How to Enable Rich Pins in 3 Easy Steps

Pinterest has become more than just another social media platform where you can post pretty pictures.

With over 175 million users, it’s now one of the world’s biggest search engines.

Online shopping has also become a valuable resource on Pinterest. Every day nearly 2 million people pin products that have rich pins.

If you want to get more out of Pinterest for your business or blog, make sure you are using rich pins.

I’ll help show you how in three easy steps. But first…

What is a rich Pin?

A rich pin is a format on Pinterest that helps show more information about your pin. They apply to four types of pins:

• Product: Includes real-time pricing, availability and where to buy your product.
• Recipe: Automatically includes ingredients, cooking times and serving sizes.
• Article: Includes a headline, author and story description.
• App: Displays an install button so people can download your app without leaving Pinterest.

Why Do I Want Rich Pins?

Pins that are formatted as rich pins have been shown to have increased engagement. They display information in a user-friendly format so more people discover them and then repin them.

Step 1: Add The Yoast SEO Plugin

If you don’t already have this plugin installed on your WordPress site you should add it right now. In order to enable rich pins, your site will need to deliver the information to Pinterest in a specific format called metadata. Fortunately, the Yoast SEO plugin makes it all very simple!

Install the plugin and then go to the “Social” tab under the SEO section in your WordPress admin bar. Click the “Facebook” tab (even though we’re doing this for Pinterest) and make sure the “Add Open Graph meta data” tab is set to “Enabled”.

Step 2: Validate Your Blog on Pinterest

You’ll need to validate that your site has the correct metadata structure by entering a URL from any of your blog posts (not your homepage) on Pinterest’s Rich Pin Validator.

Step 3: Apply

After validating you’ll see a message that says “Your Pin’s Been Validated!”. Next, click “Apply Now.” A pop up should open with your website’s domain and the “HTML tags” radio button selected. Click “Apply Now” again.

The application may take a few days to be approved but you’ll be notified by Pinterest once it goes through.

You’ll know it’s working when you go to your Pinterest analytics and see a little “R” icon next to pins that are rich.

That’s it! Wasn’t that easy?

What do you think of this article? Do you have any questions for me? Ask me in the comments box below!

FROM THE SHOP