More Re-Pins and Traffic from Pinterest, it’s all About the Images: How to Make Pinterest Better: Part 3

Welcome to the last installment of this fun 3 part series of how to make Pinterest better! Just in case you’re new here or you’ve been away for a while,

Click here for Part 1

Click here for Part 2

Part 3

How to optimize images to be standout pins

You want your images to be noticed on Pinterest, right? Here are a few tips to keep in mind:

• Use high quality images
• Image size -maximum of 600 pixels wide by any length long (be careful not to make too long or people will have to scroll to see entire image and skip it)
• Use contrasting or bright colors
• Use text on image to tell what it is
• Put URL on image- if the link is ever broken, the original source can be found

Here’s a small sample of some good and not so good Pinterest pins.

#1.  Not enough color contrast between background and food

#2. This pin is about recovering chairs from table cloths. Can you tell from this pin?

#3. Great pin example- Bright colors, tells what it is for, has a URL

 Editing or creating images

Editing

To be noticed and re-pinned on Pinterest, your pin has to be a stellar image. Unfortunately, we are not all born as Photoshop wizards. If you’re like me and Photoshop leads to ulcer development, there are easy, quick and free alternatives. Lately, my favorite photo editing tool is and online app called Pickmonkey. (www.Picmonkey.com)

The picture on the left is the original. With a few clicks of the mouse, I was able to crop it, enhance the color and add text.

***TIP*** The Auto Adjust button in Picmonkey doesn’t always work well for me. I find I get better results by making the adjustments myself with the easy to use sliders.

Creating

A group of popular pins on Pinterest are images of quotes.  Here is one of my favorites from my Pinterest Words board.

In Picmonkey, I was able to make my own to share on Pinterest.

Here’s how I was able to do this in Picmonkey

1. Upload a random picture
2.  Adjust the brightness and contrast until the picture turns white
3. Resize to a square image (remember the max is 600px wide)
4. Added a texture (the gray background)
5. Add text to finish it off

If you have any questions about how I did this in Picmonkey, let me know, I’d be glad to help.

Other free editing sources:

• FotoFlexer- Free online app with layers like Photoshop and demo videos
• Sumo- www.sumo.fm- Online some Photoshop features and cool 3D effects.
• Gimp – opensource  software download with Photoshop like features

I hope you have enjoyed this series on just a few aspect of  Pinterest. It is continually evolving and the way it is being used continues to evolve.  I’m excited to see what what happens next.

What makes a pin special enough for you to re-pin it? Let me now in the the comment section below. Thanks!

(I had the pleasure of meeting Leslie Samuel at BlogWorld earlier this month. You know when you meet someone and you can tell there’s just something special about them? He’s one of those people. You can find the inspiring podcast where this quote came from on his blog, BecomeaBlogger.com)