How to connect Pinterest to Squarespace to enable rich pins, then validate them. 

As discussed in my other blog post on Pinterest Rich Pins, these type of pins show the metadata right on the Pin itself. This helps to provide Pinners a richer experience and it helps to increase engagement with your Pins too! 

They include extra information, like a product price and your site title, and you may also see an increased distribution of your Rich Pins across Pinterest.

There are 4 types of Rich Pins: app, article, product and recipe Pins. These pin categories represent some of the more common types of content that you will find through Pinterest. 

After connecting your Pinterest account to Squarespace, Pins of images from your products and blog posts will automatically be Rich Pins. 

Instructions: Set-up Rich Pins on Squarespace

Setting up Rich Pins is a two-step process:

1. Connect your Pinterest account to Squarespace
2. Confirm the Blog with Pinterest

The steps are outlined below, but you can also read more on Pinterest’s support article and on Squarespace’s help article for the latest information. 

1. Connecting Pinterest to Squarespace

1. In the Squarespace Home Menu, click Settings.
2. Click Connected Accounts.
3. Click Connect Account.
4. Select Pinterest from the Social Accounts menu.
5. Log in using your Pinterest username and password. 
6. Click Allow to authorize the connection between Pinterest and your site. Squarespace will never post anything to Pinterest without your permission—this authorization adds an option to create a new pin when you publish new content.

Note: It can take a moment for Pinterest to verify your site. If you had a different website URL on your Pinterest profile before this, an error message will display. To fix the issue, add the correct URL to your Pinterest profile.

To display a social icon:

1. In the Home Menu, click Settings.
2. Click Social Links.
3. Add your Pinterest profile link. 
4. Check Show Social Icon.
5. Click Save.
6. After adding your Pinterest link, the social icon will automatically display in most templates, but not all of them. You can also add social icons using the Social Links Block.

To help visitors share your content on Pinterest, you can add a Pinterest Share button to the following content:

• Album pages
• Blog posts
• Gallery images
• Products

Note: Pinterest only appears as a sharing option if the item has a thumbnail image.

2. Confirm your Blog with Pinterest’s Validator

Important Note: You only need to validate 1 blog post URL to apply for Rich Pins on your entire domain. There is no need to submit all of your URLs. 

Next, go to the Pinterest Rich Pin Validator tool ( https://developers.pinterest.com/tools/url-debugger/ ) and enter a URL to a blog post that contains Rich Pin data.

Then, the validator will run and you will see a validation confirmation and apply now link. 

You will need to verify that the domain name is correct. 

Next, choose HTML and click “Apply Now”.

If your Rich Pin metadata hasn’t been set up correctly, you’ll see a message like this: 

If your Rich Pin metadata has been set up correctly, you’ll see a message like this: 

Hint: If you scroll down, you will see a sample of the information available for rich pins.

Last, you will see a confirmation that your application was processed. Pinterest may also contact you after reviewing your site. The confirmation of the data fetched from your site looks like this and appears below the web page section that shows that your Rich Pins are enabled: 

Pinterest Rich Pins provide added SEO value

Pinterest Rich Pins are quick and easy to set up! Make sure you keep your metadata updated across your whole site, including your web pages and images and that’ll keep your Pinterest pins nice and information-packed for awesome SEO results!

If you’re not using Squarespace, check out my other post on how to set up Rich Pins on a WordPress.org blog or on a Showit blog!