Pinterest & Blogging 101: Getting Verified on Pinterest

I decided to create a little mini-series on how to maximize your blog through Pinterest for all you fellow bloggers out there, particularly new bloggers. I never really realized how great Pinterest could be for my blog until I took a chance and decided to pin some of my recipes. I've been blogging for a year now, and let's look at my top 3 posts of all time, according to pageviews:

1. 3 Ingredient Crockpot Pulled Pork Sliders
2. Crockpot Cocktail Weenies
3. Crescent Sausage Breakfast Casserole

Each one of these posts has over 2000+ pageviews and counting, all because I decided to pin them to Pinterest. That may not be many pageviews for some bloggers, but it's pretty high for me! Pinterest can do a lot for your blog, especially if you like to post recipes, DIY ideas, cleaning and organization tips, etc.

The first thing you need to do is get verified on Pinterest. How in the world do you do that, and why should you? Let's break it down:

So why verify? In a nutshell, verifying your blog on Pinterest will help increase credibility and traffic as well as allow your content to show up in results from search engines. It takes about 5 minutes, and I've created a step by step tutorial below.

Get Verified!

Step 1: Log into your Pinterest accounts and go to "Settings".

2. Click "Edit Profile", scroll down to "Verify Website", and click the button.

Step 3: On the next page, you will have the option to verify with an HTML file or to verify with an HTML meta tag. Click the option to verify with the meta tag, and you will see the following:

Select and copy your meta tag (the code in the gray box).

Step 4: Log into Blogger, go to "Template" and click "Edit HTML"

You may see a warning message. If you do, just click "Proceed".

Step 5: Click CNTRL F (COMMAND F if using a MAC), and search for the word "head". You should find 2, the opening head tag: <head> and the closing head tag: <head>. Your Pinterest generated code that you copied needs to go somewhere in between these 2 tags.

Test your changes to make sure you didn't mess up your blog. To do this, click "Preview" and make sure it loads properly. Then click "Save Template".

Step 6: Head back over to your Pinterest account and click the "Click Here" button for Pinterest to verify your site. That's it! Assuming it worked, you are verified! Head back to your home page on Pinterest to check it out!

I hope this helps! If you have any questions, feel free to let me know in the comments below! I will post parts 2 and 3 of "Pinterest & Blogging 101" in the coming weeks!