How to Set up Pinterest Rich Pins in 3 Easy Steps!
Last Updated on January 20, 2022
One of the most popular questions I get as a Pinterest expert is “What are Pinterestrich pins” and “how do I set up rich pins?!”.
Let me explain exactly what rich pins are, how they will help your account and most importantly, how to set it up the easy way.
What are rich pins?
Before you get down to business, it’s important you understand what rich pins are in the first place.
Rich Pins provide an additional layer of engagement by showing metadata right on the Pin itself. This gives people who come across your pins more information, making it easier for them to find valuable posts and engage with them.
Think of rich pins as the premium experience for pinners, meaning that it only helps your pins look more professional and trusting. However, you don’t have to pay some sort of fee to upgrade, you can apply and validate rich pins for free, and it’s easy to do.
Are rich pins still a thing?
Yes absolutely!
Rich pins are definitely still a thing and if they ever are not, I will update this blog post. It’s still very important you take the time to do this step so that you can really give your pins and account the best chance of success on Pinterest.
What does a rich pin look like?
There are 3 types of rich pins on Pinterest
Article rich pins
Rich pins on pins leading to blog posts and articles add the headline or title, the description, and the author of the article or blog post from your site. When scrolling on Pinterest you will see extra information like the picture above.
Product pins
Product rich pins include the most up-to-date pricing, availability, and product information right on your Pin which is extremely needed as Pinterest is a search engine and pins circulate forever, not just for a few days after posting.
Recipe pins
Recipe rich pins add a title, serving size, ratings, diet preference, cook time and a list of ingredients to recipes that you Pin right from your site.
As an avid pinner of recipes, I can say from personal experience that this makes me WAY more interested in your own and more likely to click through because it looks more professional.
Are rich pins better?
Heck yes, they are! The benefits of having rich pins enabled far out ways of not having them at all. So definitely take the time to do this step now.
For example, on recipe pins, as a pinner myself, I love being able to see the cook time and ingredients before I click over to see the recipe. I live in Albania and most ingredients you can find in the US and the UK are not available here so I want to see if I can actually make the recipe first otherwise it’s wasting my time.
There is a big debate for food bloggers whether it’s helpful to put them on or if it will keep people on Pinterest on your pin rather than clicking over to your site but as I just explained, I still click over to your recipe if it’s the right fit for me. I hardly ever stay on Pinterest and cook a recipe right from there.
Pinterest will also not add the directions to your rich pins so people will have to go to your site in order to know HOW to cook the recipe.
For bloggers, there should be no debate whether to turn this feature on or off.
Personally, I think the most important rich pin is the product one.
So, why is a product rich pin so important?
For product pins, it just makes sense to turn rich pins on. You’re going to have the most up-to-date information on your pins as the product price and availability might change. As I said above, Pinterest is a search engine, so pins circulate forever.
When you put out a product pin it will circulate for years, however, your availability or price is likely to change within that time frame.
There’s nothing more frustrating than finding an awesome product through Pinterest that I want to get and then clicking through to find out that it’s no longer available or the price is different than advertised on your pins.
How to set up rich pins for your account
Let’s get into setting rich pins up – the easy way! It only takes 3 easy steps to get rich pins activated for your account.
Step 1 – Add the metadata to your website
The first and most important step is to add the metadata that Pinterest provides to your website.
WordPress users: If you have a WordPress website, I highly recommend doing it through the Yoast SEO plugin. If you haven’t already downloaded that I recommend you do anyway because it can help you a tonne with your SEO.
When you have downloaded the Yoast plugin, make sure you fill in all your social information and then do this.
Go to Yoast > Social > Facebook and make sure you have ‘Add Open Graph meta data’ enabled like the picture above. That’s it!
Recipe blogs on WordPress: Make sure you have done the above step and then this second step too. In order for Pinterest to display the extra information like cook time, ingredients etc, you will need to install a recipe card plugin to your site.
Tasty WP or WP Recipe Maker are two plugins that come highly recommended by a lot of food bloggers.
Once you have downloaded the plugin make sure you have filled out the information, so Pinterest knows what to pull for your rich pins.
Squarespace users: Just make sure your site is validated with Pinterest in your settings. Squarespace automatically adds the metadata for you to enable rich pins.
Wix users: Read this article from Wix that tells you how to validate rich pins.
Step 2 – Validate
The second step is to visit the Pinterest rich pin validator here. You will just need to plug in any URL from your site (just make sure it’s not your home page) and click validate.
Once you have hit that button you should see a green tick that tells you ‘Your pins have been validated’.
Check that the information is correct before you apply.
The validation process will show:
- Rich pin type
- Name (this is the title/header of your post)
- Date published
- Author
- Description (This is taken from your meta description)
Make sure that all of the above has a green tick.
Once you are happy with that information then you can click ‘Apply Now’.
Step 3 – Get approved
The application process can be done right away or take a few days to be approved so you will need to be patient.
Pinterest can take a few days to pull the data onto your pins on Pinterest anyway so you will not see that extra information right away.
If it has been over a week and you still have not been approved, then I would urge you to reach out to the help section and ask what’s going on. Unfortunately, Pinterest support can sometimes miss messages so keep messaging them for answers.
How to create pins that work on Pinterest
Now that your rich pins have hopefully been activated you will now need to make sure you create those high-quality pins that inspire.
Most pinners come to Pinterest to be inspired to take action. Here are 5 important things your pin needs to have:
Visually appealing: This is a MUST since Pinterest is a visual search engine. If your pin is dull, unclear and the pictures are not high-quality, you’re really going to struggle with converting pinners into clicks.
Relevant: Your piece of content needs to be relevant to the pinner. Any keywords and boards where you post needs to match the content of the pin. Also, the destination on which they are clicking needs to be the same as what you’re advertising.
Positive: When creating your pins make sure that you’re being inspiring as positive sentiments do better on Pinterest. For example:
“3 ways to love yourself more” rather than this “This is why you hate yourself right now”.
Try to spin the title into a more positive action rather than making the pinner feel bad and agitating them.
Original: You need to make original content for Pinterest, not just posting your Instagram picture or uploading tik toks with the watermark.
Make sure the content you put out is original and not just reposted. You absolutely can repurpose your content for Pinterest, but just make sure you do it the right way.
Actionable: Make your pin inspire the pinner to take action. Why should they click through to your pin? Why is now the time to learn this new skill? Why do they need to do this DIY TODAY?
When your pins are actionable and give a sense of urgency to the pinner, they are more likely to take action and click through to your destination link, buy your product, sign up to your email list or become a long-term reader of your blog.
Important tips to remember
Remember for food bloggers, make sure you do add that extra information to each of your recipes when you post them! I promise you the effort is worth it.
Every blog post needs to have a meta description, not just for SEO purposes but for Pinterest too. Click here to read about my best SEO tips. To help you get started. Google SEO and Pinterest go hand in hand, but they are slightly different.
Hopefully, that step-by-step guide helped you to understand what rich pins are and how they work. If you have any further questions, feel free to comment below and I will try to help as best as I can.
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