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Ready to learn some tips and tricks for Pinterest images? Welcome to my ULTIMATE guide to creating and working with Pinterest images in your blog posts.
Inside this post you will learn – how to add a hidden pinnable image for Pinterest (yep, a Pinterest image hidden trick), how to make good Pinterest images for your blog the easy way, what makes a good Pinterest image, how to STOP the Pin It button on SOME blog post images, how to show a smaller image IN your blog post (but allow readers to pin the BIG image on Pinterest), good Pinterest image dimensions, and more.
Grab a cup coffee and let’s dive into my Pinterest image tips with code examples and video walk-throughs.
Note: all images in THIS post were made by me using THIS awesome image tool
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Pinterest Images Tips and Tricks
Below are the ways *I* do these Pinterest image tricks. It’s quite possible that some “coders” will be shaking their head in violent disagreement at my methods. If there is a better way, sure, feel free to let me know in the comments.
But at the end of the day – Getting it DONE is what matters – stressing and obsessing over “proper code” doesn’t get the page views or make the monies =)
Make Easy Pinterest Images
How to make long Pinterest images for your blog – the EASY way.
Problem:
You don’t know how to make attractive images for Pinterest so you don’t make good Pinterest images at ALL. That means, you lose out on all that FREE Pinterest traffic.
Solution:
Suck it up, buttercup, and learn HOW to make GOOD tall, vertical images for your blog posts.
You’re running a business here, so business tools are an absolutely NEEDED business investment. There’s no excuse for not offering your readers a good image to pin on Pinterest.
hint: offering GOOD Pinterest images for your readers to pin only helps YOU.
I am absolutely in love with my easy-peasy image tool.
It’s getting to the point online where there simply is NOT an excuse to NOT have a handy image tool.
No need to go firing up PhotoShop or to even stop what you’re doing and go use Canva or PicMonkey – just click a little icon in your browser and a screen drops down where you can quickly and EASILY make images AND share images.
Let me show you just HOW easy it is to make not only Pinterest images for your blog posts, but images of ALL sizes for ALL social media sharing and image/blog graphic needs.
See it in action:
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Blog Post WITHOUT Pinterest Images
How to make Pinterest images for a blog post that does NOT have Pinterest sharing images to repin so you CAN share that blog post on Pinterest.
Problem:
You’ve just read a great blog post and want to pin it on Pinterest BUT the blog post doesn’t have ANY images worth pinning on Pinterest.
Solution:
Either don’t pin their blog post or take 5 seconds to make a good pin for their post with this tool.
hint: pinning great images on YOUR Pinterest account that get repinned increases the overall engagement score of YOUR Pinterest account. That is a GOOD thing.
This is a BIG pet peeve of mine…
(and yes, I’m talking to you @MarketingLand and @sengineland and way too many other industry news-worthy and info-worthy websites)
I see a new blog post come across my Twitter stream. I click to read it and want to share it with MY readers and followers on all of my social media accounts (including PINTEREST!)
Yep, easy to retweet it. Yep, easy to share it on my Facebook Page.
BUT: there’s not a SINGLE suitable PINTEREST image so I can also share it on Pinterest!!
Why oh WHYYYYYYYY?
Hey – Pinterest users read too :::grin:::
Let me show you how I use my image creation tool in this situation.
See it in action:
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Small Blog Post Images
Many times you may have small images or images that you do NOT want pinned on Pinterest.
Problems:
- Small images are being pinned on Pinterest from your blog post
- You do NOT want the Pin It Hover to Show on an Image
Solution:
One simple piece of additional code to your images can stop (or at least deter) people from pinning images on Pinterest that you do NOT want pinned.
Perhaps you’d like to deter people from pinning your smaller, non-optimized images on Pinterest – or perhaps you simply don’t want the Pinterest “Pin It” hover button to show on your images.
It takes one little additional piece of code to add to your image HTML to stop the Pin It hover button from showing.
That code is:
nopin=”nopin”
Use it in your image HMTL code like this:
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That code added to your image HTML code will stop the Pinterest “pin it” hover for showing over that image and not let that image be pinned to Pinterest.
See it in action:
Here are 2 images – one has the “nopin” code, the other does not. One shows the “PinIt” button, the other does not. (seen when you ‘mouse over’ the image)
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note: those images are from my Viral Pinterest Images blog post here. You can also get a Free Viral Pins CheatSheet for you to download and keep on that post.
Or – you can grab the cheatsheet right now:
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(update May 2018 – I turned my Pinterest “hover” pin it option off – explanation in these Pinterest Tricks for Bloggers)
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Show Smaller Image/Pin Big Image
Problem:
want to show your pin images within the content of your post as smaller images, BUT you want folks to be able to pin the full size image on Pinterest.
Solution:
Again, one little HTML code tweak to your image code to the rescue!
WordPress by default adds static image sizes to your image HTML code that look something like this:
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Once those height and width size numbers are set, that is not only the size the image will show in your post, it is also the size of the pin image if someone pins it on Pinterest.
That is not ideal, right?
You want the image to show smaller so it fits nicely within your blog post, but if someone pins it, the pin image will be the full size image.
Plus, those absolute image dimensions are not a great idea these days either.
Having an absolute image size can break the mobile experience when someone is viewing your content on a mobile device.
Here’s an easy fix for that –
The first step is to decide how much of your main content area width you want the image to take up within your post.
If your entire blog post content area is 100%, what percentage do you want the image to take up?
For images in my posts that wrap to the left or to the right (meaning that my post content text wraps around the image):
I tend to pick 43% for the image size (ie, a little less than half of my total content area), or
33% (ie, one third of my total content area)
In the example of the image you see in this part of the post, I chose 43%.
I simply removed the width=”735″ height=”1102″ and replaced it with:
style=”width:43%”
Now, my image fits nicely within the content of my post, BUT when someone pins it, the Pinterest pin image will be a big and beautiful optimized Pinterest size image.
Here’s how the full code for my image above looks:
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Easy, right?
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How To Hide Pinterest Image in Blog Post
Problem:
You want an image to be a choice for readers to pin on Pinterest, but you do NOT want the image to actually SHOW in your post.
Solution:
Yet again, a simple little line of code to the rescue!
If you’re a smart Pinterest Marketer, you know that making MULTIPLE images for pinning on Pinterest is a VERY smart move.
We never really know which images Pinterest users will love, click, and repin and the best way to give YOUR blog posts the best chance of traffic from Pinterest is to make multiple Pinterest images for the same blog post.
Needless to say, there will be times you don’t want blog readers to SEE all those pin images, but you still want to offer them a choice of images they can pin on Pinterest to share your post.
To completely keep a large image for Pinterest hidden from a blog post, just add this div code around your image html:
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Yep, that’s all there is to it!
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Set Pin Descriptions
Problem:
want to set a default pin description/ Pinterest image caption for your blog post image.
Solution:
Controlling the pin description that goes with an image on your blog when the image is pinned is set within the “alt” tags in your image.
This is very easy to do – AND there are TWO ways you can do it.
When uploading your image into your WordPress post, just fill in the the section where it says, “Alt Text” with what you want the pin description to be when it is pinned on Pinterest.
Or – you can add an alt tag within the HTML of your image code.
Here is what the code looks like for my screenshot image above.
Be Sure To Note:
- The words I added inside my alt tag
- I used the ‘nopin’ option to stop the Pinterest PinIt button
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How To Set Default Pinterest Image for Blog Post
Problem:
You want to choose the EXACT image that is pinned when someone clicks your Pinterest share button on your post.
Solution:
This one is not as “nice and easy” as the other Pinterest image tips – here’s how *I* do it.
I have tried a lot of ways to code within my blog posts to get ONE specific image to be the main image that is repinned to Pinterest.
I’ve also tried a lot of social sharing plugins to work this out, but I only found ONE social sharing plugin that truly WORKS.
This is the social sharing plugin I use here at PotPieGirl.com
Among a TON of really useful features for bloggers, my social sharing icons plugin allows me to choose ONE image to be used when someone clicks the “share on Pinterest” icon button on my posts.
Now, my readers can still choose ANY image from within my blog post to pin to Pinterest that they want to, but…
when someone clicks the red Pinterest icon button (that has been following you while reading this post… hint hint!), *I* pick the image that is shared on Facebook, Twitter, AND I also pick a very specific image for pinning on Pinterest.
It is VERY easy to use, too!
At the bottom of every screen where I write my posts inside my wp-admin area is a box that looks like this:
As you can see, I can set the default Facebook/Twitter share image and the default Pinterest pin image… and also define what I want the social media share text and custom tweet to be, etc.
VERY easy and VERY effective.
Get more details on this social sharing plugin here.
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What Makes a Good Pinterest Image?
A really good Pinterest pin image is:
- Attractive visually (ie, “eye candy”)
- Causes a Pinterest user to stop and look at it
- Makes a Pinterest user want to REpin it
- Offers/Promises a Solution to their problem
- Offers an Idea they’d like to try
- Above all, makes Pinterest users want to CLICK it
- Makes blog readers want to pin it/share it on Pinterest
Think about what YOU click and repin on Pinterest… What made you click and/or repin those pins?
The very best Pinterest pin images offer a “promise” to a solution if the pin is clicked.
Good pin images also “leave a little mystery” to them. If your pin image solves the problem/offers the complete idea, there is no reason for Pinterest users to CLICK the pin and visit your blog.
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Best Pinterest Image Size
The “industry standard” Pinterest pin image size is 735 x 1102
That is 735 px wide and 1102 px tall.
(edit for June 2018: the preferred pin size is now 600 x 900 or 600 x 1260)
Ideally your want a Pinterest image to be taller than it is wide. Wide/short images don’t tend to do as well on Pinterest as taller images do.
I think using various sizes of Pinterest images breaks up the monotony of a Pinterest board and can help draw more attention to your pins – I’ve even pinned 1080×1080 Instagram sized images on Pinterest and had good results. Play around with different Pinterest image sizes and see what works best for YOU.
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Summing Up
In order to take advantage of the free traffic from Pinterest as a blogger, it is VERY important to:
- Have a GOOD and EASY image tool
- Know and use the above Pinterest image tips and tricks
- Have a GOOD social sharing plugin…
- And above all – follow a GREAT Pinterest Strategy that works.
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Did I miss any Pinterest image tips that you’d like me to cover?
Feel free to ask in the comments below and I’ll add it to this post.
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- Learn How To SEO My Blog Posts
- Learn How To FIX My Pinterest Results
- Learn How To Track My Blog Posts for Better Results
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- Learn What Works NOW for Bloggers
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- Join PotPieGirl's Affiliate Program
- See What Tools PotPieGirl Uses
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Hi Jennifer, what is your feeling about how using a Pinterest descrition as your Alt text effects SEO? I use Social Warfare also, but don’t use the Pin-It button because with it I have to put in the Pinterest description instead of my SEO keywords.
What’s your take?
Thanks,
Tasha
Hiya Tasha =)
Good question!
I’ve never really been one to use the alt tag area for only keywords so for me, using it more with a Pinterest description that contains keywords works best for me.
Thanks for the reply.
Truly a great post with amazing info! Thanks for that!