Have you enabled Rich Pins for Pinterest in your WordPress site? Maybe I’m behind the time (yes, I am behind the times) but I hadn’t done so until recently. So, if you haven’t enabled Rich Pins and have no idea how to do so, read on!
Rich Pins are like “Super Pins”! They are important because they add extra information to anything pinned from a website. There are 3 main types of Rich Pins: Article, Product and Recipe. Product Rich Pins show the most updated price, product info and availability right on the pin, while Article and Recipe Rich Pins will update to show any edits made on the initiating site. There are also App Rich Pins, which are currently only compatible with iOS; App pins include an install button so users can download directly without having to leave Pinterest.
Since Pinterest uses the meta data from your site to generate the Rich Pin information, you will want to ensure that you have updated your site contents with rich meta tags.
The instructions below use the Yoast SEO plugin.
Step 1: Install the Yoast SEO Plugin
To add this to your WordPress, go to Plugins – Add New – Search for Yoast or go to https://wordpress.org/plugins/wordpress-seo to download the plugin and upload it to your site.
Step 2: Enable Open Graph Meta Data
Go to SEO > Social and click on the Facebook tab (yes – Facebook). Under “Add Open Graph Meta Data” click to ensure that “Enabled” is highlighted. This will automatically create all the information that Pinterest will need to produce your rich pin. Pinterest and Facebook both use this meta data, so by enabling rich pins in WordPress, your Facebook posts will improve, too.
Make sure to confirm your website in your Pinterest account. This is easy to do in Yoast SEO!
In SEO > Social and click on the Pinterest tab. In a separate tab, open Pinterest, go to your profile settings, and scroll down to “Claim”, add your website, click to claim and copy the meta tag. Back in Yoast SEO, paste that meta tag in the field on the Pinterest tab of the plugin, and save your changes. Go back to Pinterest and finish there. Pinterest will automatically check the meta tag and confirm your site.
Step 3: Validate and Apply for Rich Pins
For this step, you’ll need to go to the Rich Pins Validator at the Pinterest site: Follow the directions provided there, entering the URL from one of your blog posts.
Click “Validate” and your pin should be validated, then you can go on to apply for Rich Pins.
Ensure your domain in correct, choose “HTML Tags” option, and click “Apply”.
Pinterest generally enables Rich Pins within an hour and will email you when they are live.
Go check out your new Rich Pins!