Adding an image of your favorite recipe or throw pillow to Pinterest isn't hard. But if you're a small business that uses Pinterest as a marketing tool (like mine does!), you know how time-consuming and tiresome it is to constantly design Pins.
In this article, I'll show you how creating Pinterest design templates helped my business, walk you through how I go about creating templates, and offer a few tips to get the most out of Pinterest for your business.
If you use Pinterest for your business, you can expand your reach and sales potential through automation. Here's how.
How design templates changed the way I do business
Design templates are pre-made designs that can be quickly and easily customized to help you save time and keep your brand image consistent. You can use pre-made designs for websites, emails, documents, eBooks, and more—and Pinterest is no different. Here are few things creating Pinterest templates has allowed me to do:
1. Save time
When I first started using Pinterest as a traffic source, Pinterest had no problem with users pinning the same images over and over again. This was great—it meant I didn't have to spend much time creating new images to get exposure.
But as years passed, Pinterest started rewarding creators that published new, original content on a regular basis. Instead of sinking time into creating 100% original designs for every Pin, I decided to create my own ready-to-use Pinterest templates. That meant I could quickly change things like images, shapes, and colors. Pairing this with Tailwind—a social media scheduling tool—allowed me to spend time on more valuable marketing efforts.
2. See what's working best
Without gathering and analyzing data, you won't be able to see what's working—and, maybe more importantly, what isn't. By creating several different Pin design templates, I can see which designs and images get me the most click-throughs and then create other similar templates.
For example, one thing I've noticed is that Pins with photos of people facing directly to the camera tend to get significantly fewer clicks than those without photos of people or those with photos of them facing away from the camera. I would have never guessed, but using templates has helped me be able to better bucket these types of Pins and analyze the data.
3. Maintain brand consistency
Design templates help me keep my brand consistent on the platform. Even if I decided to remove the logo or website from the Pin, my followers would still be able to recognize the brand.
If each of your Pins looks wildly different—in terms of fonts, color schemes, or anything else—it'll be harder to foster brand recognition.
How to create templates for Pinterest
I've used several tools to create design templates, including Canva and Photoshop, but I'm currently using one that's similar to Photoshop called Affinity Photo. What I like about it is that it's only a one-time payment instead of a monthly fee like Photoshop. The most important thing is that you feel comfortable in the tool you choose—take a look at Zapier's picks for the best free design tools to create social media graphics as a starting point.
Since Photoshop has the industry-standard interface, I'll show you how I used to create templates with it, but the steps are similar regardless of which software you decide to use.
1. Get inspiration
For ideas, I like to browse Pinterest to see the kinds of designs other people are making. And not just in my own niche—for example, if you're in the finance industry, you could search for fitness or home decor tips and see the designs people are using there. This can help your designs stand out from other businesses in your niche. Just be sure it still fits with your brand voice overall.
You can also find inspiration by searching templates on Canva, if you use it, or just Google the phrase "flyer design" or "eBook cover design." These aren't necessarily Pins, but they're visual graphics that can give you even more ideas.
2. Choose a canvas size
Next, I open up my photo editing software and choose my canvas size. Here are the ideal Pin dimensions according to Pinterest:
Standard Pins: 1000 x 1500 px
Long Pins: 1000 x 2100 px
Square Pins: 1000 x 1000 px
Infographic: 1000 x 3000 px
3. Create multiple artboards
To keep things organized and prevent things from getting too cluttered, I like to create only eight templates within a single file. To add more artboards for your templates, go to Layers > right-click on your current artboard > Duplicate Artboard.
4. Design the templates
How you design your templates will depend on the ideas you got from earlier and your own creativity, but here are some tips to help save some time when reusing your templates:
Add placeholder text with the different fonts you want to use.
Use the frame tool to quickly swap images. With the frame tool, you'll be able to just drag and drop the new image without having to resize it. You can also apply effects to the frame, such as borders or drop shadows, so you don't have to apply them to every new image you add.
Add your logo and/or website.
That's it. All I have to do now is change the title, images, or colors for Pinterest to recognize them as new Pins.
5. Save it as PSDT
If you're using Photoshop to create your templates, you can change the file format from .psd to .psdt. This will make Photoshop recognize the file as a template so that you don't accidentally save changes to it. Whenever you decide to create new Pins and save the changes, it will automatically create a copy of the file.
To do this, simply right-click on your Photoshop file > Get Info > Name & Extension: > add a "t" at the end.
Buying design templates
If you really don't want to create templates yourself, you can purchase design templates in places like:
Creative Market
Etsy
Canva (free and paid)
Or, if you're looking for something more custom-made, you can search for freelance Pin designers on Upwork or Fiverr.
Getting the most out of Pinterest
Before we go, I want to offer a few quick Pinterest best practices to keep in mind as you create your templates.
Create curiosity. You want people to click through to your website, so make people curious. For example, if you write an article titled "Foods to avoid for weight loss" and use an image of a donut on your Pin, people might not click through because, hello, we all know that donuts are high in calories. A better image to use would be something like a granola bar, which is typically considered healthy but usually has tons of added sugars.
Use contrasting colors. Look at the colors other companies in your niche are using and try something different. For example, if you're in the fitness niche and notice that businesses all have Pins with vivid colors, you can use earth tone color combinations to stand out.
Speed up your site. Since the majority of Pinterest traffic comes from mobile, make sure that your website loads fast to increase conversions. To help with site speed, try compressing images, choosing a good website theme, and using a fast web host like NameHero.
Pin less. It used to be that pinning more was beneficial, but Pinterest is now focusing more on new and quality content. So instead of pinning 30 Pins every day, aim to pin only 3-5. Pinning too much might trigger their spam filters and get your account suspended.
Add keywords. Most people categorize Pinterest as a social media platform, but it's actually more of a search engine. Make sure you add keywords to your board titles and descriptions, Pin titles and descriptions, and your profile.
Time is on your side
Using design templates will allow you to save time—time that you can use to tackle other aspects of your business, take care of yourself, or spend time with your friends and family. Those all sound just a little better than designing Pins.
