How To Create Pins for Pinterest in Canva: a FREE Pinterest Pin Maker Tutorial 

"Hey, this is Money Academy.work, and I'll be teaching you in this video how to create beautiful and click-worthy images, which will help you get a ton of traffic from Pinterest. The tool we're going to use for pin design is free and very easy. It's called Canva. I will now switch to my screen to show you how you can do it.

Last week, I showed you all the elements that help your pin graphics stand out on Pinterest and get a lot of engagement, red pins, and click-throughs. If you missed that video, check the info icon on the top right corner of the screen. Or when you finish watching this video, check the link to my last week's Pinterest tutorial in the description below.

I recommend using Canva because it's free, flexible, even compared to some competitor tools, and very user-friendly and intuitive. You'll see it for yourself. By the end of this video, you'll be able to quickly create beautiful pin graphics like a pro. So, you need to go to canva.com and create a free account if you don't have one yet. And now, you can start typing 'Pinterest' to see a template for pin graphics.

What this template gives you is just the size of the image. This image has an aspect ratio of 2:3, which is recommended by Pinterest. But what if you wanted to create a pin image of a different size or aspect ratio? I mentioned in a previous video that for me, pins with an aspect ratio of 1:2 actually work better. And this is the maximum height after which Pinterest cuts off the pins. Pinterest's official guide for pin creators also recommends a pin size of a thousand by 1500 pixels, which tells me that Pinterest might prefer images of much higher resolution than just 600x900 pixels or even the size that Canva suggests here.

So, if you want to create a pin of another size, click here on 'Custom Dimensions' and define the pin size. Now, as a newbie, you might want to use some of the templates suggested by Canva, but I honestly do not recommend doing this for a couple of reasons. First, if you don't change this template significantly and you just add your own text overlay, chances are that after you publish the pin, Pinterest's visual search engine will be showing multiple other images created with the same template. This might potentially screw up your rankings for the keyword which you're trying to target with the pin because Pinterest might relate your pin to those other pins saved with the same template earlier based on the template and not on the keywords you add to your pin description.

The second reason why I don't recommend using this template is because it's often very limiting. You only have this much space to add your own text overlay, and everything is defined by the template. If you start changing this, then you will end up wasting a lot more time to redo and ungroup elements in the template to make it look the way you want it to.

So, this is our canvas. Now we're looking for background images. If you are registered on any stock sites, download an image from there and upload it here. So, I'm showing you how to do it. Click on 'Uploads,' then upload an image by simply dragging and dropping it here. Don't upload images of low resolution or small size because they will look pixelated when stretched over the pin size.

Left-click on the background image, and it will automatically show up in your canvas. Now, you just stretch it to the size of your pin. Now, we need to create a text overlay for our pin. But to make sure that the text is not lost on the background image, we need to create a frame of a contrasting color that will make our text pop up on the pin. So, let's click on 'Elements' and then look for 'Shapes.' We select this square shape with an outline color by left-clicking on it. To resize the shape, I will drag it by left-clicking on one of the corners because I want to keep it square. But if you would like to have it taller, you can drag the top line.

Now we need to change the colors of the shape. In the top left corner, you will find the colors. The left one is the main color of the shape, and the right one is the outline. Now, we will change them.

Now we are ready to add some text overlay to our pin. To do this, click on the 'Text' tab, and you will see a lot of preset text templates. But I don't use them because they don't always fit what I need to write on my pin. So, let's click on the first text font. As you can see, it shows up on the canvas already, and now we can write our text. Let's change the font. I don't recommend using script fonts, by the way, because they are hard to read when a user is scrolling down the feed on Pinterest.

Now, in the top left corner, you will find a variety of fonts to choose from. Let's move our text by left-clicking and dragging. Let's create a new text line and use a different font color and size to emphasize this part of the text. To change the size, we can go here and select one of the suggested sizes or simply type the number and click 'Enter.' To change the color, just click on this icon and select one of the default colors or click on the plus and select any color you want here. Let's move our text by left-clicking and dragging.

Since we want to use exactly the same style for the next line of text, we just copy and paste it by clicking here. Now, just drag it down and change the text. Okay, it looks like it's too big for this frame. We need to change the size. Anyway, and I actually don't really like this font. Let me think about another font here. Okay, looks like the font that I chose, I'll keep it here.

Now, I want to add a call to action to this pin image, so I will use the same font as in the top text. I will copy and paste this text, drag it down, and now I will just change the text to something like this. It looks like it's too big for this frame. I will play around with the sizes.

Now, I want to resize the shape because we still have a lot of space left. You need to add either a logo or the main name to protect your image, and I recommend using a domain name because logos usually take up a lot more space on your pin. So, go back to 'Text' and select the smallest font. Type in your domain name and decide where you want to keep it, here or maybe at the bottom. If you put it at the bottom, you need to change the size and maybe the color.

Great! Let's move to the next step. Now, we need to give a name to our image. To do this, we can go to the top right corner and click here, and save it with a different name. By the way, while you work on your pin, Canva will save changes automatically. But if you want to force save at any time, click on that file and then 'Save.'

So, I promised we would create multiple versions of a pin really quickly. So let me show you how we do this. Click on the 'Copy page' icon, and it creates a full copy of your pin in the same tab. Now, let's change something. For example, in this case, we can change the background image. We need to remove the old background by clicking on the image and pressing delete on your keyboard. Let's drag and drop the new image. We need to reshape it to fit the size of the pin, and then we need to go to the top right corner to change the position of the image. Let's click the 'Back' button.

This is a completely new pin for Pinterest. Now, let's create a new one just by copying this one and changing some text overlay. So, let's write '10 amazing vegan dinners to try with your family' in the next copy of the pin. We will be changing the text overlay color, the background shape, and the background image.

Now, let's duplicate and create pin version number five, and I will quickly change the text overlay, the color, and the image background.

Now, let's duplicate and create pin version number six. I will quickly change the text overlay, the color, and the image background.

Now, let's duplicate and create pin version number seven. I will quickly change the text overlay, the color, and the image background.

Now, let's duplicate and create pin version number eight. I will quickly change the text overlay, the color, and the image background.

Now, let's duplicate and create pin version number nine. I will quickly change the text overlay, the color, and the image background.

Now, let's duplicate and create pin version number ten. I will quickly change the text overlay, the color, and the image background.

Now, I wanted to show you something cool, it's the transparency feature. You click on the shape, and then you go to the top right corner and change the transparency of your black background for the text, hopefully, so you start seeing the image a little bit better.

Now, to save all our pin versions, we can go here and select 'Download.' Let's change the file type to JPEG because PNG will be too heavy to upload to our site. And we can select all pages to download all pins at once. Or, if you want, you can save them one by one to your computer.

So, this way, you can create pins of your own, or if you want to use some professionally designed Canva templates, I have a pack of 10 fully customizable templates, and I will give you a link to them in the description of this video.

If this information helped you, make sure to share it with your friends, do the thumbs up, and follow my channel because I specialize in Pinterest marketing tips, and I share the most current recommendations about this platform every Thursday."