Getting organic traffic from search engines is the most favorable option for website owners. However, it will take long time to build an established website to receive organic traffic. Social media networks are alternative options that anyone can try. Earlier days website owners heavily rely on Facebook and X (Twitter) which has been changed in recent days with image sharing platforms. Pinterest is one of the popular image sharing platforms and you have to verify your site with Pinterest in order to get trusted followers.
Why You Should Claim Site in Pinterest?
Though platforms like Instagram taken over Pinterest in recent years, you can still use Pinterest’s robust network. This will help you to share your images and drive traffic to the linked website. In addition, you can also add Pin button on your images allowing users to instantly share with their network. Having a verified website with Pinterest will have the following impact:
- Show your site’s link in profile view which will increase the possibility of user’s trust. Trusted users will start following your pins hence the possibility of they visit your site will also increase.
- Verified sites will also appear in the search results thus increasing the organic traffic.
- Any picture shared from your website will have your Pinterest profile image and linked to your profile.
- You can monitor the traffic analytics from the content shared from your website.
Hence, it is highly recommended to add and claim your site in Pinterest and here is a step-by-step instruction for the same. Remember, in order to claim your site, you need access for editing header file or insert code in the header section of your website.
Step 1 – Access Pinterest Settings
Login to your Pinterest account and click on the down arrow showing next to your profile picture on top right corner. Click on “Settings” menu as shown below to access your account settings page.
Step 2 – Claiming Your Site
You will see the profile settings page and go to “Claimed accounts” section. Click on the “Claim” button showing against “Websites” option.
Step 3 – Getting Verification Code
Pinterest offers three ways to verify the ownership of your website similar to Google Search Console.
- Add HTML meta tag in the header – the easiest option is to get HTML meta verification tag and insert it inside the header section of your site. You will see the meta verification code in the “Add HTML tag” text box and click on that box to copy the code to your clipboard. We will explain further steps with HTML meta tag verification method as it does not need access to your hosting or domain setup in most cases.
- Upload HTML file in root of your site – you can also download HTML file by clicking on “Download” button under “Upload HTML file” option and upload it on your site’s root directory to verify your site. You can do this using File Manager app available in your hosting account.
- Add TXT record in DNS – last option is to add a text (TXT) record in your DNS zone file. You can do this from your domain registrar account by using DNS editor.
Step 4 – Adding Verification Code in Your Site
Paste the copied meta verification code in the header section of your site’s pages and publish the site. Editing header section depends on the site builder or content management system you use.
- For WordPress, there are readymade plugins available to insert your meta tag verification code. You can use optimization plugins like Perfmatters or SEO plugins like Yoast or any other dedicated plugins for this purpose.
- If you are using Weebly or Wix type of site builder, you can add the code from your settings page.
- For HTML pages like Bootstrap, you have to manually insert the code on all pages between <head> and </head> tags.
Step 5 – Verify Website URL
After inserting the HTML meta tag, go to your Pinterest account and click the “Continue” button on “Choose how you want to claim” pop-up. Type your website address in the box and click “Verify” button.
Step 6 – Verification Success or Failure
If everything goes fine, you will see a “Connected” message with a green tick mark and the site address will also show below the “Claimed accounts > Websites” section.
Verification will fail with an error message if the code is not added properly. This also can happen if Pinterest cannot verify the code at that point of time. You can try any point of time later by going to “Settings > Claimed accounts > Websites” section as explained in Step 2.
Step 7 – View Verified in Site in Profile View
After successfully claiming your site with Pinterest, you can see the profile settings page will show the site’s address with a green tick mark.
Your public profile will also display the verified site’s link so that anyone can see you have a trusted website. Now, you can start sharing your images with a verified website profile.
Step 8 – Checking Analytics
As mentioned, claiming a site will help to monitor all the pictures shared from your site by anyone. Click the “Pinterest” button showing on the top left corner of your profile page. Select “Analytics overview” option showing under “Analytics” menu.
Analytics section has Overview, Audience Insights and Pinterest Trends sections. You can find the impressions, clicks, engagement and all other metrics for images shared from your site.
Unclaiming Website
If you want to disconnect the linkage or change the website, then go to “Settings > Claimed accounts” section and click on the “Unclaim” button.
You will see a pop-up mentioning unclaiming will also affect your RSS feed. Click “Confirm” button to remove the site address from your Pinterest account. Remember to remove the verification code added in your site.
Anytime you can go back to the settings page and add the same or new website again.
