How to create Pinterest Rich Pins - step-by-step guide • Peas On Toast

What’s a Pinterest Rich Pin?

Do you ever use Pinterest to plan your next holiday, or find a new product? Maybe you prefer reading helpful or hilarious blog posts? Or you just like to scour the boards to find beautiful images?

TIP: this tutorial relates to the post: Website Diary #3 – Alexa, Pinterest boards and rich pins

Many people use Pinterest, not just as a social media platform, but as a visual notebook or vision board for inspiration.

Whatever your reason for using Pinterest, your pins become much more useful and attractive if they’re Rich Pins.

So… now’s the time to create Pinterest Rich Pins.

In this tutorial, you’ll learn what a Pinterest Rich Pin looks like, how to set up a Pinterest Business Account and validate your website, and how to create Pinterest Rich Pins

What’s a Rich Pin look like?

Pinterest has six types of Rich Pin: app, movie, recipe, article, product and place. Each offers dynamic information specific to your website images.

For instance, use the “place” Rich Pin if you love to travel, then whenever someone pins your images, it automatically includes a map, address and phone number without you having to type that into the description.

If you sell products, use the “product” Rich Pin so your pins always show current pricing, availability and places to buy and link directly to the correct page. And if you’re a blogger, choose the “article” Rich Pin for the headline, author and story description.

It’s a good idea to start using Rich Pins rather than Plain Pins to help your followers learn more about your website.

Example of a Pinterest Plain Pin

Here’s an example of a Plain Pin and an “article” Rich Pin.

PeasOnToast.co.uk | example of a Pinterest rich pin

Example of a Pinterest Rich Pin – dynamic information shown circled red

Notice how the Plain Pin has no dynamic information about the image, whereas the Rich Pin includes that information automatically from your website – shown circled red in the image to the right.

I need to update the image description to include helpful information about the image/post. It no longer needs to include my website details as that’s already included in the dynamic information created by the Rich Pin.

How to set up a Pinterest Business Account and validate your website

Setting up a Pinterest Business Account

Setting up a free Pinterest business account

If you’ve not done so already, you’ll need to set up a free Pinterest business account otherwise you won’t be able to use Rich Pins:

visit the Get Started page to set up your business account
complete all fields – don’t worry if you’re not sure which business type to select at this stage, as you’ll be able to easily change it later in the settings menu
type in your website URL and select “confirm website” to validate it – this gives you access to your website’s Pinterest analytics and, each time your images are pinned, they’ll include your website logo (Note: see below for help in validating your website)

Validating your website on Pinterest

If you’ve already got a Pinterest business account, but haven’t yet validated your website:

Select “edit settings” to access your Business Account Basics

open your Pinterest account
click the gear settings menu in the top right corner and select Edit Settings to access your Business Account Basics
scroll down to the “Profile” section and type in your website url
click “confirm website” to validate it using either an html file or a meta tag.
NOTE: you could follow the validation instructions on Pinterest’s Confirm Your Website page to edit your index.html or public_html file BUT the quickest and easiest way to is to copy Pinterest’s meta tag (it appears after you’ve typed your URL into the website field for validation) and install the Yoast SEO plugin
once installed, go to the Social tab for Pinterest on the Yoast SEO plugin, and paste the meta tag in the “Pinterest verification” field, save changes
Adding the Pinterest meta tag using the Yoast SEO plugin to validate your website url
go back to Pinterest and click Confirm. Pinterest will automatically check your website and confirm it’s validated

How to set up and create Pinterest Rich Pins

Now that you’ve got a validated Pinterest Business Account, you can set up and create Pinterest Rich Pins:

type “rich pins pinterest for business” into the search engine
Search for rich pins Pinterest for business
select the first Pinterest option which takes you to a Pinterest screen listing the different types of Rich Pins
scroll down to the “How can I get Rich Pins?” section and select “Get Started”
Select “Get Started” to get Pinterest Rich Pins
you’ll now be taken to the Pinterest Overview page which explains how to validate your website ready for Rich Pins, and how to opt out of using Rich Pins
click the blue linked “validator” word in the middle paragraph of “Get Rich Pins”
Validating your website ready for a Pinterest Rich Pin
click the blue linked “URL debugger” option
Select the Pinterest URL debugger to validate your website
ok, NOW STOP. Go to Yoast SEO plugin’s Social tab for Pinterest on your website Dashboard. Did you notice the sentence above the Pinterest Verification field? It explains that Pinterest uses the same Open Graph metadata as Facebook
select Yoast SEO plugin’s Social tab for Facebook and tick to “Add Open Graph metadata”
Add Open Graph metadata for Pinterest Rich Pins
save changes in the Yoast SEO plugin
go to Pinterest’s URL debugger
type one of your page or post URLs from your website into the “Enter a Valid URL” field and click “Validate”
Add one of your website page or post URLs for validation
Pinterest confirms that your pins have been verified and invites you to apply to enable your Rich Pins. Click “Apply”
Your Pinterest Pins are validated – apply for Rich Pins
As soon as you “Apply Now”, you’ll see the following screen:
Pinterest will contact to confirm when your Rich Pins are validated

TIP: to give you an idea of timeframe – it took just a few minutes for Pinterest to email me confirmation that my website’s approved for Rich Pins

That’s it.

Once you’ve received Pinterest’s email confirming that your website’s ready for Rich Pins, check your Pinterest account.

You’ll notice that your pins now include the dynamic information from your website.

But…

TIP: here’s a (soon to be available) quick tutorial for editing the Alt Text without having to view each image individually

Pinterest uses each image’s Alt Text to populate the description field. Unless your website images already include helpful Alt Text, it’s a good idea to update them all now.

Otherwise, each time someone pins an image from your website, they’ll either leave the description field empty or have to re-type their own description for Pinterest.

If you found this post helpful or have any questions about it, leave me a comment below, as I’d love to hear from you.

Note: This article is intended to be a general resource only and is not intended to be professional advice.

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Mrs P

I'm a full-time working wife and mum who loves searching for innovative products and learning how to run a successful website. I started PeasOnToast.co.uk to help people like you:
- reviews to save you time looking for good value, quality household/fintech products
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How to create Pinterest Rich Pins – step-by-step guide