Are you looking to create pins that will get clicks and drive traffic to your blog? You’ve come to the right place! Here’s my complete guide to flexing those design muscles and learning to create clickable pins with Canva…
If you’re a relatively new blogger then I imagine then you’ve had a whole LOT of information about how to grow your blog coming in your direction ever since you started. SEO, affiliate marketing, making sure you create a freebie and an email marketing strategy early on in the game, and so on. I know, I was the same. I’m a relatively new blogger and I felt like I was bombarded with information… and the funny thing was none of it was anything to do with the actual writing part. It turns about blogging is more about marketing than it is about writing. That was the first ‘oh…’ moment.
Anyway, I guess what I’m saying is that there is a ton of advice out there on how to grow your blog and it’s tricky to figure out what’s the most important and what can wait until further down the line. The one thing that I did hear over and over again that made my ears prick up and pay attention was the importance of Pinterest for growing your audience for your blog. Well, I’m not going to disagree with any of that. If you want to have a successful blog then Pinterest is key to your strategy. I started blogging last year but I’ve only been taking it really seriously in the past couple of months, and that has meant really stepping up my Pinterest game because Pinterest strategy for bloggers is HUGE.
How to use Pinterest for marketing your blog
Everyone wants to know how you can get traffic from Pinterest, right? Well, that’s a big question and it’s not really what this blog post is about. If you want to know how to create a great Pinterest strategy then I would direct you to Ell Duclos’ Pinterest course because I learned everything I know from her.
What I will say is that creating attractive pins that make people want to click on them is super important to your Pinterest marketing strategy. If people click on your pin, that brings you traffic, and that’s how you grow your audience. Pinterest referral traffic is hugely important to bloggers. For me, it’s helped me drive my traffic from around 200 views a month to around 7000 views a month, and I’m hoping to continue to grow. Some of the bloggers I follow get between 25k and 100k views from Pinterest each month so it’s hugely significant. Whenever I see people say things like ‘is Pinterest still popular in 2020?’ I want to direct them to these statistics. Basically, it’s more important than ever!
How to use Canva for Pinterest
So this is where Canva comes in. You might have heard of Canva before, or you might not, but the good news is that it’s really easy to use. It’s a programme that will you create professional looking graphics, without having to be a professional graphic designer. There are templates, fonts, and stock photography that will help you create beautiful looking pins that will explode your traffic!
But I hear you. You’re not a graphic designer. You might be thinking that you don’t know how to create an nice looking pin. Well, the bad new is that you are going to have to flex those design muscles. However, the good news is that Canva makes it as simple to do that as possible. So without further ado, here’s how you can get the most out of Canva so you can create beautiful, clickable pins for your blog…
How to create clickable pins on Canva
1) Take inspiration from your favourite bloggers
Your first port of call should be the Pinterest page of your favourite bloggers to see what their pins look like. What fonts are they using? What kind of colour scheme do they tend to use? A lot of bloggers use the same fonts and colour scheme each time so that their pins look branded. While I wouldn’t worry about this too much at the beginning it’s definitely something you can implement over time once you’ve figured out what kind of designs resonate with your audience.
2) Use the right specs for Pinterest
Portrait shaped pins with an aspect ration of 2:3 perform better on Pinterest so you want to make sure you’re creating pins in this shape. Luckily for you, Canva has a a template already in place, so all you have to do is select that when you want to start. You can experiment creating longer pins too if you wish – some bloggers use these to create short listicle features but bear in mind, you might get more people clicking on your pin for a closer look, but you’ll probably get less click through to your website.
3) Practice, practice, practice
Sorry if you were looking for something a bit more mystical, but this is my number one piece of advice for Canva. The first few pins I created were HORRIBLE. I didn’t have a clue what I was doing and boy did it show! Even my second stage of pins were only OK. I was getting better but looking back they still weren’t fantastic. It took me a good few weeks to get comfortable using Canva (and realising what pins were getting the best engagement on Pinterest) but I think my current pins are so much stronger!
4) Don’t go overboard with the fonts
Ideally, you only want to use two or three fonts per pin. If you use more than that then everything is going to look too busy. Try and make sure that your text is large enough for people to read when they’re scrolling through Pinterest – if it’s too small to read then they’re just going to keep scrolling. I also like to use a mix of simple and script fonts for balance. If you use handwritten fonts over your whole pin it can look messy (and it’s also tricky to read) so keep it to one or two words for emphasis.
5) Stop people’s scroll with a killer title
Now you want to think of what you want to write in your pin. The key is to make sure that the pin stops people in their tracks and also encourages them to click through to read your blog post. It’s good to add words that really sell your content and also don’t be afraid to go into detail – for example, instead of ‘how to create a morning routine’ why not try ‘how to create an amazing morning routine that will change your life’? It’s really important to test out variations of the wording on each pin, too, as then you’ll be able to create better, more clickable pins for your audience in the future.
6) Emphasise the important bits
You know what it’s like on Pinterest – sometimes you’re just mindlessly scrolling until something catches your eye. You want to make sure that the bit that catches people’s eyes is the most important part of your pin title. You can emphasise these words in your pin in a number of different ways – by increasing the font size, making it bold, adding a panel behind it or using a different font to the rest of the pin. It’s completely up to you how you do that – have a play about and see what works for you.
7) Only use relevant images
Only use images that are relevant to the pin you’re creating. So, if you’re creating a pin about healthy breakfast ideas then make sure your image shows something like eggs or orange juice. Likewise, if you’re creating a pin about self-care then you might want to show a bathtub or a face mask – you get the idea. Pinterest can ‘read’ what images you’re using so this is super important. It’s also the image that signals to Pinterest that this is a fresh pin so don’t use the same image over and over again.
8) Add your website address
Hands up, I don’t do this for every single font I create as sometimes I run out of space or it just doesn’t fit but, in general, it is good practice to include your web address. Why? 1) People can steal your pins if you don’t. This hasn’t happened to me but I have seen it happen to other bloggers. And 2) because it gets your brand name out there. If people are seeing your website popping up on their feed on a regular basis then they may eventually click through to your blog and you grow your audience.
9) Test, test and test your designs
I mentioned this above but testing out your designs is one of the most important things you can do! You might think you’ve created the most beautiful pin imaginable… but then when you upload it to Pinterest it sinks without a trace. I create a variety of pins for each blog post I create to see what works best… and sometimes it isn’t always the design that I like the most that performs the best. So bear that in mind and make sure you’re constantly analysing what pins are getting clicks and which ones aren’t. It’s only once you’re armed with this information that you can grow your audience.
10) Save your templates in Canva
Now that I’ve been pinning for a while I have a handful of fonts and styles of designs that I tend to use, and I simply edit these with new text and images whenever I create a new pin. I was getting tired of always overwriting my designs, however, so now what I do when I’ve created a design I like is to make sure I duplicate it. I then add it to a folder of my best pin designs so it’s always there to refer to. This means that I’m never starting a pin from scratch so I can turn around my designs a lot more quickly.