25 Proven ways to design viral pins on Pinterest

Looking for ways to make your pin click-worthy or viral? Well, Pinterest is indeed the sea of pins. But most of the pins added to Pinterest fail to get adequate attention from pinners and the Pinterest platform itself. Still, few pins with utmost quality become famous and get most of the impressions and clicks.

So if you are a beginner to Pinterest or struggling to find ways to make your upcoming pins more click-worthy, you are at the right place.

Although there is no panacea or formula to make your pins viral, there are proven ways to make them stand out in the sea of images.

In this blog post, we will go through an easy-to-follow checklist that will help you create better pins and increase their visibility on Pinterest.

Why should you focus on a pin design?

If you have been on Pinterest for some time, you already know why marketing on this platform is worth it.

Unlike SEO, marketing on Pinterest can generate tons of traffic in very little time. But to achieve that, you need to produce epic content and attention-grabbing pin image.

However good your content may be, you will not get clicks if not linked with a high-quality pin. Pinners make clicks by only seeing the pin, and it only works as an intermediary user interface between the pinner and the actual blog post.

So what a standard pin does? It only introduces the content idea or blog post to the pinners, while details about the topic can be found on the linked web page.

Therefore, such user flow makes everything on the pin more important if you want to increase the click-through rate.

A visually compelling image with a great story and luring people to learn more is likely to go viral.

In addition to a great picture, your content should be evergreen and high-quality to get clicks for a long time.

Although content on your website directly doesn't contribute to the virality of a pin, pinners will start ignoring your pins if they don't find relevant and quality content as you promised on the pin.

What is a viral pin, and how to make it happen?

Every blogger or digital marketer on Pinterest dreams for pins that go viral in less time and bring more traffic to their website gateways.

With this ton of instant traffic, either they can build an email list or use it for different monetization methods. A product pin that becomes famous instantly can fetch more sales and profit for the businesses.

So what is a viral pin? An image or video that gets a lot of attention from both pinners and Pinterest in a quick time.

When it gets a lot of user responses in terms of saves and repins, Pinterest distributes it among more users, and that's why it receives thousands of impressions and hundreds of saves and clicks.

The more people like it, the more Pinterest sends it to a new audience, and when more people see it, they are more likely to repin. So, this snowball effect is all behind the virality of a pin.

But a viral pin has a problem of dying soon, and it has a life span of just a few days. Therefore it also becomes essential to cash out the benefits of a viral pin because of its non-reliable nature.

But how do specific pins go viral? What are the qualities that make them stand out and perform better?

Here is the quick checklist and best strategies to help you create eye-catching pins and make them more popular on Pinterest.

#1 Headline or pin title

What makes you click on blog posts, news articles, images, and videos all over the internet? Of course, the headline grabs the visitors' attention, and the same phenomenon applies to the pins of Pinterest.

We all ignore items that don't evoke our emotions and keep skipping them unless we see some exciting or unique headline. Therefore the pin title or headline that stands out in the crowd gets more action.

For example, consider these pin headlines:-

1." How to increase Pinterest followers."
2."Get 300 Pinterest followers in a single day."

The first headline is general, and there will be many pins with similar headlines, but the second one is unique, immediately prompting pinners to click and grab the idea.

#2 Pin description

It is an essential attribute of a pin that describes the pin and content idea more. But many pins on Pinterest either miss this attribute completely or have poorly written descriptions.

Many people like to read pin descriptions before visiting the web page or saving it to their Pinterest boards, and it plays an essential role in convincing people whether they click or not.

A strong and relevant description is also crucial because Pinterest too looks for this attribute to know more about a pin and prioritize it in search results.

To make the description more effective, you should describe your main pinning idea, including a primary keyword and a strong CTA.

#3 Vertical images

Pinterest is not for horizontal or square images. Although there are no restrictions on uploading non-vertical photos, they do not perfectly fit into the UI model of Pinterest. They perform poorly in comparison to the long images. The taller the pin, the more saves it will receive.

According to Pinterest best practices, the aspect ratio should be 2:3. If you use other ratios, your pin may be truncated. For example, the optimum pin can be 1000 pixels in width and 1500 pixels in length.

By using a tall image, you will have more space that can be utilized to write better overlay text in large fonts.

#4 High-quality images

Pinterest is a visual bookmarking and showcasing platform, and it places a lot of emphasis on the quality of the images because it is more of a visual search engine.

Many people come to Pinterest for inspirational arts, photography, wallpapers, quotes, and other printing materials. These Pinterest categories demand high-resolution photos so that users do not face any viewing and printing problems.

The low-resolution pictures look blurry, distorted, or pixelated when zoomed in. Although they might look well, there might be many printing issues.

Pinners are more likely to repin or purchase products that have quality and attractive images. They also build high credibility and reputation for your brand.

Moreover, because of high domain authority, Pinterest pins appear in the top search results of Google. So, in addition to performing better in Pinterest SEO, the high-definition images can also drive extra traffic from Google search queries.

#5 Relevant design elements

The images are popular because they can better relate to the content and are easy to understand and remember. So it is essential to use those design elements that better showcase your content idea.

Moreover, Pinterest lens technology enables users to search for ideas based on images. Therefore it becomes more critical to include relevant elements in the pin so that it can appear in visual search and have a wider reach.

#6 Free or paid images

Many free stock images are available on the internet, but these free pictures may not always be best for designing viral pins.

You can find many pins on Pinterest with the same free image.

Although there is nothing wrong with free images, Pinterest always loves fresh photos or pins. Therefore, Pinterest may show less interest in your newly added pin when it is already used multiple times on the platform.

Moreover, it is hard to find a free image representing the whole pin idea, but there are high chances of finding the best match for your idea with paid photographs.

#7 Large and bold fonts

Clear and readable overlay text is vital for any pin to perform better. Small text creates viewing problems in mobile or smartphone devices.

Use bold and large fonts to convey your main idea. Show your main keywords in bold and large fonts and use small or scripted fonts for less important words.

You can create a better-performing and effective pin by keeping your main keywords in uppercase letters.

#8 Bright colors

There is a huge impact of using bright colors in pin design because they help get the pinners' immediate attention in the sea of images. They increase both readability and legibility.

Due to contrast, design elements become more noticeable. Bold and bright colors like red, orange, and brown work best on Pinterest.

The colorful pin designed with these vibrant colors has a great chance to stand out in the crowd. But avoid too much contrast when it becomes hard to scan text and elements.

#9 Call to action(CTA)

It is an action phrase that encourages pinners to take some specified action. For example, in many pins on Pinterest, you may have seen an arrow or finger with a mouse pointing to a specific activity (download/Get Free Checklist).

But what difference does it make to have a call to action on a pin? The assumption that visitors will take their own, the action you want them to take is always not correct. CTA gives clear direction and tells what is next step is for them.

Therefore it can increase Click-through rate(CTR) and dramatically improve your content marketing output by creating a sense of emergency.

You can find CTAs either on the image itself or in the description box of the pin. Some of the popular CTAs that you can use are:-

Grab it Now
Sign Up
Get Free Checklist
Get Free Ebook
Read More...

#10 Pinterest SEO

When you are eager to make your pin viral, not taking advantage of Pinterest SEO can be a huge mistake.

The virality of a pin also depends on Pinterest SEO significantly because Pinterest looks for keywords in key places to know more about the pin and its content. So, Pinterest SEO is nothing but optimizing every field that affects searches.

To get more eyeballs on your pin, you should discover profitable keywords and include them in your profile, pin title, description, boards, and other key places.

#11 Relevant linking

Pinners expect what you have promised on the pin. If you link irrelevant web pages to the image, the pinners will be frustrated and might not click your pins or visit next time.

It is not just about text, but images should also look similar or relevant to what you have promised on the pin image.

Pinterest takes irrelevant linking seriously and has a robust system to discourage link bait schemes or spamming.

Also, make sure that the link is not broken and working correctly.

#12 Consistency in pinning

If there is no consistency in the pinning, you will not be able to make your Pinterest account successful.

To grow your following and monthly views, you need to be active on this platform and add pins consistently. The more monthly Pinterest views and followers your account will have, the more impressions new pins are likely to receive.

Profiles that create fresh and add relevant content regularly receive more priority and recognition from Pinterest algorithms.

Instead of adding pins in one go for the whole month, you can create a weekly plan to add your and other people's pins.

#13 Pins on trending ideas

Before designing a new pin, it is important to know the latest trends on Pinterest. A pin on trending ideas is more likely to go viral.

If you fail to create content that pinners want to see, you can't force your pin to go viral. Researching the target audience and what they want is the first step to creating buzzworthy pins.

Moreover, people use Pinterest to plan their next holidays, months, and festive seasons. So creating content and designing pins by keeping in mind your audience's current and future needs can give you more pin impressions and clicks.

You can find out popular topics and what people look for on Pinterest through keyword research. Pinterest predicts, and Pinterest100 can help you in finding current and upcoming trends on Pinterest.

#14 Collage style pin

A pin with more photos on a concept can better convince users, and presenting multiple pictures into one pin gives more reasons to click. Having more pictures from different angles can attract more eyeballs. Therefore, a collage style pin can effectively showcase recipes, fashion, yoga, beauty, or DIY pins.

For example, if you want to create a stunning pin for a DIY project that involves multiple steps. Instead of creating separate pins for each step, you can combine all the steps into a single pin.

To create a collage-style pin, you can use Canva or any other tool like Collage Maker.

#15 Branded pins

Branding the pins also helps get more clicks because it allows pinners to recognize your pins easily. When you create pins with the same look and feel regularly, it helps to brand your pins.

The best benefit of branding is that pinners can recognize your pins even before reading headlines, and therefore it helps increase the click-through rate and website traffic.

Stick to the same color palette, layout, and fonts to brand your pins and include your brand logo or website name.

#16 Sibling pins

Sister or sibling pins have the same URL attached to them. If one sibling pin goes viral, there is a high probability that other sibling pins will also do well and can go viral too.

So as a viral pin strategy, you should also create one or two sibling pins to increase website traffic because they boost each other's performance on Pinterest.

#17 Idea and Rich pins

Idea pin is the latest pin format developed by Pinterest to cater to creators' needs and help them monetize their work. They are multi-page and multimedia pins.

Currently, they are much favored by Pinterest algorithms and distributed more through various ways. You can quickly grow your following on Pinterest using Idea pins.

Enabling the Rich pins feature can also give your pins more visibility by providing a richer experience to users. They provide extra information about the author, product price, recipe ingredients, etc. These additional data encourage people to click on the pin.

Rich pins directly pull metadata from the websites and show the latest information. So whenever you change any information related to your product, like the price on your website, the pin will automatically be updated. To make this happen, you need to add a little bit of code to your website.

#18 Participation in group boards

After adding a pin, you need to promote it. The more effort you put into promoting your pins, the more visibility and impressions they will receive.

One of the best ways to do it is by submitting your pins to relevant Pinterest group boards. The combining power of all group board followers can give them an initial push to become viral.

To find relevant group boards in your niche and check their activeness, you can use pingroupie.

#19 Pin it for later link

While browsing websites, you may have noticed a link with the anchor text "Pin It For Later." or similar to it.

But, what is the "Pin It For Later" link, and how to create it? It is a call to action for reminding the readers to save the pin to their Pinterest boards so that they can bookmark and read it later if they are in a hurry.

Many bloggers and content marketers use this creative way of directly adding a link to the pin in the blog post itself. When clicked, it leads back to the pin on Pinterest.

There are three main reasons behind this tactic:-

1. It reminds readers to save the blog post or pin for reading later if they currently don't have time to go through it.

2. If you forgot to add the "Pin It" button to the image or readers have not installed the Pinterest browser button, they can not pin the blog post.Therefore it can also work as an alternative way of allowing website visitors to save pins to their Pinterest accounts.

3. Having such a link on the blog post can increase website traffic and the following count on Pinterest. You can use anchor texts like "Pin Now, Read Later" "Don't forget to Pin it."

To create such a link, you need to add a new pin for your blog post, copy the pin's URL, and attach it to your blog post with appropriate anchor text.

#20 Tailwind tribes

Like Pinterest group boards, scheduling pins to Tailwind tribes can increase repins and engagement. They are a group of people with similar interests but are more effective than group boards in getting more saves and repins.

You can automate adding pins to Pinterest using Tailwind, and tribes are the most prominent pin promotional feature.

#21 Paid promotion

Like any other social media website, Pinterest offers paid marketing options for brands and bloggers, and a promotional campaign is another effective way to get your pins noticed.

The paid campaigns can give your pins much needed initial boost to increase visibility on Pinterest. Pinterest ads are like regular pins and displayed to your targeted audience.

They are placed in the home feed, category feed, and search results where more people can see them.

Getting started with Pinterest ads is very simple. You just need to select a pin, choose your goals and target audience, and then set a CPC bid.

#22 Leverage social sharing

Social share buttons on the blog posts help in increasing online visibility. Not having the "Pin It" button available on images, bloggers miss many repins.

Whenever pinners see good articles or product images on websites, they can pin them to Pinterest for reading or buying later. Therefore installing the "Pin It" button on images across your web pages can increase pin saves and traffic.

You can also leverage your following on Facebook and Twitter to increase your presence on Pinterest.

#23 Perfect publishing time

The initial push that your pin will receive also depends on the time of publishing the pin.

Although a large following on Pinterest matters a lot, it is also essential to know when they are most active. Publishing pin at the time and date when most of your followers and target audience are on the Pinterest platform, the pin is likely to receive more traction.

Depending on the timezones of your target audience may vary, but generally, the best times to pin on Pinterest are between 8 pm-11 pm and 2 am-4 am.

Using Tailwind in your Pinterest marketing strategy can automatically tell you the best time and date on which your followers will be active.

#24 Pin templates

Designing a great pin from scratch may be challenging, especially if you are not a graphic designer. But you don't need to worry if you are not an expert graphic designer; tools like Canva and Tailwind can help you create more engaging images.

Canva has many free pin templates that you can get started with, and you can easily customize them based on your requirements in just a few minutes.

#25 Pinterest Analytics

Knowing what works for you and what does not is crucial to designing great pins. Learning what pinners like and which pins are performing better can help create pins that do well.

Pinterest Analytics lets you see pin activity and behavior. Once you know the performance of your earlier pins, you can take insights from better-performing pins and design more such pins.

Analytics can help you optimize pins and your website for more traffic and engagement.