How to Add Pinterest to WordPress

Adding Pinterest to your WordPress site is one of the smartest ways to boost your blog's visibility and drive a steady stream of traffic. This isn't just about sticking social media icons in your footer, it's about turning your entire website into a powerful, pin-worthy asset. This guide will walk you through exactly how to do it, from adding simple Pin It buttons to your images to embedding entire boards and supercharging your content delivery with Rich Pins.

Why Integrating Pinterest with WordPress Just Makes Sense

Before we get into the "how," let's quickly talk about the "why." Unlike platforms driven by timelines that fade in hours, Pinterest is a visual search engine. A pin you create today can continue sending people to your website for months, even years. It's a long-term content strategy that pays huge dividends over time.

Here's the quick breakdown of benefits:

• Evergreen Traffic: Pins have a much longer lifespan than a tweet or an Instagram post. They get resurfaced based on search queries, creating a compounding traffic effect.
• Driving Targeted Visitors: People on Pinterest are actively looking for ideas, products, and inspiration. When they click a pin that leads to your blog post about "10 Minimalist Living Room Ideas," they are exactly the audience you want.
• Showcasing Your Best Visuals: Your blog's beautiful photography, infographics, and graphics get a chance to shine and attract new readers.

When visitors see that your content has been pinned dozens or hundreds of times, it acts as a powerful endorsement of its quality.

The Foundation: How to Claim Your Website on Pinterest

This is the first and most important step. Claiming your website on Pinterest unlocks access to analytics, enables powerful Rich Pin features, and links your Pinterest profile directly to any content pinned from your site. It is the official "handshake" between your WordPress site and your Pinterest account. Fortunately, it’s a lot simpler than it sounds.

There are a few ways to do this, but the easiest method for most WordPress users is by adding an HTML meta tag.

Step-by-Step: Adding the HTML Meta Tag

This method involves copying a small snippet of code from Pinterest and pasting it into the header section of your WordPress site. Don’t worry - you don't need to be a developer. Here's how to do it with a simple, free plugin.

1. Get Your Code from Pinterest:
   • Log in to your Pinterest business account (if you have a personal one, you can convert it for free).
   • Click the downward-facing arrow in the top-right corner and go to Settings.
   • In the left sidebar, click on Claimed accounts.
   • In the 'Websites' section, click the Claim button.
   • A window will pop up with a few options. Select the ‘Add HTML tag’ option.
   • Copy the entire meta tag. It will look something like this: <,meta name="p:domain_verify" content="[a unique string of numbers and letters]" />,
2. Install a Header/Footer Plugin in WordPress:
   • Log into your WordPress dashboard.
   • Go to Plugins >, Add New.
   • Search for "WPCode – Insert Headers and Footers" (a popular and reliable option).
   • Click Install Now, then Activate.
3. Paste the Meta Tag into the Plugin:
   • In your WordPress dashboard, find the new "Code Snippets" menu item and go to Header &, Footer.
   • Paste the meta tag you copied from Pinterest into the “Header” box.
   • Click Save Changes.
4. Finish the Verification in Pinterest:
   • Go back to the Pinterest window where you copied the code.
   • Click CONTINUE, then enter your domain name in the next box and click Verify.
   • Pinterest will check your site for the code, and within a few seconds (sometimes a minute or two), you should see a success message. Your website is now claimed!

Note: Some premium themes have a built-in section under "Theme Options" to add header scripts. If your theme has this, you can paste the code there and skip installing a plugin.

Make Your Content Instantly Sharable: Add Pinterest "Pin It" Buttons

The single most effective way to encourage visitors to share your content on Pinterest is to put a "Pin It" or "Save" button directly on your images. When someone hovers over a great photo in your post, giving them a one-click way to save it to their board removes all friction.

Option 1: Use a Dedicated Pinterest "Pin It" Button Plugin

For a lightweight solution focused purely on Pinterest, a dedicated plugin works perfectly. A popular choice is "Pinterest Pin It Button On Image Hover and Post."

1. Navigate to Plugins >, Add New in your WordPress dashboard.
2. Search for the plugin name, then click Install Now and Activate.
3. Go to the plugin's settings (usually found in the main Settings menu).
4. Here, you can customize how the button looks, where it appears (e.g., hover-on-image, below the image), and on which pages you want it active (e.g., only on Posts, not Pages).

Option 2: Use an All-in-One Social Sharing Plugin

If you also want share buttons for platforms like X, Facebook, and LinkedIn, a comprehensive social sharing plugin is the better choice. Tools like Grow Social by Mediavine or Social Warfare not only add share bars but also give you fine-tuned control over your Pinterest optimization.

With these plugins, you can:

• Define a specific Pinterest-optimized title for your posts.
• Set a custom Pinterest description filled with relevant keywords.
• Upload a dedicated "hidden" pin image - a vertically oriented graphic that's perfect for Pinterest but doesn't have to appear in the body of your article.

Integrate Your Profile: Embed Pinterest Content in Your Posts

Sometimes you want to bring Pinterest content into your WordPress site, not just send content out. Embedding pins, boards, or even your full profile is fantastic for visual storytelling, tutorials, and inspiration posts.

Let's say you're a designer writing a post on "2024 Interior Design Trends." Embedding a board you curated on that exact topic is a powerful visual aid.

The Easy Way: Using the WordPress Block Editor (Gutenberg)

WordPress has a native Pinterest embed block that makes this incredibly simple.

1. Find the URL of the Pin, Board, or Profile you want to embed.
2. In your WordPress post editor, click the "+" icon to add a new block.
3. Search for the "Pinterest" block and select it.
4. Paste the URL directly in line and hit Enter or click the "Embed" button.
5. WordPress will automatically fetch and display the content right inside your post. That's it!

The Flexible Way: The Official Pinterest Widget Builder

If you want more customization over the size and feel of your embeds, Pinterest's own Widget Builder is the answer. It generates a small code snippet for you to use.

1. Go to the official Pinterest Widget Builder site: developers.pinterest.com/tools/widget-builder/
2. Choose what you want to create: a Save Button, a Follow Button, a Pin, a Board, or a Profile widget.
3. Paste the URL of your desired Pinterest content.
4. Copy the provided code and paste it into a "Custom HTML" block in your WordPress editor.

Level Up Your WordPress Traffic with Rich Pins

Rich Pins are the secret weapon for serious bloggers and businesses. They automatically sync extra information from your website directly onto the pin itself, making your content more useful and clickable.

There are four main types:

• Article Pins: Show a headline, author, and description. Perfect for bloggers and publishers.
• Product Pins: Display real-time pricing, availability, and where to buy. Essential for e-commerce.
• Recipe Pins: Pull in ingredients, cooking times, and a link to the full recipe. A game-changer for food bloggers.
• App Pins: Provide an install button so users can download your app without leaving Pinterest.

How to Enable Rich Pins for Your WordPress Site

This sounds technical, but if you have a good SEO plugin installed, most of the hard work is already done.

1. Make Sure Your Site Is Claimed: You must have completed the steps from the first section.
2. Install and Configure Yoast SEO: Most WordPress sites already have an SEO plugin. Yoast SEO is a great choice because it automatically adds the necessary "Open Graph" metadata to your site's code, which is what Pinterest uses to identify Rich Pins. If you have it installed and active, you're pretty much set.
3. Validate Your Site with Pinterest:
   • Go to Pinterest’s Rich Pin Validator page.
   • Paste a link to any one of your blog posts (not your homepage) and click Validate.
   • Pinterest will check the metadata on that page. Once it sees the data is correct, you'll see a success message and an "Apply" button.
   • Click Apply. Your application is usually approved automatically or within a couple of hours. Once approved, all past and future content pinned from your site will show up as Rich Pins!

Final Thoughts

Integrating Pinterest with your WordPress site transforms it from a static blog into a dynamic engine for traffic and brand discovery. By claiming your website, making your images easy to Pin, and enabling powerful Rich Pins, you create a seamless connection that encourages visitors to save and share your very best content. Your next blog post could be the spark that drives new audiences to you for years to come.

Once you’ve got your website perfectly optimized for pinning, the challenge becomes managing the content creation and scheduling process alongside all your other social platforms. We know how fragmented that can feel. That’s why at Postbase, we built a clean, visual planner that helps you see your entire content strategy - for Pinterest, Instagram, TikTok, and more - all in one place. Scheduling natively, especially for video formats, is rock-solid and reliable, so you can trust your content will go live exactly as planned.