How To Embed Hidden Pinnable Pictures into your Blog Posts

I’ve been a bit slow to the Pinterest game when it comes to blogging. It’s taken me a while to get into the swing of it. I understood the basics – make sure pictures are bright, good quality, and linked to content you were proud of. I’ve been working a lot on developing a style for my images on my blog over the last two years. And unfortunately, the long-form style which Pinterest adores doesn’t do it for me. So, what’s a girl to do? I wanted to make my posts as Pinnable as possible without compromising the way I liked them to look. How did I do it?

Initially I was creating separate pinnable pictures, uploading them straight to Pinterest and linking the post. Which is fine, but it’s not exactly organic. I tried adding them into the end of the post but I didn’t like the look of it.

And then I discovered that you can hide pictures in your blogposts. GAME. CHANGER. I can now have Pinnable long images appear if you go to pin my blog post, but not have it affect the way I like my posts to look.

So, how do you do it?

It’s actually fairly simple, which is good, because when it comes to the coding side of this I am a total novice.

Firstly, create your Pinterest image. I use Canva to make mine, I love how simple it is to use. (See how I use it to make Blog Title Graphics here) For one thing, they’ve got pre-made templates to use, or you can go back to a template you’ve used before for a quick image rustle-up. They’ve also got a great selection of free stock photos, fonts and images as well as others to buy. I could (and do) rave all day about it, but that would be wasting time.

Once you’ve created the image and saved it to your computer, it’s time to upload it to your blog post. These instructions are for WordPress blogs, as that’s what I use, however it may also be possible to do it with other platforms.

First, insert the image like you do any image in your blog posts. Go to Add Media > Upload Image, select your image and click Upload. Then insert it into your post. I tend to put mine at the very end, but you can put it anywhere.

Then (and here’s where the magic happens), you need to move from the Visual viewer to the Text viewer. Once you’re in there, you’ll see the code for your image wherever you have placed it within your post. Just before the image code, add in

<div style="display: none;">

If you don’t already have </div> after the image code, insert that too (so you don’t hide the next sentence / image). My putting the hidden image at the end has ensured that this is never an issue, but if you put yours elsewhere you don’t want to hide half your blog post accidentally!

And voila, it’s done. Unless you go to Pin the post to one of your Pinterest boards, you’ll be none the wiser. But, when you do, there will be an optimised image waiting and ready for pinning, which should appeal to others who see your feed.

Hopefully this will increase the impact of your pins in your feed; I’ve seen a big increase in my click through rate since bringing it in. I’ve been using Tailwind to great effect to get organised on Pinterest – it allows me to queue everything up and schedule it at optimal times, meaning more people get to see my pins. I’ve seen a massive increase in traffic from this, I’ll do a seperate post on that if anyone would like it. If you’d like to try a free month of Tailwind, follow this link – try it for yourself! Make the most of those super pinnable images!

I’d love to hear any other tips you’ve got, or any new bits you’ve picked up. Let me know in the comments, over on Facebook or on Twitter. And while you’re at it, check out BadMammy on Pinterest if you like what you’ve read so far!