PINTEREST PIN

DESIGN RULES
that you can start breaking

7 PIN DESIGNS RULES THAT ARE

PROBABLY HOLDING YOU BACK
 TERMS OF USE

All the boring legal things, in

extremely plain english.
You may not sell or distribute, in whole or in part, any part of, or
information contained in, this PDF.

The information is for your personal or professional use only, and

may not be shared.
SOME
RULES
ARE
MADE
TO BE
broken
I've never been particularly
good with rules.

Well, with arbitrary rules,

anyhow.
But This drives my husband nuts,
know and he calls me an

how to "anarchist" (which I assure

you, I'm not).
break I do believe it's super
them important to understand all

right. the "rules" on any platform

you're working with...

Partly so you know which

ones are vital for success,
and partly so you know
which ones you can break.
 YES, I DO
TEACH SOME
"RULES" FOR
GOOD PINS
This is a screenshot of my "pinteresting pins" checklist, the basic "rules"
that I suggest everyone follows when they're getting started on Pinterest.

Most of the time, my pins still follow these "rules".

BUT what I want to do in this quick training is look at how other pinners
see huge success on Pinterest... by breaking ALL the rules.

I am not suggesting that you will want to regularly create all 6 rule
breaking pins that we will talk about... but I AM suggesting you try them
and understand WHY they work (or why they don't work) in your niche!

Every concept we better understand allows us further success!

As always, success on Pinterest comes down to user intent.

As in:

WHAT IS THE INTENT OF THE READER WHEN THE

READER COMES ACROSS YOUR PIN?

This is discussed in detail in the videos through out this PDF,

so please, watch them. (They are not long.)

By the time you're done this training, I hope you have a more
concrete understanding of both why some rules DO exist,
and how you can break them if you want to.

CLICK HERE TO WATCH INTRO VIDEO

I've included a screenshot of the "creative best practices"

straight from Pinterest on the following page, as a lot of the
rules we will talk about breaking are THEIRS!
https://business.pinterest.com/sub/business/CreativeBestPractices/Creative-Best-Practices.pdf
 Rule YOU SHOULD ONLY

ot break
MAKE 2:3 ASPECT
RATIO PINS

THE RULE (from the creative best practices):

Use high-quality, vertical images that will stand out in

people’s feeds. We recommend a 2:3 aspect ratio (ex:
1000 x 1500 pixels).
Other ratios may cause your Pin to get truncated, or may
negatively impact performance.

It's not NEW news that long pins can out perform short pins (2:3
ratio)... in fact, most people outside of the official creative best
practices people seem to know that.

But I want to look at a whole pile of places in the algorithm where

SQUARE or HORIZONTAL pins out perform vertical pins.

Yes ma'am, I am telling you it's time to consider trying SQUARE

and HORIZONTAL pins!

Let's discuss this:

CLICK TO WATCH VIDEO DISCUSSION ON PIN SIZE

Now, I want to include my own limited experience with
creating horizontal and square pins...

This is tricky, because I haven't really used them much for my

MAIN blog (the one I share examples from all the time). I
have, however, been creating them for my NEW NICHE SITE
- which I'm keeping a secret for now.

Without sharing too much about the site, I will just show you
the above - the two pins in this example are for the same
post, with the horizontal pin WILDLY outperforming the
long pin!
I have a friend who pins one square pin and one vertical pin
for each of his posts... (And he is WINNING at pinterest).

Here's his top

10 Pinterest
traffic POSTS
for the year.
Of these 10
posts, the top
PIN for 8 of
them is...
SQUARE!
 Rule YOUR PIN MUST

ot break
HAVE A TEXT
OVERLY

THE RULE (from the creative best practices):

Add text overlay to tell a better story

Text overlay is the copy that goes on your Pin image. It
makesyour Pins stand out, adds context and enhances
your message. Keep text concise so it’s easy for people to
read on their phones

OK... this rule isn't ONLY from creative best practices. Myself,
and every other "how to pinterest" blogger out there have said
this so many times we might as well get it tatooed on our necks.

I RARELY make pins without text overly, and I DO believe in the

power of text overlay to generate a click through.

However, by utilzing the title space under the pin properly,

your text-less pins MAY have a sneaky advantage that your
text overly pins don't have.

Let's discuss this:

CLICK TO WATCH VIDEO ON SKIPPING TEXT OVERLAY

 Rule k MAKE SURE ALL
YOUR PINS HAVE
ot brea CONSISTANT
BRANDING

THE RULE (from "gurus"):

Stay on brand with photos, color palettes, fonts etc.

Include your logo or website URL on your pins.
Branding is important!
OH MY WORD.

I don't know who's still perpetuating the idea that your pins
should be "branded" (ok, it's every other Pinterest "guru" out
there)...

BUT NO.

There is NO reason to tie yourself to a "brand style" on Pinterest.

Here's the big bad problem:

You start your blog and you choose your "on brand" colors and
brand fonts and brand "feel" that you will express through
images...

And IMMEDIATELY your creativity (not to mention your ability to

A/B test what your audience actually responds to) is stifled.

Sure, make some pins that are on brand.

But then please, for the love of all things traffic, GO OFF
BRAND.

If you regularly use pink, try green.

If you normally use lifestyle images try abstract instead.

If you generally include photos try vectors.

Allowing yourself to experiment with pin designs to find out what
designs get the best clicks is CRUCIAL.

You can actually draw in an entirely different user (to whom your
content is still relevant) with a different pin feel.

I know, avatar, blah blah.

You're telling me that if you have 10 money saving tips for the
grocery store you wouldn't take a page view from a man or a
grandma just because those aren't your target reader of "mom
with 3 kids and minivan"?

I bet you would. (I would!)

And Pinterest traffic CAN deliver those pageviews, when you

don't scare all the men or grandmas off with super pink or super
(hard to read for grandmas) script style font on every. single. pin.

You can put your website URL on your pin if you want, but you
sure as heck don't have to.

I don't. (When my VA makes my pins, she puts it on sometimes,

but I don't put it on.)

There are actually pins I see a lot of on pinterest (as a pinner)

that I DON'T click on BECAUSE the URL is on them... just
because I don't want to go to THAT site.

So putting a URL on can have a negative effect too.

 Rule NEVER INCLUDE

ot break
A CALL TO ACTION

THE RULE (from "google + websites"):

Don't ever use a call to action on your pins...

Pinterest won't even approve a promoted pin if it say's

"Click to read more!"

BEWARE:
outdated rules
are alllllll over
the internet
I won't rat out the website with this outdated info on it - because I
know how hard it can be to stay on top of the ever changing
THING that is Pinterest, but I promise, this is an OLD rule and
YOU CAN BREAK IT!

(Sometimes we break the rules because they are stupid,

sometimes we break the rules because they aren't even REAL
rules!)

Go ahead and add a call to action on your pins.

Try "Click to read more", "Get the full list here" or even add a fun
arrow.

The above pins are from Monica Froese site, and if she says you
can promote a pin with a CTA on it, you can promote a pin with a
CTA on it.

She is the authority on all things promoted pins.

 Rule
USE ONLY HIGH
QUALITY

ot break BEAUTIFUL IMAGES

THE RULE (from the creative best practices):

Pick an eye-catching image.

Use high-quality, vertical images that will stand out in

people’s feeds.

I mean I get why it's a "rule". It makes sense.

But if I had a dollar for every time someone told me "it's my old
terrible blurry ugly pins that are bringing my traffic", I literally
would have so many dollars I wouldn't have to make this book to
sell. ♀

While high quality images MAY perform better in general (I

believe they do), there is NO REPLACMENT for ORIGINAL
images.

Your old blurry photos do better over time because they aren't
being used in conjunction with any other content.
Pinterest CRAVES unique content.

Give it to them!

Grab your iphone and snap a picture, instead of automatically

defaulting to the perfect stock photo.

Just try it.

Or better yet, just take a screenshot.

This is something I've been meaning to try more of (and haven't

experimented with enough yet) but I CAN SEE that this is
working... look at this with me:

CLICK HERE TO WATCH VIDEO ON SCREENSHOT PINS.

 Rule k DON'T USE IMAGES
WITH FACES ON
ot brea YOUR PINS

THE RULE (from "old wives", I guess):

Pick an eye-catching image.

Use high-quality, vertical images that will stand out in
people’s feeds.
This is a bad rule that's been hanging around since I started on
Pinterest.

I just want to make sure you're aware that it's stupid.

I will say that none of MY top performing pins - ever - have been
images with faces looking DIRECTLY INTO THE CAMERA.

Plenty of my top pins of all time DO have faces on them - like

these ones:

That said, I don't often MAKE pins with faces looking directly into
the camera... but I have spent years spying on pinners who DO...
and some of them ain't failing Pinterest.

Bustle.com comes to mind - with it's over 700k followers, and

chasingfoxes.com with over 400k followers.

Chasing Foxes started blogging the same time as I did, and I've
had a few conversations with Grace over the years. She gets
amazing Pinterest traffic.

When something doesn't work on Pinterest, she doesn't do it. But

you know what she DOES do?

Pins with faces on them.

 Rule k ALWAYS USE
HUGE TEXT
ot brea
THE RULE (from me! it's my rule!):

Your text needs to stand out in the feed - use larger

text.
Pinners are scrolling super fast and they are going to read
large text before they read tiny text.

Creative best practices and "other people" aren't the only ones
who make rules that can hold you back!

I would be flat out hypocritical to not admit that there's a time for
itty bitty text on a pin...

And that's when the image alone catches attention and you feel
like the reader might need just the tiniest bit more information to
ensure the click.

CLICK HERE TO WATCH IMPORTANT VIDEO ON TEXT SIZE

 u le to
R erstand
THE END USER
MAKES THE RULES
und
Do yourself a favor.

Start a new pinterest account.

Pin the things that INTEREST YOU.

Pay attention to those pins.

Which ones did you find value in?

Which ones made you click?

MAKE pins like that.

Not every single one of them will be a winner... maybe in your

niche NONE of them will be winners.

But at least you'll know what works and what doesn't work for
you on Pinterest, and you won't be accidentally leaving traffic on
the table due to arbitrary rules!
 MAKE PINTEREST
TRAFFIC EASIER
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FOR PINTEREST TRAFFIC?
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