How to Create a Pinterest Friendly Image

How to Make a Pinterest Friendly Image

I’ve been getting this question a lot lately and decided a good way to answer it was to make a blog post about it! One of my favorite things to do when writing a blog post is to design a Pinterest friendly image. I typically do this at the very end, once I’m in the mindset of the post and can think of a great picture to go with it. But before I get into this mini tutorial, I just wanted to stress the importance of having a decent sized pinnable image in your blog posts.

Last summer, I started making images to go with my blog posts but I didn’t make them big enough. I made them Instagram-sized, totally square and small. Those images are still floating around Pinterest somewhere, but they didn’t bring me much traffic. Fast-forward to now and I’ve begun editing past images and creating more Pinterest-friendly ones using the method I describe below. I’ve been getting SO much more traffic from the new images, it’s insane! Creating pinnable photos is IMPORTANT if you’re trying to get more views from Pinterest! Now I’ll show you one way you can do it.

Find a Relevant Photo

I typically will either use stock photos from one of my favorite stock photo sites or use a picture of my own from my Instagram or another photo I took myself! The most important thing to do is to make sure it’s a photo with no copyright restrictions. When in doubt, use your own photos if you can!

My favorite Stock Photo sites include: PicJumbo, StockSnap.io, and Unsplash.

Once you have your photo downloaded, it’s time for step 2!

Open Canva

I use Canva first to create a transparent overlay on the image. For some pictures, you can add text on it right away and you can still see it perfectly. However, I’ve become accustomed to adding the transparent overlay within Canva. I’ll show you how!

First, open your photo you just saved in Canva. I personally choose to use a “poster” layout because they are usually a decent size for Pinterest. Once the photo is opened, you can resize it within the poster and choose the part of the picture you want to see. When you first upload it into Canva, it should look like the screenshot below.

How to Make a Pinterest Friendly Image

Then, you can stretch it to fill in the white space on the top and bottom of the poster. When you stretch it, make sure it isn’t TOO pixelated. I usually will stretch it so it just covers the top and bottom edges of the poster.

How to Make a Pinterest Friendly Image

You can see the dotted line where the image ends. I stretched it over the poster just to make sure the edges are all filled with the image!

Add a transparent overlay

Now, we’re going to click on “background” in the left side toolbar. In the search bar, type transparent and hit enter on your keyboard. A bunch of photos should show up but to find the one we’re looking for you’ll have to scroll down about halfway.

How to Make a Pinterest Friendly Image

Now you’re going to click on the picture that I have circled in the image above. This is a transparent overlay. Just add this over a picture and stretch it out however you’d like. Sometimes I stretch it in a bar across the image or I’ll make it a smaller rectangle inside the image. It’s totally up to you!

Once you’ve added your overlay how you like, you can download it and open up PicMonkey!

Open PicMonkey

Now you can add text with your image on PicMonkey! You can do this in Canva as well, but I love the font options so much more in PicMonkey and there’s also an option to use your own fonts that you’ve downloaded which is awesome.

How to Create a Pinterest Friendly Image

Once you’re done, make sure to add your blog’s URL somewhere on the photo so people know where to go if they just stumble upon the image somewhere.

Upload into your blog post!

Now, you can save the photo and insert it into your blog post! Make sure to resize it once you add it into your post because it might be a little too big for what you’re looking for. I usually have to shrink my image down once I add it into a post. There’s also the option of resizing within PicMonkey if you’d like but I typically will just drag it down within WordPress!

What programs do you use to create your Pinterest-friendly images?

Follow:

26 Comments

  1. Lily
    June 24, 2016 / 1:55 pm

    Desperately needed this! So so helpful! Bookmarking! 🙂

    • June 24, 2016 / 3:22 pm

      Thanks Lily! Let me know if you have any questions! 🙂

  2. Taylor Smith
    June 24, 2016 / 2:01 pm

    Love this. It was one of the first things I had to learn as a new blogger!

    • June 24, 2016 / 3:22 pm

      It’s such an important thing to know and use as a blogger! Thanks Taylor!

  3. Molly O'Connor
    June 24, 2016 / 2:47 pm

    This is an answer to my prayers!! I’ve been wondering how you make such perfect images, this helps tremendously!!! Thank you thank you!

    http://www.mollyonthemoveblog.com

    • June 24, 2016 / 3:21 pm

      Ahh yay! I’m so glad you found it helpful. Let me know if you have any additional questions!

  4. June 24, 2016 / 2:54 pm

    This is such a great tutorial! I’m about to do an #askCWH video on Pinterest so I’ll have to link this tutorial!! 🙂 If that’s ok with you haha 🙂

    X,
    Cristina
    cristinawashere.com

    • June 24, 2016 / 3:21 pm

      That would be awesome Cristina! Go for it 🙂

  5. June 24, 2016 / 3:47 pm

    This is so helpful! Pinterest is one of the biggest traffic sources for my blog so I’m always looking to improve it!

    xoxo,
    Katie
    chicincarolina.blogspot.com

  6. Vincent Carabeo
    June 24, 2016 / 5:29 pm

    That was an awesome post! Thank you for sharing – love the font you used on this.

  7. Amelie
    June 24, 2016 / 7:57 pm

    Ever since I found out about Canva, I’ve been in love with it! Creating Pinterest-friendly pictures has definitely helped increase my traffic a lot.

    Amelie | http://awanderersadventures.wordpress.com

  8. June 24, 2016 / 8:39 pm

    I love canva for creating blog/pinterest images! I’ll have to check out the sites you recommended for stock photos too! I’ve been using Pexels which is working alright for the moment.
    Thanks for the tips!

    Alysha | Study Break Down

  9. Michelle mink
    June 25, 2016 / 3:45 am

    canva has been my go to place as well for pinterest friendly images! love it.

  10. adriana nudo
    June 25, 2016 / 11:10 am

    Great post! I use Photoshop to make my pinnable images but I need to find a better size – I’m finding although my images are vertical, they’re still not comparing in size to other pins on my home feed!

  11. Ashley
    June 25, 2016 / 8:15 pm

    Great tips!! Just pinned! I’ve been wondering how to do this forever! Can’t wait to try this out. Thanks so much for sharing.

    xo Ashley

  12. June 25, 2016 / 9:11 pm

    Fantastic! I love Canva and I didn’t know they had transparent layers. Thanks for sharing!

  13. June 28, 2016 / 10:31 pm

    I’ve never used Canva before, but I’ll have to check it out! I normally use Lightroom and Picmonkey 🙂

  14. Lagom Chaos
    June 29, 2016 / 9:43 pm

    This post was very helpful! I’ve been trying to find the transparent overlay backgrounds in Canva but with no success. Your tutorial was the only one that I found that actually showed me how!

    http://www.lagomchaos.com

  15. July 3, 2016 / 6:04 pm

    Very helpful tips! Having a Pinterest friendly graphic on a blog post is pretty important. I’m going to have to go through my blog and redo some images. Thank you!

  16. July 3, 2016 / 11:51 pm

    Honestly its like you read my mind when you posted this!!
    Thanks so much for the awesome details on how to achieve Pinterest ready pics 🙂
    XO Amanda
    http://www.affordablebyamanda.com

  17. July 9, 2016 / 10:21 pm

    This is so great! I’ve really been wanting to start using my Pinterest to promote my blog more seriously and I think this will definitely help.

    xo, Kimberly
    http://www.blogsfordays.com

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.