How to Create a Pinterest Pin (Sizes, Steps and SEO)

Last updated: September 2026

Key Takeaways

• A Pin is an image or video saved to a board, almost always linking back to a page. The link is the point — a Pin without one is a dead end.
• Use 1000 x 1500 pixels (2:3) for a standard Pin. This single setting matters more than most people realise, because the wrong ratio gets cropped.
• For vertical video, use 1080 x 1920 (9:16) — the same frame as Reels and TikTok.
• Pinterest merged Idea Pins into one unified Pin format and renamed them simply “Pin” in late 2024. You no longer choose between formats the way you used to.
• Titles and descriptions are indexed, searchable text. Descriptions run to 500 characters — use them.
• Pins have a long tail. One good Pin can still be driving traffic two years from now, which is what makes Pinterest different from feed-based platforms.

Pinning looks simple. Upload an image, pick a board, done.

And it is simple — which is exactly why most Pins go nowhere.

Your profile isn’t just a shelf for your ideas. It’s a reflection of what you’re actually about, and every Pin either builds that or dilutes it. You can’t Pin everything you happen to like and expect people to follow you through it.

So every Pin you create should be worth someone’s tap.

This guide covers exactly how to create one, the dimensions that stop it being cropped, and how to write the text so Pinterest can find it.

What Is a Pin on Pinterest?

A Pin is a single image or video saved to one of your boards, almost always linking back to a web page. “Pinning” just means saving one — either something you find on Pinterest, or something you upload yourself.

That link is the whole commercial reason Pinterest matters. A Pin is a piece of content and a route to your site at the same time.

One thing worth clearing up, because older guides still confuse it: Pinterest used to have a separate format called Idea Pins. Those were merged into a single unified Pin format and renamed simply “Pin” in late 2024. You don’t pick between Pin types the way you once did — you just pick whether you’re uploading an image or a video.

What Size Should a Pinterest Pin Be?

Get this right before you design anything, because Pinterest crops what doesn’t fit and your text is usually what gets lost.

• Standard image Pin: 1000 x 1500 px, 2:3. This is your default. It fills the vertical feed without being cut off.
• Vertical video Pin: 1080 x 1920 px, 9:16, up to 60 seconds — the same frame you’d use for Reels or TikTok, so one export covers all three.
• Square: 1000 x 1000 px. Fine, but it takes up less of the screen, so it’s working harder for attention.
• File size: image Pins go up to 20 MB on desktop and 32 MB in the mobile app.

Don’t go dramatically taller than 2:3 hoping to dominate more feed. Pinterest truncates very long Pins, and a cut-off Pin looks broken.

How Do You Create a Pin on Pinterest?

Six steps, about two minutes.

1. Go to your profile and click the + in the top right.
2. Choose Create Pin.
3. Add your image or video — drag it in, upload from your device, or pull it from a URL on your own site.
4. Write a title with real keywords in it. Not “Wallpaper Preview” but “Minimalist Bedroom Wallpaper Ideas”. Describe what someone would search for.
5. Add a description and your destination link. You get 500 characters. Front-load the important words — only the opening of it shows in the feed, so the first line has to earn the tap.
6. Pick a board — an existing one or a new one — then hit Create.

That’s it. Your Pin is live and starts getting shown.

If you don’t have an account or boards yet, start with how to create a Pinterest account, then how Pinterest boards work — a Pin needs a well-named board to sit in.

What Should You Actually Pin?

Sometimes the enthusiasm hits and you want to Pin everything — every photo, every trending graphic, every infographic you’ve ever made.

Resist that. Pin things that are genuinely useful or genuinely beautiful, and ideally both.

What performs on Pinterest is content that helps someone do something:

• How-tos and step-by-steps. People arrive mid-project.
• Before and afters. The single most saveable format there is.
• Lists and checklists that are readable at thumbnail size.
• Products in context — in a real room, on a real person, not on a white background.
• Infographics, as long as the headline is legible small.

A useful test before you upload: shrink the Pin to the size of a postage stamp and look at it. If you can’t tell what it’s offering, neither can anyone scrolling.

A little text on the image goes a long way when the photo can’t carry its own weight. Our design tips for social campaigns cover how to do that without clutter.

How Do You Optimise a Pin for Search?

Pinterest is a search engine, and it reads text. Most people leave that text half-empty.

• Title: lead with the phrase people search. Keep it clear rather than clever.
• Description: write a real sentence or two using natural language. Don’t list keywords — Pinterest reads phrasing, and so do humans.
• Alt text: describe the image plainly. It helps accessibility and gives Pinterest more to work with.
• Board choice: the board’s own name is context. A Pin on a well-named board is easier to categorise than the same Pin on “Misc”.
• Link: always point to the specific page, never your homepage. A Pin about one recipe should land on that recipe.

And if you’ve claimed your website, enable Rich Pins. Pinterest then pulls live metadata — price, availability, headline — onto the Pin automatically, and it costs nothing.

How Often Should You Pin?

Consistently beats heavily. A handful of Pins a day, every day, will out-perform fifty Pins on a Monday and nothing for a fortnight — advice Pinterest itself gives in its own best-practice guidance.

The reason is Pinterest’s timescale. Unlike a feed post that dies in hours, a Pin keeps surfacing in search and recommendations for months — sometimes years. You’re building a library, not chasing a news cycle.

Which also means fresh Pins matter more than repinning the same ones. Pinterest favours new content, so making several different Pins for one blog post is legitimately good practice.

For the wider cadence question across platforms, see how often you should post on social media and the best time to post.

FAQs

What size should a Pinterest Pin be, and why do mine get cropped?

Use 1000 x 1500 pixels at a 2:3 ratio for a standard image Pin. Cropping means you’ve designed at the wrong ratio — usually too tall, or square.

The mechanics are worth understanding rather than memorising. Pinterest’s feed is vertical columns, so taller Pins occupy more screen and get more attention per impression. That tempts people into making very long Pins, which is where the cropping happens: Pinterest truncates anything substantially taller than 2:3, and what gets cut is usually the bottom — where people put their logo and call to action.

Square Pins at 1000 x 1000 aren’t cropped, but they take up noticeably less of the feed, so they compete less well for the same impression.

For vertical video, 1080 x 1920 at 9:16 up to 60 seconds is the frame — the same as Reels and TikTok, so one export covers all three platforms.

Decision rule: design at 1000 x 1500 and put nothing important in the bottom fifth. If you want to test taller formats, keep the message in the top two-thirds so a truncation costs you nothing.

Why do my Pins get no views?

The three usual causes, in order of how often they’re the problem: the text is thin, the board is wrong or thin, or you haven’t given it enough time.

Start with text, because it’s the one people most often leave half-done. Pinterest is a search engine, and a Pin with an empty description and a vague title gives it almost nothing to match against a query. A title like “Our New Collection” is unfindable; “Minimalist Bedroom Wallpaper Ideas” is a phrase people actually type.

Then the board. A Pin inherits context from the board it sits on, so a strong Pin on a board called “Misc” is much harder to categorise than the same Pin on a well-named, well-filled board.

Then time. Pinterest’s timescale is genuinely slow — many Pins build over weeks and peak months later. Judging a Pin after three days tells you almost nothing.

The common trap is responding to low views by posting far more Pins of the same thin quality. Volume doesn’t fix a signal problem; it multiplies it.

Decision rule: before making more Pins, fix the titles and descriptions on your best existing ones and check they’re on properly-named boards. Then give it a quarter.

How long can a Pin description be, and what should go in it?

Up to 500 characters, but only the opening portion shows in the feed — so the first line has to do the work.

The question behind this is usually what to write, not how much. The answer is a real sentence that describes what someone gets by tapping, using the words they’d search with. Not a keyword list, and not a caption.

Front-loading matters more than length. Someone scrolling sees your image and the first fragment of your description, and decides in about a second. “Five storage ideas for a galley kitchen under £50” earns a tap. “We love this look! ✨ #kitchen #inspo” doesn’t, and gives Pinterest nothing to index either.

Use the remaining characters for genuine context — materials, steps, who it suits, what’s included. That text is indexed, so a fuller description gives Pinterest more surface to match queries against.

The mistake is stuffing keywords. It reads as spam to people and Pinterest handles natural phrasing better than repetition.

Decision rule: write the first line as the promise, then two sentences of real detail. If your description works as a sentence you’d say out loud, it’s right.

Do Idea Pins still exist?

Not as a separate format. Pinterest merged Idea Pins into a single unified Pin format and renamed them simply “Pin” in late 2024.

This matters because a lot of advice still online assumes the old split, where Idea Pins were multi-page, couldn’t carry outbound links, and were pushed hard by the algorithm in exchange. People built strategies around that trade — high reach, no traffic — and some are still following it.

Under the unified format you’re no longer choosing between a format that reaches people and a format that drives clicks. You simply create a Pin, with an image or video, and it can carry a destination link.

The practical consequence is that the old advice to “post Idea Pins for reach and standard Pins for traffic” is obsolete. If you’re following a guide that tells you to split your strategy that way, it predates the merge.

Decision rule: ignore any Pinterest advice that still distinguishes Idea Pins from standard Pins — it’s at least two years out of date, and likely wrong about other things too.

How often should I pin, and does repinning my own content help?

Consistency beats volume — a handful of Pins most days outperforms fifty on a Monday and nothing for a fortnight. Fresh Pins matter considerably more than repinning the same ones.

The reason sits in how Pinterest distributes content. It favours what it considers fresh — new images pointing at content, rather than the same image saved again. Repinning your own Pin across several boards was once standard advice and now does very little.

What does work is making genuinely different Pins for the same destination. Five distinct images for one blog post, each with its own title and angle, gives Pinterest five chances to match a different query — and costs far less than five blog posts.

On cadence, somewhere between three and ten Pins a day is a workable band for most businesses, but the floor matters more than the ceiling: posting something most days beats sporadic bursts, because Pinterest’s distribution rewards accounts that look alive.

Decision rule: make new Pins for old content rather than repinning old Pins. If you’re short on time, five fresh Pins a week beats thirty repins.

How long does it take for a Pin to get views?

Some Pins get traction within days, but many build over weeks and keep earning views for months or years. Judge performance over a quarter, not a day.

This is the single biggest expectation mismatch for people arriving from Instagram or TikTok, where a post is effectively finished within 48 hours. Pinterest behaves much more like SEO: slow to start, durable once it lands.

The practical consequence is that your reporting rhythm has to change. Checking a Pin the morning after tells you nothing useful, and reacting to that non-signal by changing strategy is how people churn through four approaches in three months and never give any of them the time to work.

It also changes what good looks like. A Pin that quietly sends thirty visits a month for two years is worth far more than one that spikes to 5,000 impressions and dies — and only the second one looks impressive in a weekly report.

Decision rule: review Pin performance monthly and judge cohorts, not individual Pins. Look at what the Pins you made three months ago are doing now — that’s the real signal.

Can you edit a Pin after publishing it?

You can edit a Pin’s title, description, board and destination link after publishing. You generally can’t swap the image itself.

The most valuable use of this is fixing broken links. If you change your site structure or retire a page, every Pin pointing there becomes a dead end — and because Pins live for years, you can be quietly losing traffic from Pins you made long ago. Auditing destination links after any site migration is genuinely worth doing.

Editing titles and descriptions on Pins that already get impressions but few clicks is the other good use. You keep whatever distribution the Pin has earned while improving the thing that converts it.

Being unable to replace the image is less of a limitation than it sounds, since fresh Pins tend to be favoured anyway. If the image is the problem, making a new Pin is usually the better move regardless.

Decision rule: edit text and links freely on Pins that are already performing. If the image is what’s failing, don’t edit — make a new Pin and leave the old one alone.

Conclusion

Creating a Pin takes two minutes. Creating one that works takes a bit of thought about three things: the right ratio, a title someone would actually search, and a link that goes exactly where the Pin promised.

Do that consistently and Pinterest compounds in a way almost nothing else does. The Pin you make this afternoon can still be sending people to your site long after a post on any other platform would have vanished.

Read next: how brands can drive sales on Pinterest, and how to boost blog traffic using social media.

Want Pins that actually pull traffic? Talk to AB Media — we design and run Pinterest content built around search intent.