Rich Pins has definitely added a layer of professionalism in my blog. Before I was a little skeptical on how Pinterest would help my blog grow but when I see really good comments about it I feel like I have to dive in.
Rich Pins show metadata right on the Pin itself, giving Pinners a richer experience and increasing engagement. Information in a Rich Pin is independent of the Pin description, ensuring that important information is always tied to the Pin.
Rich Pins work by displaying metadata from marked up pages on your website. Once you’ve applied for Rich Pins, any content on your site with metadata will turn into a Rich Pin when a user saves it. – Pinterest Developers
If you haven’t setup your blog to enable rich pins to your site, this post is for you. I will show you a very easy step by step approach which will take you about 10 minutes!
Rich Pins has five types:
It is important to know what Pin type do you need based on your blog niche‘ or focus. Say for example my blog is a lifestyle blog, that way I would know that I need to markup my website in the ‘Article‘ type. If you have a food blog, in that case you should use the ‘Recipes‘ pin type.
How To Add Rich Pins To Your Site:
There is a two step process for you to be able to add Rich Pins:
Add metadata to the content on your site.
Every type of Rich Pin uses a different kind of metadata so you need to check that out. In this guide we’ll be focusing on ‘Article’ type. The most common formats used area Open Graph and Schema.org. If you’re not familiar with these technical stuff, I would suggest you to ask your web developer to do these for you.
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Article Pins
This is what I used in my blog which let users know that they area clicking on a pin with original content. This type of Rich Pin includes a headline, author and story description.
Open Graph
If your blog is currently using Open Graph format you need to provide information about your article in the head tag of your page.
Below is an example of what I did on my blog.
First, change the below meta tag to fit your content. Next, open any page in your blog, go to “Text tab” and paste the meta tag in the top portion of the page.
Property | Description | Status |
|---|---|---|
| og:type | Must take the value of “article” or “blog”. | Required |
| og:title | The article title. This title may be truncated, depending on length. All formatting and HTML tags will be removed. | Required |
| og:description | The article description or summary. This may be truncated, depending on length. All formatting, line breaks and HTML tags will be removed. | Required |
| og:site_name | The site name (e.g., “Beauty&Cherries”). Using this field is strongly suggested. | Optional |
| og:url | The canonical URL for the page. For example, “http://beautyandcherries.com/happy-couples/” (You can also specify canonical with standard HTML markup: <link rel="canonical" href="..."/>) | Optional |
| article:published_time | The date the article was first published. The time should be in ISO 8601 date format. | Optional |
| article:author | The article author. All formatting, line breaks and HTML tags will be removed. | Optional |
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2. After you add the markup in your page, go to Pinterest Validator and just add the URL for the page where you added the mark up.
“You only need to validate and click apply for one link on your site to enable Rich Pins across your whole domain.” – Pinterest Developers
Once everything is setup, check your Pinterest profile and see if your Old pins are now Rich Pins.
See below example from before and after I enabled Rich Pins.
See? that simple!
Does enabling Rich Pins to your site makes a difference?
If you already use ‘Rich Pins’ to your Pinterest profile, let me know in the comment section below on how does it helps your blog.
PIN THIS!
gin
Oh goodness this whole part right here totally confused me! Lol…
Open Graph
If your blog is currently using Open Graph format you need to provide information about your article in the head tag of your page.
Below is an example of what I did on my blog.
First, change the below meta tag to fit your content. Next, open any page in your blog, go to “Text tab” and paste the meta tag in the top portion of the page.
Property
Description
Status
og:type
Must take the value of “article” or “blog”.
Required
og:title
The article title. This title may be truncated, depending on length. All formatting and HTML tags will be removed.
Required
og:description
The article description or summary. This may be truncated, depending on length. All formatting, line breaks and HTML tags will be removed.
Required
og:site_name
The site name (e.g., “Beauty&Cherries”). Using this field is strongly suggested.
Optional
og:url
The canonical URL for the page. For example, “http://beautyandcherries.com/happy-couples/” (You can also specify canonical with standard HTML markup: <link rel=”canonical” href=”…”/>)
Optional
article:published_time
The date the article was first published. The time should be in ISO 8601 date format.
Optional
article:author
The article author. All formatting, line breaks and HTML tags will be removed.
Optional
Add meta tag to blog page
How do you know if your blog is using Open Graph?
Where do you find the Meta tag?
Where do you find the Head Tab?
Thanks.
Renee Groskreutz
This is a seriously needed tutorial. It is a oddly more difficult then it should be to add rich pins. I am going to share this for sure.
Janica Khemlani
So happy you find it useful @StuffinReneesBrain:disqus! 🙂
Susanne
Since I’ve started using Rich Pins, I’ve already started to notice an increase in followers. Great advice!
Janica
Hi @Susanne, I agree with you. I’ve noticed an increase on my pins and followers as well.
Janica Khemlani
Upon updating this post, I realized my previous comment was lost. Thank you Sussanne for you’re thoughts! 🙂
Sayantini Bhattacharya
That’s a very useful post, especially newbies like me. I have been pinning on Pinterest but I think I needed to know about this. I like Pinterest a lot 🙂
Janica
Thank you @Sayantini for reading! I’m so happy you find it helpful 🙂
Janica Khemlani
How was it going with you’re blogging journey Sayantini? Let me know if you need more tips 🙂