will allow you to easily share how to make your graphics with your virtual assistant.

Be sure to download my Image Style Guide to use as a reference, and to help you keep track of visual elements so that you can stay consistent with your brand.

Now that you know the viral pin blueprint, it is time to implement these strategies when you are creating pinnable images.

Do you have on-brand pinnable images for your business?

Viral Pin Blueprint for Entrepreneurs + Free Image Style Guide