Pinterest Rich Pins in 2023: The Easy Guide for Beginners

So you may be thinking: What the heck are Pinterest rich pins anyway?

Well today is your lucky day because I am going to walk you through everything you need to know about this simple but powerful Pinterest marketing technique. Glad you’re here!

Spoiler alert:

Pinterest rich pins are one of the easiest ways to drive more traffic to your website from Pinterest – for 100% free.

And before you think this is some technical hocus-pocus and you can’t be bothered with, hear this:

Rich pins are really easy to set up. I’ll show you how to do it in just a minute!

Now, let’s get started and grow your Pinterest traffic together!

Make sure you grab your FREE Pinterest marketing quick guide below to steal my proven Pinterest traffic strategies right now:

Disclosure: This page contains affiliate links, meaning I receive a commission if you decide to purchase using my links, but at no additional cost to you. Please read my disclosure for more information.

What are rich pins on Pinterest?

Pinterest rich pins are dynamic pins that automatically pull data from your website.

Here’s the official definition from Pinterest:

Rich Pins are a type of organic Pin that automatically sync information from your website to your Pins. You can identify Rich Pins by the extra information above and below the image on closeup and the bold title in your feed. If something changes on the original website, the Rich Pin updates to reflect that change.

Sounds a tad technical, I know. But we can instantly see two fantastic benefits:

First, rich pins automatically pull data from your website. This gives each pin more context and your target audience will see more details about your content right away.

Second, rich pins sync information from your website or WordPress blog whenever you make changes to your blog posts.

For example, let’s say you have a blog post about “The Best Romantic Comedies on Netflix in 2023”.

Chances are that those movies are just as funny and interesting in 2024 – perhaps with a few additions.

So towards the end of 2023, you update your blog post and change the title to “…2024”.

With rich pins activated, all your existing pins for that blog post will automatically pull the new title from your website.

Now all your pins still link to the same blog post but users will see the current year in your pin title. Neat!

What do Pinterest rich pins look like?

Soooo… what do Pinterest rich pins look like?

You can find three different types of rich pins on Pinterest. Let’s take a quick look:

1: Article rich pins

Article rich pins show the title, the meta description, and the author of the article or blog post.

Showing these details to pinners helps you build brand awareness on the platform – for free!

For example, when I’m scrolling through my Home Feed, I love seeing new, fresh pins from familiar faces. I’m much more likely to click on a pin if I see it’s from a creator I’m already following.

2: Recipe rich pins

Recipe rich pins show a title, serving size, cooking time, ratings, and a list of ingredients.

Also, to draw in the right audience to the recipe, the pins sometimes even include a diet preference.

Depending on the recipe plugin you use in WordPress, the details may vary.

(Yum, I LOVE banoffee pie!)

3: Product rich pins

Product rich pins linking to product pages will display the most up-to-date information on pricing and availability.

Why you should enable rich pins: 4 benefits

Pinterest rich pins help you grow your reach on the platform because they tell users what your article, product, or recipe is about.

Let me show you why you should enable Pinterest rich pins for your blog asap:

Reason #1: They give users more information about your content

The additional information on rich pins encourages users to engage with your content.

For example, when they see the list of ingredients, the cooking time, and step-by-step instructions for your recipe, they are much more likely to save it to their boards right away.

Rich pins help users find the content they are looking for faster.

Bear in mind that displaying most of the information about your recipe in rich pins may decrease the clicks to your blog.

However, that additional information means people are more likely to save it to their boards for later.

Also, the visitors your rich pins send to your website usually have a lower bounce rate. Those visitors are more likely to spend more time there, peruse your content, and perhaps sign up for your email list.

If you haven’t started one yet, head over to my step-by-step tutorial to start your email list for free now.

All in all, rich pins mean your visitors are more engaged, and genuinely interested in your recipes overall.

Reason #2: They update automatically when you update your blog post

This is by far the #1 benefit from activating Pinterest rich pins for your blog!

Let me explain:

Sometimes you may want to update an old blog post to give it a boost and generate more traffic.

You may even update the blog post title to make people want to click through to your website, right?

When you enable rich pins on Pinterest, the titles on all your existing pins to that blog post will automatically update, too.

As I mentioned above, this is a nifty feature for any blog posts that have a specific year in the title.

For example, one of my most popular articles is titled “How to Start a WordPress Blog on Bluehost in 2023“.

But that article will be just as current in 2024 – with a few updates and additional bits of helpful information my readers need.

So when I update my blog post title to “…2024”, all my pins pointing to that article will pull the new title and display it to my target audience on Pinterest.

Hence, rich pins save you time by keeping your content fresh and up-to-date on Pinterest.

Reason #3: They stand out in the feed

Most pinners find your content in these three feeds:

1. The Smart Feed or Home Feed
2. Search results
3. Similar content (display below a pin in the close-up view)

When you enable rich pins, your pins will be branded with your Pinterest profile photo or logo.

Users will also see your blog post title in bold below your pin image:

This is huge advantage against normal pins that don’t display any additional information about your content in the feed.

Firstly, your photo or logo will help you build brand awareness on the platform.

Secondly, users will instantly see your blog post title below your pin image. Use titles that make people curious to click!

Reason #4: They have a built-in Follow button

Last but not least, Pinterest rich pins will display a Follow button when a user opens the close-up view:

This allows new users to discover your account more easily, and encourages them to follow you instantly if they like your pin. Neat!

The meta data pulled from your website and the additional features – such as the Follow button – are massive advantages you want to use!

The best part?

Enabling rich pins is super easy. Let’s activate them for your WordPress blog right now!

How to activate rich pins in WordPress

Let’s get down to business, shall we?

Now, if you’ve been postponing rich pins because they sound technical, you are in the right place.

Because the truth is:

Activating them is much easier than you may think. You’ll be done in 5 minutes, trust me!

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Step 1: Add meta data to your website

Meta data sounds scary. But it’s not.

It’s simply a fancy name for information that we will add to your website. This will take 2 minutes.

First, make sure you install and activate the Yoast SEO plugin.

You can search for “Yoast SEO” and install it in your WordPress dashboard under Plugins > Add New:

Once the installation is complete, click on the Activate button:

Alternatively, you can download the plugin as a ZIP file here and upload the ZIP file to your WordPress website in Plugins > Add New > Upload Plugin:

And again, once the installation is complete, activate the plugin.

Next, head over to Yoast SEO > Settings > General > Site features in your WordPress dashboard menu.

In the Social sharing section, enable the Open Graph data feature:

Congrats! We are now done with the technical part of activating your Pinterest rich pins, yay!

Step 2: Apply for rich pins and validate

Now that your website is set up for Pinterest rich pins, it’s time to let Pinterest know.

Head over to the Rich Pin Validator tool.

Next, copy a single URL from your website and paste it into the field and click Validate:

You should now see a green check symbol and a message saying that your Pinterest rich pins are valid.

Click on the Apply Now button to submit your rich pins application.

If you don’t see the message, it means that Pinterest can’t find the required meta data on the page URL you entered.

Here’s what you can do:

• Wait a few minutes – It may take a couple of minutes for Pinterest to find the meta data from the Yoast SEO plugin on your website.
• Clear your website cache – If you are using a caching plugin, Pinterest may not see the latest version of the URL you entered into the validator tool. Clear your cache and try again.

For all the details and more help, check out the rich pins documentation.

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You know what? You’re done!

Now, give yourself a pat on the back and sit back.

You will get an email from Pinterest when they approve your application. Here’s what mine looked like when I applied for rich pins for my coding blog:

Pinterest will now start to pull the data for your rich pins, and your existing pins will convert into rich pins automatically.

Depending on how much content you have, this may take a few days. Just have patience here, fellow pinner!

What you should do next: Optimize your pin titles and descriptions

Now that you’ve unlocked the power of Pinterest rich pins, what’s next?

Remember how rich pins pull data directly from your blog posts?

Hence, you need to make sure that data is available for Pinterest to see and display to users.

Also, you want to utilize that extra real estate to make people curious to click on your pins and visit your website!

Here are a few quick tips to make the most of your rich pins:

1: Write click-worthy blog post titles and meta descriptions

First, make sure you add a compelling blog post title and meta description to each blog post. This encourages people to actually visit your website.

If you followed my guide above, you already installed and activated the Yoast SEO plugin.

This plugin makes it super easy to add and edit your blog post title and meta description.

When editing your blog post, scroll down to the Yoast SEO section:

There, fill in your SEO title and meta description.

It’s perfectly OK to use the default SEO title based on the blog post title you entered into your WordPress blog post editor. But sometimes you may want to write a more click-worthy title for search engines.

If you leave the meta description blank, your rich pins will display the first few lines of your blog post.

2: Use a recipe plugin for your recipe blog

If you are a food blogger and some of your blog posts are recipes, you want to display your ingredients list, cooking time, and other information on your rich pins.

The easiest way to do this is to use a WordPress recipe plugin that allows you to enter all these details more easily in your blog post editor.

Otherwise, you will waste your time making sure your recipe details are tagged with the right meta data selectors and identificators. (I’m a web developer and even I think that sounds too cumbersome and tedious.)

Here’s a shortcut I recommend:

WP Tasty Recipes is an easy-to-use, robust recipe plugin that makes it easy to write and publish beautiful recipe posts on your blog.

It takes care of all the heavy lifting for you. You can simply add a “Tasty Recipe” block to your blog post and enter your recipe details:

Now all your recipe information is nice and structured for both your readers and search engines like Pinterest and Google. Pretty great, huh?

If you are not familiar, check out the full documentation and beginner’s guide for WP Tasty Recipes here.

Also, check out their testimonials here to see what other food bloggers are saying about the plugin.

General FAQ: Pinterest rich pins

Final thoughts: How to enable Pinterest rich pins in 5 minutes

Even if you are completely new to Pinterest marketing…

Even if you thought enabling Pinterest rich pins is difficult and technical…

Even if you only have 5 minutes to spare…

You want to activate rich pins for your blog right now!

I really hope you found this guide helpful. I know there are tons of things to think about when you start building a presence on Pinterest.

Just remember to do one thing at a time and don’t skip ahead. It’s important to make sure your Pinterest account is set up correctly before you do anything on the platform.

Now, if you didn’t already, add the required meta data to your website and apply for rich pins right now!

If you run into any problems, please feel free to share them in the comments below! I’m here to help!

Once you’ve set up your Pinterest rich pins, it’s time to learn how the Pinterest algorithm REALLY works.

Understanding the basics of how Pinterest distributes your pins to users helps you create stunning Pinterest graphics and save them to your Pinterest boards the right way.

I’ll see you in the next Pinterest marketing guide!