If you have a food blog, I don't need to tell you how important Pinterest is to your business. If your blog is anything like The Endless Meal, you already get a large portion of your traffic from Pinterest. What you might not be leveraging, however, is the power of Rich Pins.
I'm going to share with you two things:
- What rich pins are, why they're important and how they can drive traffic to your blog. (Ok, that was three things)
- How to get rich pins for your food blog
Let's start with #1
Why you want Pinterest rich pins
Rich Pins are also known as Super Pins, and they should be known as Super Freaking Awesome Pins. They add a little bit of crucial information to the bottom of the images on your site that you or your readers pin. You can see in the picture above that many of the recipe's ingredients, serving size, the time it takes to make the recipe as well as relevant tag information such as vegetarian and paleo are listed.
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Rich Pins get re-pinned far more than regular pins. Having Rich Pins will allow Pinterest users to see easily if your pin is one they would like to re-pin. I love them to quickly check the ingredient list to make sure that the image I'm pinning leads to an appropriate recipe … I wouldn't want to accidentally pin a picture to my Vegan Board that has animal ingredients in it.
Having Pinterest Rich Pins also leads to higher click-through rates. In a test study, Target experienced a 70% increase in traffic from Pinterest once they implemented Rich Pins. Having Rich Recipe Pins allows pinners to see your recipe's ingredients, and it encourages them to click through to see the rest of the recipe.
How to get Pinterest Rich Pins for your food blog
Have you read Pinterest's “help” page on getting rich pins? I did, and I can tell you it made my mind spin. I was convinced that I'd have to shell out $$$ to hire a developer, or I'd have to go without them. I didn't like either option.
After searching endlessly for an easy to do (read: non-technical) option I finally found one. One thing I can tell you for sure is getting rich pins for your food blog is super easy. Let me walk you through it.
Step 1:
Install Easy Recipe. Chances are you already have this super handy recipe plugin; most food blogs do. I paid a few dollars for Easy Recipe Plus so I can have more control over the way the recipes look, but the free version will work just as well for this.
Step 2:
Navigate to the Rich Pin Validator page, enter the URL of a page with a recipe on your food blog and click the blue ‘Validate' button. Note: make sure not to enter your homepage; it must be a page with a recipe.
That's it!
The reason this method is so easy is because the Easy Recipe plugin does all the work of adding meta tags to each of your recipes, so you don't have to.
Pinterest Rich Pins FAQs
1. I only have a personal Pinterest page. Can I still get Rich Pins?
Unfortunately no, Pinterest only allows business pages to get Rich Pins. The good news though is that getting a Pinterest business account is super easy. Click on this link and Pinterest will guide you through the simple process of converting your personal page to a business page.
2. I'd rather not install Easy Recipe on my blog. Are there any other plugins that add the appropriate meta tags?
Yes, there are a few. The other one that I highly recommend is Yoast SEO.
3. How quickly will it take to validate my blog?
Pinterest says it typically takes about a week, but it took over two weeks for me. Be patient, it will happen.
4. How will I know I have rich pins?
Unfortunately, Pinterest does not contact you to tell you. Just keep checking back until you see them at the bottom of your pins.
5. Will Pinterest Rich Pins show up on all my old pins?
Yes! Every pin from your site will be updated to include rich pins.
6. What if I change something on a recipe? Will the Rich Pins get changed too?
Yes! If you update your recipes ingredients, tags, etc. the Rich Pins will automatically be updated too.
Thank you
Thank you for taking the time to read all about how to get Pinterest Rich Pins for your food blog. If you have any questions or comments, please let me know in the comments section below!
Kristen Stevens
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Hi, I’m Kristen! 
I was wondering how to do this & just did it in all of 2 minutes (I already had Easy Recipe). Thanks!
So happy this post helped you out!
Oh my gosh! Thank you SO much! This is by far the most helpful article I’ve read on the subject! Between the confusing Pinterest help page and some of the other articles I had read through I thought I might have to re-do all my recipes in Ziplist or hire someone! This just made my day! Thank you!!!!
I’m so happy you find it helpful! I felt exactly the same way when I was first trying to get them, and it was super frustrating. I don’t understand why the Pinterest help page makes it sound so difficult.
You are a lifesaver!! It seemed so complicated that I kept on putting it off. Little did I know it was as easy as a few clicks! THANK YOU!!
You’re so welcome, Christine! I felt so frustrated when I was trying to figure it out myself so I wanted to pass on the knowledge. I’m so happy you found it useful!!
GREAT post, Kristen! I’m blonde and super slow in life (lol), and I started using rich pins not that long ago! I agree- they should be called Super Fabulous Pins You NEED in your blogging life! 🙂 Thanks for the 411, because well.. like I said- blondes need all the help we can get! <3. Cheers, my dear!!
Ha ha you totally made me laugh, Cheyanne! I’m really not sure why Pinterest makes it out to be such a difficult process. So happy to help when I can!
This is such a great post, Kristen! I love having rich pins – wish I had a wonderful resource like this when I was looking into how to get them. This will be so helpful for so many people 🙂
Thank you so much, Kelly! I felt exactly the same way when I was figuring out how to get them!
I’ve always been curious how people do that!! THANK YOu!
You’re so welcome, Gigi! So happy it helped!!
This sounds like something I need to check out. Thanks for the tips.
No problem at all. I hope it helps!