Have you ever browsed Pinterest and wondered how to make Pinterest Pins that actually look good? I definitely used to! I thought these people must all be complete Photoshop professionals!
Well silly me, I just had never heard of tools like Canva.com that make it SUPER EASY!
I admit, I was super late to the game with this discovery. But better late than never!
Pinterest can drive traffic to your blog
Pinterest may seem silly to some, but the truth is, it can be a great traffic strategy if you do it right.
But if you want to use Pinterest as a traffic source for your blog, you need to be able to easily create Pins for your articles that link back to your website (and more specifically, the exact article). Ideally, you’ll need to create lots of pins (even for the same article) to test out the designs that actually work.
In order to do this, you’re going to do this in a way that’s as fast and easy as possible.
Check out Canva!
It’s super intuitive
This is a really great tool for many reasons, but most importantly, it’s super beginner-friendly anyone can use it. I am not super great with tools like Photoshop and it takes me hours to try to make something look good. I even took a Photoshop class in high school and I feel like it’s still complicated to try and use!
With Canva, there are tons of premade templates you can choose from so you can create a pin for Pinterest in minutes just by dragging and dropping images, and writing in your own text.
You can also easily edit it to your specific preferences, or create your own entirely from scratch. Which is still much easier and more intuitive than trying to use other tools like Photoshop.
There’s a free version!
One of the best parts of Canva, aside from the fact it’s easy to use, is that there’s a pretty great free version available. You can upgrade your account and get access to much more features, however, the free version is still great and you can do a lot with it!
They do have a 30-day trial run for the paid version if you do want to test it out, though. You get access to a lot of additional features and premium images to use.
Sign up for Canva entirely free
You don’t have to download it
Another reason I like using Canva is you don’t have to download it, so I can use it from any computer easily.
Let’s go through an example of creating a Pinterest pin from start, to publish!
The first step is to head over to canva.com and create an account. From there, you’ll be able to create a design.
Click on the “Pinterest Graphic” design.
You’ll be able to view lots of premade templates or create from a blank canvas. With the premade templates, you can very easily drag and drop to replace images with your own (or with the free images within Canva).
You’ll also be able to replace text, fonts, and change the text blocks around however you want (add more, delete extras, etc)
You’ll notice in the left-hand sidebar there are options to search for new photos or upload your own.
Note: If you try to use a premium image with a free account, you’ll be prompted to pay for the design before you’re able to publish or download it.
While there’s plenty of free photo options to use, for this pin I uploaded my own as it’s a recipe, and I have specific images I want to use.
This literally took me 2 minutes to turn the premade template into my own design…
This is not the most elaborate pin ever, but the point is, it’s easy to grab a design and go without spending hours trying to create something in Photoshop or elsewhere.
You’ll notice there’s an option to directly publish your pin to Pinterest from within Canva. It’s certainly the fastest route, but so far, I haven’t figured out how to directly make the entire pin a clickable destination link if you do it this way. Canva’s step-by-step tutorial doesn’t show how to make it a click link either.
Download your image instead, then upload it to Pinterest to create your Pin!
Instead of doing it directly from Canva, you’ll want to upload it to Pinterest instead, create a new Pin, then fill out the fields. This way, you’ll be able to properly tag the pin with the destination link.
Without a proper destination link, your Pin can’t drive traffic to your website!
If you use Pinterest regularly, you’ll notice pins that look good, but when you try and visit them, they don’t go anywhere. This is no good! If your pin doesn’t go anywhere, there was no point to the pin! I’ve also come across pins that will take you to the homepage of a website, but not the specific article the pin is about. You don’t want that either!
The entire point of creating Pins is to drive traffic to your website. People are going to want to land on the destination page your pin refers to, not your homepage.
Go forth and create beautiful pins for Pinterest
The fact is, Canva is an extremely effective yet simple tool you can use for your website. Now that you know all about Canva, go ahead and start creating some amazing pins.
Do you need help learning how to get traffic to your blog and actually making money? Take a look at this entirely free starter training
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