How to Feature Your Most Pinterest-Worthy Posts in Your Sidebar

How to Feature Your Most Pinterest-Worthy Posts in Your Sidebar

How to Feature Your Blog's Pinterest Worthy Posts in Your Sidebar // The Blog MavenIf your blog has ever had a red-letter day on Pinterest with tons of people clicking over to see one of your posts, you were probably surprised at how finicky those visitors can be. (can I get an Amen?)

It seems like people who visit from Pinterest just want to pop in to see what they came for, repin your post if they like it, and then never come back again.  You can feel good about the popularity of that one post, but what about the life of your blog as a whole?  Do these people ever stick around and become loyal readers?

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I’ve talked before about converting your blog’s Pinterest visitors to subscribers by sprucing up your sidebar. And hopefully you took the time to ditch those blog awards taking up that valuable piece of real estate, and got your sidebar organized!

But good organization is only part of the story.  Remember: you have a limited amount of time to capture a new visitor’s attention.  You have to make it count.

What if I told you that you can use your past successes with Pinterest to engage your new blog visitors?   And that there’s a way to feature your older (forgotten?) posts and give them new life by just placing an image with a Pin It button in a certain spot?

Would you take just 10 minutes to do it?

Because 10 minutes is all it takes.

In this video, I’ll show you how to add those Pin-worthy posts to your sidebar, inviting your blog’s visitors to browse around and share more of your posts on Pinterest.

Here’s what you’ll need:

  1. An image that goes with one of your popular-ish posts, especially one that’s been shared lots of times on Pinterest. (…and no, it doesn’t have to be thousands of times.  20 pins means people like your post!)
  2. A Pinterest account (sign up here).
  3. A little bit of HTML code for a text widget (don’t worry – I’ve got you covered.)

Ready to get started?

How to Feature a Pinterest Image from Your Blog

Note: Don’t forget to adjust the video’s image quality so you can see things better! Just click on the little “gear” symbol at the bottom of the video player and select 720px, or the HD (high definition) option.

 

Video Notes

  • To see the most recent posts that have been pinned from your blog, go to:
[box]http://pinterest.com/source/YOURBLOG.com[/box]
  • Create the Pin It button to go beneath your image on the Pinterest Widget Builder.
  • ***If you’re already running a Pinterest plugin in WordPress, you may not need to add the javascript to your blog.  Try doing this without the javascript added to your theme, and if the Pin It button isn’t displaying the number of pins, go ahead and add the javascript.
  • If your blog runs on the Genesis Framework (the most awesome of all WordPress themes, IMHO), you can add the snippet of Javascript by going to Genesis > Theme Settings and scrolling to the bottom.
  • If your blog runs on Thesis (for older versions, at least), you can add the Javascript by going to Thesis > Site Options > Stats Software/Scripts.
  • To add multiple instances of these images in your sidebar, you can just paste the code again into the same text widget…although obviously, you’ll be plugging different information into the HTML for the different images.
  • I’ve been a little under the weather this week and probably should have waited until my head (and my brain!) was cleared up before shooting this video.  So…sorry. 🙂

The Code

Add this whole block of code to a text widget, and then fill in the proper spots (noted in CAPS) with your own information.  Make sure you leave the quotation marks in the code!

<div align="center">
<a href="URL-OF-BLOG-POST" title="TITLE-OF-YOUR-IMAGE-OR-POST" target="_blank"><img src="LOCATION-URL-OF-YOUR-IMAGE-FILE" alt="DESCRIPTIVE-TEXT-OF-YOUR-LINK" /></a>
</div>
<div align="center">
DROP CODE FOR PINTEREST PIN-IT BUTTON HERE
</div>

Don’t want to re-watch the whole video?

Here’s a Quick Recap of the Steps:

Step 1: Open up a text widget in your sidebar; cut and paste the HTML code (above) into it.  Hit SAVE.

Step 2: Upload an image to your blog that’s the same width as your sidebar.  Copy the URL of the image and paste it into the “img src” spot in the text widget code.

Step 3: Locate the post you want the image to take people to.  Copy the URL of the post and add it to the “a href” spot in the text widget code. Hit SAVE.

Step 4: Check that the image is now appearing in your sidebar.

Step 5: Go to the Pinterest Widget Builder(formerly called the “goodies page”) and create a “Pin It Button for Websites.”

Step 6: Add the javascript snippet from the Goodies page to your blog, if necessary(see the starred text in the Video Notes, above).

Step 7: Paste the Pin It Button code (from the Goodies page) into the text widget on your blog, in the appropriate spot.  Hit SAVE.

Step 8: Go back out to your blog and check out the awesome bling on your sidebar!

That’s It!

If you have anything to add, share, or ask, feel free to leave me a note in the comments space below.  I’d love to hear from you!

Also, leave me a comment once you’ve done this on your blog and I’ll come give you a high five!

How to Feature Your Blog's Pinterest Worthy Posts in Your Sidebar

[box]Note: I’m adding this post to the Growing Your Blog with Pinterest: The Ultimate Guide series.[/box]

Leave a Comment:

260 comments
Bailey @ Bailey Bakes says

Jeni, this is brilliant. I’m adding this to the top of my to-do list. Can’t wait to work on it tonight!

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    jeni says

    Awesome! Let me know when you get it set up – I’d love to see it on your (already lovely) blog!

    Reply
      Bailey @ Bailey Bakes says

      I finally got some time to add the Pin It buttons to my popular posts in my sidebar. It looks great! Thanks for sharing this neat idea. 🙂

      Reply
Barb-Harmony Art Mom says

Thanks Jeni! I am pinning this so I can remember how to do this. 🙂

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    jeni says

    I’d love to see how it turns out for you. 🙂 Please let me know when you’re finished!

    Reply
Mary says

Thank you Jeni! Just did this with one of my most pinned posts and it was a SNAP! I can’t wait to do some more this evening when the kids are in bed. I work in the Squarespace Platform and it worked just fine.

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    jeni says

    Looks great! Don’t forget to fill in the Link Title and the Alt text (there are places for that in the code) – that’s what Pinterest is going to use to fill in the “Description” portion of the pin. (Plus, it’s great for your SEO)

    Reply
    jeni says

    Mary, I also wanted to mention to you: I know nothing about Squarespace, but I found a tutorial on where to add the Javascript snippet from Pinterest so the pin counter will work on your blog. Check it out here:

    http://www.squarespaceplugins.com/add-pinterest-pin-it-share-button-in-squarespace/

    Hope it’s useful!

    Reply
Taryn Kae Wilson says

Happy Birthday Jeni!

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    jeni says

    Hooray! Thanks for the warm wishes. I’ve been watching that slow but steady progress you’re making on your sock heel. You have such a great community of helpful people!

    Reply
Lauren @ The Thinking Closet says

I did it! Thanks to your video and step-by-step description, it worked like a charm. Unfortunately, I wasn’t able to add the java to my blog since I’m a wordpress-hosted blog…one more reason why I’m hoping to be self-hosted in the new year.

You also inspired me to change up my sidebar…so thanks!

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    Jeni says

    Wow, that looks beautiful! A+ work! I think this is really going to help your new visitors see the gorgeous stuff you’re making. Great job!

    Reply
Carol J. Alexander says

Hi Jeni, Great post. Have been working on it on and off all day but am having trouble getting the spacing right between each picture. How many div codes do you use?

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    jeni says

    Hi Carol, after the tag that comes after your Pin It button, you can add   to add a line of space there. Looking great! If you need any more troubleshooting help, please let me know! (looking great, by the way!)

    Reply
    jeni says

    Ack! Sorry, the code I posted didn’t come through there. I don’t want to screw up the code here on my site, so where I put a bracket, know that I mean to use a < > tag. Here goes again:

    After the {/div} tag that comes after your Pin It button, you can add ” ” (without the quotes) to add a line of space. Hope this helps!

    Reply
    jeni says

    Ugh, trying it again. …you can add “THE & SYMBOL” nbsp; (run that all together, with no quotes) to make the space.

    Reply
      Carol J. Alexander says

      Thanks, Jeni. I’m still tweaking. But ever since I added the third photo, it threw everything below it on the sidebar into my footer area. Any clues? It’s all still in the primary sidebar on the widget page, but in the real view, there are several things down below.

      Reply
        jeni says

        Yep. You’re missing a few “open div” {div} tags. Right before the {a href= …} that belongs to the image for “How to Can Water for Emergencies” and also right before the image for “Homemade Whole Wheat Bread Recipe” you need a {div} (once again, those should be < >‘s). So, two of them total. Let me know if you’re still having trouble.

        Reply
          Carol J. Alexander says

          Wow, thanks, Jeni. What a difference such a little piece of code makes!

          Reply
Carrie says

Thank you so much for sharing this great info! As a VERY new blogger with no html experience I was able to follow the tutorial and replicate it on my blog!

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    jeni says

    You did so well! It looks great. See? HTML isn’t so scary. 🙂

    Reply
      Carrie says

      Thank you Jeni! Looking forward to watching more of your tutorials 🙂

      Reply
Adrienne says

I did it! I can’t believe how easy this was. Thank you!!

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    jeni says

    …and it looks great! Hope you get lots more traffic through your blog this way! (btw – love your blog’s tagline. 🙂

    Reply
      Adrienne says

      Awww! Thank you so much!

      Such a clever tutorial. I’ve been trying to make my post more Pinterest friendly, but this takes it to a whole new level! 🙂

      Reply
Amy @ This DIY Life says

I just put up my three most pinned posts. Thank you so much!

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    jeni says

    It looks great! Too bad wordpress.com won’t let you use Javascript to make that counter work. 😛 But maybe another reason to go self-hosted someday. Good job!

    Reply
gloria waters says

hi jeni,

followed your tutorial completely and found it very understandable! however my blog is the wordpress twentyeleven theme and i cannot find the correct place to paste the javascript… i am not very code savvy. help! -gloria

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    jeni says

    Hi Gloria, unfortunately since you’re blogging at wordpress.com, there’s nowhere for you to add the javascript. Only folks who blog on self-hosted WordPress can do things like add javascript and run third-party plugins. 🙁 You can still add the “pin it” button underneath the image – it just won’t have the little counter to the side of it. Eventually, most people who start out blogging at WordPress.com think about moving to self-hosted because of little issues like this. Sorry to rain on your parade!

    Reply
      gloria waters says

      ahh, i see i see. i manage a couple other blogs that have a self-hosted pages which i prefer so i will have my own blog that way… thank you! for now my client will have to lose the counter. thanks jeni!

      Reply
        gloria waters says

        hello again jeni,
        i hope you are ending the week on a good note. i am coming back to this conversation (you might already know why) to ask your advice on the best way to convert my wordpress blog to a self-hosted account… will i have to start from scratch or will i lose any of my content?

        Reply
          gloria waters says

          p.s. also wondering if i switch to a self-hosted wordpress if that will take away my store or change the design of my page… sorry for all the questions!

          Reply
          jeni says

          Hi Gloria, there’s a pretty good tutorial on moving to self-hosted written by the WordPress.com team. I highly recommend having your domain forwarded (that’s a paid upgrade, but worth it IMO); you can read about that at the very bottom of that post.

          When you move to self hosted, though, you’re setting up a completely new site – new files, new directories, everything. You’re actually just importing the posts and pages themselves, but everything else is from scratch. So a lot of people end up hiring a designer to get things set up initially for a no-hassle moving experience. If you use a good hosting service like SiteGround (*aff) they’ll create a temporary domain name for you (just call customer support and ask) so you can do the setup work behind the scenes and all your readers won’t see what’s going on until you’re ready for the big “reveal.”

          But getting back to your question – you shouldn’t lose any content at all. The import of the content is actually the easiest part. 🙂 Hope this helps! Have a great weekend. ~Jeni

          Reply
Sunday Burquest says

Hi Jeni! Thank you for the great tutorial. I added a couple to my sidebar, but they don’t look as pretty as yours! I can’t seem to get a space in between them. When you have time could you tell me what you think? I don’t want to add more until I get it set right. I’m SO happy I found you! Pinning works as I found you on Pinterest on blog sponsorship – my next project! Thanks again for sharing!!

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    jeni says

    Hi Sunday, it looks like you used the “Follow button” instead of the “Pin It Button for Websites” on the Pinterest Goodies page. Scroll down a tiny bit more and you’ll find the right one. And then when you need to add space between the pin button and the image beneath it, just add this bit of code at the bottom of what I posted above:

    “THE AND SYMBOL”nbsp;

    (where I wrote “THE AND SYMBOL” substitute that with & (no quotes). Sorry – if I type HTML here in the comments it won’t display it properly.)

    That will add one line of space for you. Hope this helps! If you run into any more snags, let me know. 🙂

    Reply
Rebecca {Foodie with Family} says

Thank you so much! It was a breeze to install and I think it looks pretty spiffy (if I do say so myself, and I do!) You made this a simple task for an evolving Luddite. 🙂

THANK YOU!

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    jeni says

    It looks great – love those nice, big photos! Glad it worked well for you. Another trick to have up your blogging sleeve. 🙂

    Reply
artalive says

Thanks so much for sharing this – I’m a brand spanking new blogger (since September) and I worked it out on Blogger – so much fun! Being such a newbie I don’t even know if I’m doing the comments right – apologies if it comes out wrong. Is my blog meant to come up?

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    jeni says

    Hi there, your comment came through just fine. If you sign up for a Gravatar (instructions here), you’ll have a nice photo of yourself appear next to your comments, as well – for all WordPress based blogs, all across the web. Loads of fun. 🙂 Thanks for stopping by!

    Reply
Susan D says

I’m on blogger (I knoooow) and I’m having trouble with where to put the Pinterest Javascript?? Help?

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    jeni says

    Hi Susan, you’ll need to go into your template files to add the code in. I found this handy tutorial that should walk you through it. Let me know when you have it done – I’d love to see how it turns out!

    Reply
      Kate says

      Thanks for this great tutorial! I pinned this awhile ago and just got to it today. I also use Blogger and finally figured out where to put the java code. The link you suggest is a great starting point, but things must have changed since that post. Steps 1-3 are good, but in step #4, search , copy the html Pinterest provides (rather than the code from the post), and paste it right before

      Reply
Amy says

Hello. I found you via Pinterest and I am excited to keep reading your blog and gaining tips. Thanks for the great idea and tut above!

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    jeni says

    Hi Amy, thanks for stopping by! If you have any trouble following the steps for the tutorial, just give me a shout. Hope you have a great week!

    Reply
Sam says

Jeni – Thank you so much for the great content you post on your blog. I stumbled upon it today and have already added the Pin It sidebar to my blog! I have bookmarked your blog and will be visiting frequently. Thank you again!

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    jeni says

    Hi Sam, thanks for your comment! I looked at your blog and the pinnable images look fantastic! I see that you’re on Blogger; I found this handy tutorial on where to add the Javascript into your Blogger template so the “Pin It” buttons will show the counter on them. Great job!

    Reply
T @aseedinspired says

Oh Holy Night… I did it!!!!! With 2 of my daughters watching in silence… and now they are beaming with me! I honestly didn’t know I would have the patience for it… but it wasn’t that hard!
Thanks.. I am really happy with it….
Beaming Smiles all around and Thank you,
T @ aseedinspired

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    jeni says

    How exciting! It looks great, too – and I love the “title” you put for the image that comes up when people hover over the photo. Great work!

    Reply
      T @aseedinspired says

      thanks!…again.!
      Now I need to figure out how to make things more streamlined and interesting. I didn’t plan on my blog becoming so popular in such a short time. I really don’t think I am doing a good job with how I handle the amount of traffic I get.. I should probably be doing more.
      Thank you for giving me more confidence.
      T

      Reply
Anne @ Planting Sequoias says

WHOA! I did it! HTML and everything!

Your post make me feel like I can conquer the world! Bwahaha.

Thank you!

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    jeni says

    You’re a ROCKstar. 🙂 And those gorgeous big images look great in your sidebar, too. Great work!

    Reply
Ginny says

fantastic information, Jeni!!

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Tracy @ hall of fame moms says

Jeni, do we have to go through each step again and again to add a new Pin It count button for each image we want to use in the side bar?

Also, I already use descriptive wording in my image title – would adding the same wording (like you do) to my alt line increase my seo value or should I not bother to add it to my old posts?

Thank you!

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    jeni says

    Hi Tracy, yes – you would want to add a new Pin-It button for each image. That’s how you get to show off the number of pins you’ve gotten for any given post. And regarding the Alt text, if you’re serious about getting lots of search engine love on your blog, I’d definitely add the Alt text wherever possible. It’s GREAT for SEO. Hope this helps!

    Reply
Andi says

Hi Jeni!

Thanks so much for the tutorial. I did it and it worked perfectly and easily. BUT all of a sudden the Pin count went away. I deleted and added that little pinterest code to my theme settings but it still isn’t showing up. Any ideas?

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    jeni says

    Hi Andi, mine are doing the same thing, and I’ve noticed it on a few other sites as well. I’m thinking it’s a problem with Pinterest – hopefully they’ll have it straightened out soon!

    Reply
Phillip says

Do you have any tips for adding the javascript code above the tag in the Editor section of WordPress? I tried adding it to the footer.php file but it didn’t add the counter.

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    jeni says

    Hi Phillip, well, it’s a strange coincidence, but ALL the Pin-It buttons across the web are broken right now. I think it’s a problem coming from Pinterest itself. Hopefully they’ll get that resolved in the next few days. But…I also took a look at your blog and since you’re blogging on WordPress.com (rather than self-hosted), there’s no way to add the Javascript. This is the kind of thing that causes most people to eventually move their blogs to self-hosted WordPress. So – sorry I wasn’t more help! The images themselves would still look great in your sidebar, though. 🙂

    Reply
Jill @ The Prairie Homestead says

Wow– awesome tutorial! Just finished add some images and buttons to my sidebar. Thanks so much for the clear instructions– you rock! 🙂

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    jeni says

    They look beautiful, Jill! Great work! If you start getting lots more traffic to those posts, I’d love to hear about it. 🙂

    Reply
Tonya, The Crafty Mummy says

Thank you! Great easy to follow tutorial!

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Bonnie @ the pin junkie says

Thanks for the great info! I’m new to blogging and was able to feature post in my sidebar thanks to your excellent directions! I will be visiting your site often for more tips.

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Halle @ Whole Lifestyle Nutrition says

Thank you so much for this easy to follow tutorial! I just added one of my pins, can’t wait to add more. Just subscribed to your site (found you on Pinterest) 🙂 Thanks for all this information! Halle

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    jeni says

    Looks great, Halle! Organic strawberries…mmmmmm…. I can’t wait until the good folks at Pinterest fix the issues with the pin counter displaying – then it’s going to be perfect. 🙂

    Reply
Theresa says

Very intense reading / videos but I’m loving it! I feel like I’ve been stretched from beginner blogger to semi-concious wanna be coder! lol!

Question….I have WordPress and have a customized theme (created by coder friend). In the section you talk about adding code to the bottom which displays the counter, you put yours under “Genesis/theme settings”. Since I have a customized blog and not Genesis, am I still about to add code for a Pinit counter?

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    jeni says

    Yes, you should be – but it depends on the structure of your theme. The best thing to do would be to ask your coder friend where to put it in your files. If you’re not familiar with using FTP to access the files on your server, you should be able to hire him/her to do it for you for $20-30. Well worth it, in my opinion. 🙂 Thanks for your comment, Theresa!

    Reply
Laura Jane @ Super Sweet Life says

Thanks so much for this tutorial! I did this a few weeks ago when I ran across the tutorial, and it’s definitely helped to increase my pageviews per visit!

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    jeni says

    That’s great news, Laura Jane. They look beautiful, too. Thanks for the feedback!

    Reply
Jenna says

Is there a way to do this with Blogger??

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    jeni says

    Hi Jenna, to do it on Blogger you’d follow the same exact steps to place the image and the button. And then to add the Javascript that makes the pin counter work, you can try following this tutorial. I’ll let you know, though, that Pinterest is currently having some issues with the pin count displaying (you’ll see that half of mine are working and half aren’t), but hopefully they’ll have that resolved soon.

    If you do these on your blog, please stop back by and let me know – I’d love to see how they turn out!

    Reply
      Jenna says

      Jeni,
      Thanks for all the help. I get how to put in all the codes, etc. but I’m not sure how to upload my newly sidebar sized picture onto Blogger….

      Reply
        jeni says

        Hi Jenna, since you’re not using a photo straight from a post, you’ll need to use a 3rd party site (like Flickr or Photobucket) to host that image file for you. So upload your file to Flickr/Photobucket, and then when you add the HTML for the image source to your sidebar, you’ll refer to where you’ve uploaded the file on Flickr/Photobucket. Does that make sense? Blogger can be kind of a pain sometimes… Let me know if that isn’t clear – if you have difficulty, I found this tutorial (scroll down a good bit!) that has a detailed explanation. Hope this helps!

        Reply
Jamie says

Hi Jeni! I love this post; it is exactly what I’ve been looking for. I have one very popular pinterest post and I want to get more of them to be as widely circulated.

I did two successfully. However, when I tried to add a third featured image (and I tried a couple of different ones to make sure it wasn’t the image’s problem), it went in successfully, but my left sidebar was displaced to my footer area. Quite disturbing. I removed the third image until I can figure out how to fix this problem.

Any ideas would be much appreciated.

Thanks again for the amazing post. I will share it with my followers. 🙂

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    jeni says

    Hmmm…it sounds like a problem with your “div” tags. Make sure that when you copy the code, you get the whole thing. If that doesn’t work, I’ll be online tomorrow night after 9pm EST; you can DM me on Twitter when you’ve replicated the problem and I’ll pop over to see what’s going on. But the other two look great!

    Reply
ang says

i have been wanting to do this forever but was overwhelmed by the idea of it – thank you so much for showing me how simple it really is!! 🙂

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    jeni says

    Glad you found it useful, Ang. Lovely site – I’m checking out your dinosaur eggs right now! 🙂

    Reply
jenna says

jeni,
this tutorial is very helpful, but like others i’m having trouble wth the photos and button being dropped down to my footer area….i’ve left it like this for now so you can see it. I’m not sure what to do because i’ve tried using different div’s

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    jeni says

    Hi Jenna, thanks for leaving it “messed up” so I could see what’s going on! It looks like you have an extra [/div] tag after each one of the Pinterest buttons. There are two of them together at each one of those spots. Try erasing one after each Pinterest button.

    (Of course, make sure you’re using the proper brackets – the ones that look like “<" - I can't write them here because WordPress will screw up the code) 🙂 Please stop back by and let me know if this works!

    Reply
Virginia Fynes says

Hey Jeni,
I thought the new year was a good time to give my blog a facelift. Your tips are great. I always come to your site when I have a question! Thanks again!

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    jeni says

    Thanks, Virginia. Happy New Year!

    Reply
Lori says

Jeni,
THANK YOU! I am slowly but surely starting on your MANY amazing tutorials. This one was GREAT and I actually did one! I’ll be working on more in the days ahead. Heartfelt thanks for sharing your knowledge. Photoshop Elements is next!
I wish you and your family all of the best in the coming New Year!
Much aloha, Lori

Reply
    jeni says

    How exciting, Lori – your blog looks more beautiful every time I visit! Happy New Year. 🙂

    Reply
Jamee @ A New Kind of Normal says

This tutorial was awesome and so easy to follow! I have been trying to figure out what to do with my side bars to make it more functional and actually purposeful instead of just taking up space so this is slay incredibly helpful! Just what I was looking for!

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    jeni says

    Glad you liked it, Jamee. There’s nothing like a little facelift to add some new life to your blog. 🙂 Thanks for stopping by!

    Reply
Stacy says

I Love this idea 🙂 I was able to do it for a single picture like what you have shown but some of my pictures on my sidebar are side by side. How do I do it for those?
Thanks!

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    jeni says

    Girl, that is a wiiiiiide sidebar you have! …so here’s what you would do: you have HTML code there that goes like this:

    HTML for title of post #1
    HTML for title of post #2
    HTML for photo of post #1
    HTML for photo of post #2

    Since you already have the photos in place, you’d only need the code for the Pin It button. You’d want to insert it so it looks like this:

    HTML for title of post #1
    HTML for title of post #2
    HTML for photo of post #1
    HTML for photo of post #2
    Pin It Button code for post #1
    Pin It Button code for post #2

    Does that make sense? I imagine that you might have some alignment issues with the Pin It button at the bottom of the images, though, since your code isn’t arranged into tables. But if you’re serious about wanting to do this, you could hire a freelancer to recreate your sidebar HTML with tables instead, and then everything would line up just fine.

    …or maybe you’d just want to do the Pin-It buttons on the full-width images.

    Hope this helps!

    Reply
Kathy says

Thanks so much for the terrific tutorial – I just spent the last half hour adding 5 popular pins to my sidebar. It was so easy!

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    jeni says

    They look great, Kathy!

    (beautiful gingerbread house, by the way.) 🙂

    Reply
Kristy says

Thanks for the tutorial!! I added a few of my most popular posts to my sidebar, but did it without the pin it buttons. I’m hoping users will click through to the post and pin from there instead?

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    jeni says

    Hi Kristy, you can definitely leave off the Pin It buttons if you want to. The reason for having them there is just to display the number of repins you’ve had of that post…at least, once Pinterest fixes their current issue with the counters working. The more pins a reader sees, the more likely they are to pin your post again, which drives even more traffic your way, etc. If you follow my tutorial, the Pin It button in the sidebar will be linked straight to the post (and won’t send people who follow the pin to your homepage, for example). But I think it’s a personal preference thing, whether to have the Pin It button there at all. Thanks so much for your comment!

    Reply
      Kristy says

      My problem is that the posts themselves are popular (people are visiting my blog via Pinterest), but then they aren’t pinning them from my site. Maybe they are just re-pinning pins of others, so there really isn’t a way to track those is there, especially if it was pinned via a “pin it” button instead of the pin I created? And yes, I’ve noticed that the numbers aren’t showing anyway right now. 🙁

      Reply
        jeni says

        On my blog, at least when the pin counter is working, the pin counter reflects all pins, whether it’s a re-pin from others, or it’s pinned from the button on my blog. The counter works by counting the number of links total that are going from Pinterest to a specific URL. And lots of people follow pins and don’t re-pin them, as well. But the good news is, your posts are popular and you’re getting lots of visitors. Good for you!

        Reply
          Kristy says

          Cool, wasn’t sure how it worked. “Lots” is, of course, relative, though. 😉 Lots for me is over a couple hundred, which is obviously not lots for you. Haha! But thanks! 🙂

          Reply
brandi says

hi there! i just tried doing this with one pin, and the Pin It Button is there, but the image isn’t showing up, even though I followed this and double/triple checked it. any suggestions or ideas why the image isn’t coming up?

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    jeni says

    Hi Brandi,

    You’ll just need to resize that photo before you put it in the sidebar. Looks like you’re getting it worked out. 🙂

    Reply
      brandi says

      And what’s the easiest way to resize a photo? I honestly don’t ever do any editing of any kind with my photos, so I have no idea where to start or to do it in pixels or what. or do you have a good tutorial for that somewhere? Thank you so much!

      Reply
        jeni says

        I don’t have a tutorial, but you can probably figure it out by using Photobucket (it’s free!). I measured your sidebar, and you’ll just want to make sure that your photo is 180px wide. Hope this helps!

        Reply
Stephanie says

OMG, this blog posting is one of the most helpful I have viewed in a long time! I have spent countless hours on a few Sunday afternoons trying to figure this out! I have shared this across my social media and can’t wait to follow the steps you provided to drastically improve my blog. Planning to peruse your other posting throughout the weekend….right after I subscribe of course. 🙂
Thanks for providing these steps.

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    jeni says

    Glad you found it useful, Stephanie. Please give a shout if you run into any trouble. Have a great weekend!

    Reply
Kim says

Thanks, Jeni!

Very clear and do-able directions. I pinned this to my blogging Pinterest board, and am working on my sidebars right now. Just the tip on how to find your most “pinned” pins was worth watching the video!

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Kim says

Hi, Jeni-

This was working beautifully on my self-hosted WordPress site, http://www.simplesciencestrategies.com, when I had a strange thing happen! I added the code for my first pinnable image, and went live to see if it was looking ok. It looked great! But, as I gazed upon it, the “pin it” button disappeared! I am not sure what the page loaded, but it erased the button.

Help!

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    jeni says

    Hi Kim, I checked over at your blog and it looks like you got everything sorted out. If you run into any more snags, please give a shout out. Thanks! ~Jeni

    Reply
      Kim says

      Yes! I just got out and got back in, and the dust seemed to settle! Thanks so much!

      Reply
Kim@NewlyWoodwards says

This is awesome. I just found you via Pinterest and hopped over to see. I’m going to read in more detail tonight and try to add this to my sidebar.

As for Pinterest visitors, I’m always surprised what is generating traffic from Pinterest. But I rarely seem to get any comments or followers from that, it seems. I love this idea to attempt to boost those who actually stick around.

Also – I’m a new follower. This was enough to get my attention. So, Pinterest for the win. 😉

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Ashley says

This is so awesome! I’m a total space cadet when it comes to fixing up my blog, but your instructions were so clear and informed that even I could do it! Thanks so much!

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    jeni says

    It looks fantastic, Ashley! Great job. If you feel like having those up in your sidebar changes your blog traffic at all, I’d love to hear about it, so please stop back by. Thanks!

    Reply
      Ashley says

      Hi Jen! I just wanted to let you know that I think having these images with the Pinterest counts has made a huge difference! I’ve had a lot more activity on Pinterest, and a significant increase of traffic to my blog. Thanks again so much for putting up this tutorial!

      Reply
        Jeni says

        That’s wonderful news! Thanks for following back up with me; comments like this make my day a little brighter. 🙂

        Reply
Jenny Solar says

This is an awesome tutorial! I can’t figure out how to get the pin count working though. I’m on WordPress with the Pro Photo theme. The pin count works on my posts but not on my sidebar. Thoughts? http://thehappyfamilymovement.com/2012/03/five-simple-steps-to-choosing-your-kids-over-your-phone/

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    jeni says

    Hi Jenny, I’m not familiar with the Pro Photo theme, but if you’re having trouble finding where to insert the javascript code that Pinterest gives you, I did find this interesting plugin that might get the job done. If your Javascript code is in the right place, your sidebar counters should start working for you. Hope this helps!

    Reply
Bek {Just For Daisy} says

Wow! I have spent soooo much time in the last 24 hours roving around your amazing site! Your articles are so helpful and I’m looking forward to seeing them grow my blog! 🙂
I have recently had some problems in my blogger template after trying to edit a few things. I deleted my intensedebate comments by accident and cannot get it back onto the blog due to errors in the html 🙁 and I also had my pin it button (which was in template) muck up and now I’ve been adding the button manually to new/popular posts. I’d love to do these popular posts but fear stuffing up the html again!! Any tips? I’d love to know how much $$ for you to give me some advice and solve my html woes!! 🙂 Signing up to your newsletter now!

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    jeni says

    Hi Bek, I’ll be sending you an email in just a moment. Thanks for your comment!

    Reply
Jenny Solar says

thank you!! I’ll check it out!

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Connie Orman says

Thank you!! Just added the Pin It button next to a few of my posts’ cover pics. Can’t wait to have the time to add the side bar feature. Thanks for the tutorial. I just never played with it or really thought about it. Of course, I found you on Pinterest and pinned this post!

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PERFECTLYJENN says

I love this post and it truly was easy to achieve so thank you so much!
I do have a question though. How do you figure out if the number of times a post has been pinned is accurate? For instance one of my most popular posts comes up with the number 37K+ next to it and I knew it was popular but had no idea it was that popular. How do I maximize the business/clicks associated with that particular post??
I appreciate your help in any way and hope you have a wonderful day

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    jeni says

    Hi Jenn, the 37K+ number is probably accurate. The best thing to do when you see a post taking off is to revisit that post and make sure it really represents the best of your blog, and add some internal links to other posts within your blog. You know, just mention them with a link, but naturally within the text. It encourages people to stay on your blog for awhile. And then make sure those posts are fantastic. If it’s appropriate, use an affiliate link for any of the materials you needed to make the project. And at the end of any post with high traffic, make sure you have a call to action – give them a way to subscribe to your blog and become regular readers. Hope these ideas help!

    Reply
Angela says

Hey! Thanks for this tutorial! I added it on and love it! Great video and excellent explanation. You rock, girl!

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    jeni says

    Wow, you got right to work – lots of choices on your sidebar now! Looks great. 🙂

    Reply
Felicia says

I love this tutorial and have been using it, but have found that Pinterest has changed things up and the code I now get doesn’t work. What am I doing wrong?

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    jeni says

    Hi Felicia,

    I’m not sure – they do seem to be changing things up over there recently. It’s probably a good idea to wait a few days and then revisit the buttons; hopefully Pinterest will have things straightened out by then. 🙂

    Jeni

    Reply
Emily @ ReMarkable Home says

This is great! Thank you! I will be doing this.
I have one question for you. I have been looking at my Pinterest source page for awhile now. It is constantly changing and doesn’t show ALL the things people have pinned from my blog. Is that normal? Is it supposed to show everything EVER pinned from your site? Or just the most recent things pinned? Mine definitely only shows the most recent.
thanks!

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    Emily @ ReMarkable Home says

    Also, I’m on blogger. Not sure I can translate all these steps for adding the pin it button to blogger. I don’t suppose you have a tutorial for that or know of a good one I could refer to?
    thanks!

    Reply
      Emily @ ReMarkable Home says

      I figured it out! Thank you! Still wondering about my pinterest source page though.

      Reply
    jeni says

    Hi Emily, thanks for your note! It doesn’t show everything that’s been pinned from your site; for mine, it seems to only show the last 40-50 pins and that’s it. Still, it’s a good representation of what’s represented from your blog at any *one* time. Hope this helps!

    Warmly,
    Jeni

    Reply
Miss @ Miss in the Kitchen says

This is fabulous! I managed to get it done following your steps and it looks great! Thank you for sharing!

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Tiffany says

Hello!

I am new blogger and thank you for this! Having trouble with the image part..but I will keep trying!

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    Tiffany says

    I figured it out! Thanks so much!

    Reply
Brooke says

Thank you for this! I’ve been in need of it (it looks like I’m not alone:)). It’s been pinned. Thanks again and have a great weeknd!

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Kim @ Too Much Time says

Hi Jen!
Okay, I got it all set except the counter doesn’t seem to be working. I uninstalled and reinstalled that javascript (I am on Genesis too), emptied my cache, logged in and out of WP. The pin it button is there, but no number. The number is showing up in my preview where I created the button on the pinterest site.
PS, this is awsome and I am SO excited I found your site!
Kim

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Kim @ Too Much Time says

One other weird thing, when I click the “pin it” button under the photo, it takes me to one of my blog pages (the same one every time?

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    jeni says

    Hi Kim, I took a look at the code on your site, and I’m pretty sure Pinterest is giving you bad code to use for the button. Every time you see two slashes (/) in a row, you need to have “http:” written in front of them. What you have there is bad code, and you have a 301 redirect plugin that’s sending the viewer to your “buttons” page because it sees the word “button” in the bad URL and it’s trying to match it. There are two places on each one of your Pin It buttons where this will need to be fixed. Hope this helps!

    Reply
      Kim @ Too Much Time says

      You are such a rock star!
      Thanks bunches, it is totally working and I am so excited:)
      I already pinned this post, but I just may have to share it and all of your other goodies in a lil post of my own next week!
      xxx
      Kim

      Reply
Laura says

Hi Jeni,

I’m so glad I found your blog. I’ve been looking for straightforward help with CSS and I’ve finally found it. Thanks very much for sharing this tutorial.

This first widget I created worked like a charm but I’m having a problem with the description on the second one. In the widget, I entered “Julia Child’s Famous Sole Meunière” as the descripton but when I click on the Pin It button under the image it just shows “Julia Child”. I’ve tried again without the apostrophe but it didn’t make any difference.

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    Laura says

    I’ve sorted it out. The problem was with the Pinterest code. It wouldn’t read past the apostrophe in the description,

    Thanks again!

    Reply
      jeni says

      Hi Laura, glad you got the problem solved!

      Reply
Anna says

Hi Jen,
I succeeded in getting the image to my sidebar, but I cannot figure out what to do for the Pin it button. I went to the goodies page — tried it, failed. Could you be more specific about what to go to there? I do not actually see “pin it button for websites.” And I do have the Pin it button on my website, so am not sure about the javascript (whatever that means!). Sorry, tired mom here.

Left it on my website even though it’s not complete so you can see it.

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Anna says

Okay, never mind, I figured it out! I went to the Pin it settings on my website and copied and pasted.

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Anna says

Ugh 🙁 So now I have two popular posts in my sidebar, with the pinit button, but when I click on pin it, the image comes up from an entirely unrelated post. Any clue as to what I’m doing wrong?

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    jeni says

    Hi Anna, sorry you’ve had so much trouble! You’re *this* close to having it right. I’ll email you in just a sec. 🙂

    Reply
Danielle says

I had been using your tutorial and have my sidebar all nice and pretty. Then tonight I decided I wanted to add a few new posts and the Pin-It code that Pinterest provides is TOTALLY different than the one you have above. I think with the new version they changed some things. Any idea on what to do now?

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    jeni says

    Hi Danielle, it’s still the same process…you just navigate to a different place to get the button code:

    About > Pin-It Button > (scroll down to the bottom) > (under Pinterest Widgets) Make Pin It Button.

    Pin Count: Beside

    …then just add the link URL, image location, and description as normal. When you cut and paste the code they give you, make sure that every time you see two slashes like this: // you put http: in front of it. As of yesterday, there was one place where Pinterest was leaving that out, and it’s necessary for things to work properly.

    Hope this helps!

    Reply
Abigail Cappel says

Thank you so much for sharing this!! I updated my popular posts and am also writing a small blogging series explaining how I took my page views from 0-5 a day to 100 on average now! I was hoping I could share the link to this because it’s amazing how many pins I’m getting from this technique and my bounce rate is amazing, keeping more people on my blog!!

I tried putting this in a post, it seemed to work, but I just wanted to check and see if you know if the coding would get in the way at all?

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    jeni says

    Hi Abigail, what wonderful news! I’m glad to hear it’s been bringing you so much traffic. It should work fine inside a post and shouldn’t cause any conflicts. Feel free to share the link with anyone you like; I won’t complain about more traffic, either. 🙂 Great work!

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Heather says

Thank you for this. I am going to play with it this afternoon. 🙂

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Elizabeth says

Hi Jeni,

Thank you so much for this tutorial! I got the pin count to work… but only on one pin! Two others don’t show the totals. Do you have any idea what might be causing this?

Thanks,
Elizabeth

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    jeni says

    Hi Elizabeth, as long as you did all the buttons the same way, I’d think it’s something funny from Pinterest. That happens to mine occasionally – sometimes the counts are there; sometimes they’re not. If you don’t see them appear in a week, let me know and I’ll look a little more closely at your code. Great work! (Love your tagline, btw…) 🙂

    Reply
    Elizabeth says

    Oh! I figured it out. The two other links that I plugged into the pin button generator didn’t have the final slash in the URL, as a product of where I copied them from. Added the slash and it works just fine.

    Reply
Amy @ Club Narwhal says

Hi, Jeni! This tutorial is AMAZING! I just used it to add a popular pin section in my sidebar. I was proud of myself because I figured out how to add my custom Pin It button beneath the picture. It’s sad that this tiny triumph made me feel like such a technology wizard 🙂 Thanks so much for your amazing work!

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    jeni says

    Wow, Amy, that looks great! One quick thought: it might be a good idea to put a little more space underneath each “Pin It” button because by the third or fourth one, it’s hard to tell whether the button goes with the image above or below. Super cute site! Great work, you tech ninja. 🙂

    Reply
      Amy @ Club Narwhal says

      Thanks so much for taking time to look at my blog! And I think you’re totally right about the spaces and just added them. Can’t wait to explore more of your tutorials!

      Reply
kim says

Hi, again, Jeni-

I have to tell you (and all your other readers) that this strategy WORKS!

A couple of months ago, I saw this post on Pinterest, and revamped the sidebar of all my blogs. Today, I’m updating my sidebar images, and went back to see the number of times images had been pinned. The images I used last time were repinned MUCH more than the others. Yay!

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    Jeni says

    Wonderful, Kim, it’s great to have the feedback. And I’m so glad it’s increasing your traffic to those posts!

    Reply
Audra says

This was fabulously easy, thank you. I built a Frankenstein of a widget, looking for the same effect and I’m just glad I stumbled upon your post. This was so much easier. Thank you.

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Kate says

Thank you so much for this tutorial! I now have one great-looking widgit on my sidebar that features my most popular recipes rather than a bunch of “featured post” widgits scattered through my sidebar. Thanks again!

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    jeni says

    Looks great, Kate – nothing like having all your best posts in one place to get people to stay awhile and browse around! If you notice a difference in your traffic to the posts you’ve featured, I’d love to hear about it. Thanks for your note!

    Reply
      Kate says

      I’ve already noticed a difference in the pinning behavior of the visitors to my site. I get a lot of unique visitors, and I’ve already seen a big increase in those visitors sticking around longer and pinning posts from the widgit. Thanks again for sharing this tutorial!!

      Reply
Amanda @ MarocMama says

So this is awesome! But, when I add one it works fine, but when I try and add 2 images, the counter no longer works…any ideas why? I am using Genesis, put in the Javascript, checked that I had all div tags…not sure what else is wrong!!

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    jeni says

    Hi Amanda, try doing it again, but this time, put each one in a different widget. It looks like you accidentally inserted some of the code for the second image inside the code for the first one. Hope this helps!

    Reply
Jen @ Jen's Favorite Cookies says

I love this technique! Your post is genius!
I am having a problem where the pin count doesn’t show up on the home page, but it does inside individual posts. I figured I could just live with it, but recently decided to dedicate a page to most-pinned posts. The pin count showed in my preview, but now that the page is live, pin counts are gone. 🙁 Any thoughts?

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    jeni says

    Hi Jen, thanks for your note! I checked your blog and it looks like your pin counts are working fine everywhere. Is it all fixed?

    Reply
Stephanie says

This was sooooo helpful!! Thank you!!!

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Robert Connor says

We are trying to do this now. Thanks for the tip we love them!

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Jamie (Mama.Mommy.Mom.) says

Thank you! Such a great tutorial. I’ve already added my first image and will be working on some others tonight. Love it!

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Kim says

What a great post and a really helpful site! I’m new to blogging and really appreciate all of the information you’ve shared.

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Emily @ The Em Dash says

Stumbled upon this post on Pinterest appropriately. And it was a great help! Thanks so much!

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Kim @ Hungry Healthy Girl says

Thanks so much for a great tutorial! I had pretty good luck, but the title of my post is not showing up on the pic. Isn’t it supposed to?

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    jeni says

    Hi Kim,

    The title of the post appears in the Pinterest description box when you click on the Pin It button. People either label their images directly (with their photo editing software) or you could theoretically add a line of HTML with the name of the post below the image, as well…but the way you have it set up is what most people are doing. Hope this helps!

    Warmly,
    Jeni

    Reply
Becky @ A Calculated Whisk says

Hi Jeni,
I just followed your steps to add three pins to my sidebar and I love it! Looking forward to adding more soon. Thanks for the great post!

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Anita Clark says

I love the idea of using the white space in my sidebar to show off some of my Pinterest posts. Shooting this link over to my husband so he can implement this on my site. Thanks for this wonderful share Jeni!

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Megan says

Hi Jeni. I am trying to get some of our favorite pins on to our sidebar and came across your post. I am having no trouble getting the pin on there. But when I do, it messes up my footer and I can’t figure out why. When I add one pin (that is clearly within the size of the sidebar) it moves our bottom right footer outside of the margin. When I add two pins, the whole footer comes up out of whack. Any ideas? We are using Genesis. Thanks!

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    jeni says

    Hi Megan,

    I’d love to take a look at this for you, but I need to see it while it’s “broken” in order to see what’s wrong. It sounds like an issue with the HTML code. If you can replicate your problem sometime tomorrow (Saturday) morning and let me know, I can pop over to take a look around lunch time.

    Thanks!
    Jeni

    Reply
      Megan says

      Thanks Jeni! I think all I had to do was post a question – we got it fixed LOL! We ended up shrinking our footer photo and I’ve added three pins and it didn’t mess anything up with spacing.

      I do have another question though. Two of my pins are landscape and one is portrait. I was thinking of cropping the portrait one so it is more uniform with the other two. That means that the picture would only be part of what is on the post, as opposed to just being smaller. On our site, it’s the geology post, so it would only have the top of the rocks, instead of the whole photo.

      If I did this, would the image that people end up pinning using the button below it be this altered one? I’m not sure that I want an altered photo to be pinned, but I’m not sure about having the pins be so different in the sidebar. What are your thoughts?

      Thank you!!

      Reply
        Jeni says

        You can have the Pin It button pull any image you want – so first, you’ll add the cropped image to your sidebar. And second, when you go to Pinterest to create the button to link to that post, just make sure that the URL of the image for the button is the original post image. Hope this helps!

        Reply
          Megan says

          OMGosh – thank you!!!! I finally got them all uniform (size and spacing) and they look great!

          Reply
Allie says

Thanks for the great tips!

xo,
-Allie @ LunaVida

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Karen Goodman says

Thanks for a great tutorial. It definitely took a couple of hours for me to do this start to finish since I had to create images with titles, but it was definitely worth it.

You also might want to update this post since Pinterest has changed their Goodies page and now has a build your own Pin here:
http://business.pinterest.com/widget-builder/#do_pin_it_button

I also found a site that gives you the number of pins for any of your URLs:
http://pinterestplugin.com/pincount/

I’ve added my top 5 pinned pages to my website. Thanks a bunch!

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    jeni says

    Thanks for your note, Karen. I updated this post with the new URLs. I appreciate you!

    Warmly,
    Jeni

    Reply
Carrie @ My Favorite Finds says

This couldn’t have been easier! Thank you so much! I hope you get a chance to take a look and offer any feedback!

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    jeni says

    Hi Carrie,

    The first one looks great! Is it safe to assume that you’re still working on the second one? Just checking to make sure you weren’t finished with that yet. Great work!

    Warmly,
    Jeni

    Reply
Sadie says

This is an awesome (very detailed) post. Thank you! My pin count won’t show up next to the “pin it” button, which is very frustrating. Any idea why?

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    jeni says

    Hi Sadie, did you add the little line of code that Pinterest gives you to your theme? That’s what actually makes the pin counts show up.

    Reply
      Sadie says

      Yes. It seems the count shows up sometimes but not others. Thank you for responding!

      Reply
Karen says

Hi Jeni! My blog is almost 3 months old. I took a big plunge and went self-hosted on WP. HTML is going to be the death of me. I scrolled through all the comments to make sure this question wasn’t already asked. It was, but for wordpress.com folks.

So, I am on twenty twelve theme (again, self hosted). I do not have a Genesis option in my menu. So where do I paste the code for the counter? In the CSS thing? I am going to start a Pinterest account for my blog, and was looking around the internet for advice. Your video is awesome.

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    jeni says

    Hi Karen, there’s a plugin called “Insert Headers and Footers” that should help you. WP Beginner has a great article about how to use it here: http://www.wpbeginner.com/plugins/how-to-add-header-and-footer-code-in-wordpress/

    Hope this helps!

    Reply
      Karen says

      Thanks for your reply Jeni. Do I enter the code into the header or the footer portion? How do I know where to put code for things? Sorry I’m so dense when it comes to coding 🙁

      Reply
        Jeni says

        Should be the footer, Karen. Hope this helps!

        Reply
        Karen says

        I also want to add the comment love. I assume I will need to use the header/footer plug in. Again, which one to I paste the code to?

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Sher says

THIS is awesome sauce. Seriously.

I can’t thank you enough for this bit of code and teaching. I have lots of blogs and I work for bloggers as well, and this is going to be a great tool for all of them.

You deserve pie. And a unicorn.

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    Jeni says

    I wish I had a “like” button on my blog for comments, Sher, because you made me laugh out loud. Keep the pie, but I’ll take the unicorn.

    Reply
Bothayna says

i am just starting my blog on blogger and still didn’t launch it but will definitely try this if the blog was going good i think this will be an amazing add
thank you for the amazing tutorial great job you are doing
check it maybe you will like it http://www.prettyscraps.com

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Wade Harman says

I was one of the idiots that thought Pinterest was just for women. I have since changed my mind and recently, I have found your site and it has really helped a lot! Great tips. I’ll probably come back to this and read it again! lol!

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Noorain says

Awesome Jeni,

I tried the Code tutorial for Pinterest and it looks fab on my sidebar……….Thank you so very much for sharing…I am loving your site 🙂

http://letstrycreating.com

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shari lynne @ faith filled food for moms says

New follower Jeni and I’m so excited to have found you!! You Rock! Amy Lynne Andrews is pumpin you up in her “Useletter” too!!
Thank you and blessings!!

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    jeni says

    Hi Shari Lynne, thanks for your note! I’m glad to hear you’re finding my blog useful. Lots more in store, so stay tuned… 🙂

    Reply
Jelli says

Just did this! Still have a few more to add tomorrow, but a great start. Thank you!

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Robin B. says

Thank you, Jeni! This was so helpful & I was successfully able to do this on my site today. I feel very successful & accomplished having used your easy-to-follow instructions. I’m so excited with the results!! 🙂

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Kim @ Hungry Healthy Girl says

Hi Jeni!

I’ve tried adding the javascript, but pin count is not showing up. It actually worked for several months, but no longer is and I tried readding it. Any ideas as to what might be going on or how I may be able to fix this? Any help is greatly appreciated!

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    jeni says

    Hi Kim, if you’re using another Pinterest plugin on your blog already, then adding the Javascript code will likely cancel out the pin count. Try taking out the Javascript code and see if the pin counts appear. You may need to wait an hour or two and then check back. Let me know when you get it!

    Reply
      Kim @ Hungry Healthy Girl says

      You are a genius!!! Thanks sooooooo much for getting back to me…. it worked. Now I wish I would have asked you sooner! 😉

      Reply
Corey @ TinySidekick says

Hi Jeni! Thanks so much for ALL of the info you have around here. It is my go to site. I do have 2 questions. 1. I added the pin it button to my popular posts in my sidebar but the counter is only showing up on my home page and one of the images never has a number (and I know it has been pinned.) Any ideas how I can get the counter to show up on all of my pages? 2. Which plugin do you use for the pin it button on your in post images? I want mine to show up all the time, not just when you hover and I would love the counter with it…pretty much just like you have. If you could point me in the right direction that would be wonderful! Thanks again!

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    jeni says

    Hi Corey, if you have another Pinterest plugin running on your site, it’s possible that if you’re also adding the javascript code to your theme, the plugin and the extra code are crossing wires. Try removing the javascript code you added to see if that helps. Aside from that, you might try removing the Pin It button code from the image where the pin count isn’t working and try adding it again from scratch.

    The plugin I use on my site is called Pin Button Attraction. There are a few tiny glitches with it right now with the latest WordPress releases, but I talked to the developer of it a few weeks ago and he said they’ll be working on an overhaul this coming Spring. But for now, I love it and it works really well for me. 🙂 Hope this helps!

    Reply
Amy @ Wildflower Ramblings says

Hi, Jeni, I found this at IBN, so happy I did! However, I am doing something wrong…. I am putting the Javascript at the top of the widget — is that wrong? I am trying to put 5 pictures/pin it buttons, but every new one I add, the ones above it aren’t showing a count 🙁 So excited because one of mine has 7K+ and I had no idea!!! 🙂 Any advice — where should the Java script go? Thanks 🙂 🙂 (also, I can’t put the number count next to the button, like you have, only above….)

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    jeni says

    Hi Amy, I just took a look at your blog and it appears that your pin counts are all working correctly now. Did you get it fixed?

    Regarding the vertical vs. horizontal pin counts, that’s something you select on Pinterest.com when you’re creating the button – I believe there’s an option for vertical/horizontal that you can select. But it looks great the way you have it!

    Reply
Sabrina says

What a great post! You are very detailed in your instruction and that really does help. Thanks.

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Alisha @ The Savvy Bump says

Thank you so much! This has been on my to do list for awhile and you are the reason I was able to make it happen! =)

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Danielle @ The Domestic Four says

Thank you, thank you, THANK YOU! I can’t get over how easy this was and it looks amazing! My sisters and I have been blogging for a year in April and, thanks to Pinterest, have had certain posts that have drawn thousands. Unfortunately, we haven’t had much luck keeping those Pinterest readers around. I’m hoping by linking them with other popular contend we can take a step toward fixing that. Thank you so much!

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Megan Zechman says

Hi Jeni. I’m having trouble once again with my sidebar when I use the pin it button. It’s fine as long as I have a certain number of pin it posts. As soon as I add more than four posts with the pin it button, my footer comes up into my sidebar. It seems like I can have as many images over there as I want as long as I don’t have the pin it button/code attached. As soon as I add that, I’m limited to the number before the sidebar and footer get messed up again. Any ideas?

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Lorien says

Hi, thanks so much for the great tutorial. However, I am having issues. I was able to download the html file to filezilla, but when I go back to pinterest, and click verify, it said “whoops, can’t verify at this time.” I tried over and over and now it says I’ve “reached my limit with verifications and to try again later.” The name of my website is there in the corner, but there is no check mark and I can’t access pinterest analytics. Do you know what I am doing wrong? Thanks!

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    jeni says

    Hi Lorien,

    I’ve had several people report the same thing, and it has always been something on Pinterest’s end. Sometimes if you check back on your profile on Pinterest, you’ll find that it has already been verified, even though it says it hasn’t. What you’re looking for is the URL of your blog right at the bottom of your Pinterest profile. Please check there and let me know if it’s showing up, and if not, I’ll walk you through the second option of how to do it.

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      Lorien Davenport says

      My URL is there and I can click on it and it will send me to my website, but there is no check mark and more importantly, I can’t access analytics which I guess is one reason I’m verifying, right? Sorry, I’m clueless:)

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        jeni says

        The analytics come if you have a Pinterest business account, and that’s a topic all of its own. 🙂 The alternative way to verify your Pinterest account is to use an HTML meta tag, and Pinterest has their own tutorial for that right here:

        https://help.pinterest.com/entries/22488487-Verify-with-HTML-meta-tags

        To add that to the header section of your site, you can use a plugin called “Header and Footer,” found here:

        http://wordpress.org/plugins/header-footer/

        Just install the plugin and go to the settings page where you’ll see an input box that corresponds with the “Header” area on your site. Then go over to Pinterest and get the code (following their tutorial, above) and paste it into the “Header” box on that plugin on your site. Then have Pinterest verify that it’s there. Hope this helps!

        Warmly,
        Jeni

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          Lorien says

          I think I got it to work! It looks a little different then others, and has a gray check mark, but it finally says that it’s verified. Thank you!

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Betty Jo says

That looks wonderful! Will it work on a Word Press .com blog?

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    jeni says

    Hi Betty Jo, it should work on a WordPress.com blog just fine – the pin count may not show up, but it’s worth a try. 🙂

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Jess says

Hi, I used this guide before, and it had a code, but I came back today to add another Pin it post to my sidebar, and the code is no where to be found? What happened to the code?

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    jeni says

    So sorry about that, Jess. The plugin I was using to display that code stopped working. It’s fixed – you should be able to grab the code now. 🙂 Thanks for letting me know!

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      Jess says

      Thanks for the quick reply Jeni! I’ll grab the code.
      Thanks for this guide as well! I use it on my blog, and its amazing!!

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Karen @WellnessScience says

Hey Jeni,
LOVE this & your many other helpful posts! I was able to add the images & PinIt buttons without any problem, but I’d like a little more space (blank rows) between the images. As it is now, readers may confuse which PinIt button goes with which image. Is there an easy bit of code to include just a little extra space between images?
Thanks much!!
Karen

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    jeni says

    Hi Karen, you should be able to check the box in the text widget that says “Add space between paragraphs” and then leave a blank space (line) in the code where you want the paragraph break to be. Hopefully that will get you a better result!

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Michele Kovack says

Can you help me? I have gotten one of the posts to work, but can not for the life of me get the other one to work. Can you take a peek at my blog and tell me what I am doing wrong? I’ve followed the directions exactly….but it won’t work. Am I supposed to leave the Target blank thing, blank?
Thank you so much for your help!

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    jeni says

    Hi Michele, it took me a week to take a look at your blog, but it looks like you’ve taken down the second Pinterest image. You might try adding another one via a new gadget and see if that helps keep things in order.

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Carol Trehearn says

Jenni, this is amazing – clear, helpful and easy. Can’t wait to make my Pinterest sing! Thank you so much.
Carol x

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Nadia says

Well it took me longer than ten minutes but with a little help from my computer savy husband it’s done! Thanks so much for the tutorial!

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Chris @ The Café Sucré Farine says

I did it Jenny, I’m so happy. I’ve been wanting to do this for awhile but didn’t think I’d be able to pull it off. Thanks so much for a great tutorial! The only problem I had was more space between the image and the Pin it button on the second and third images. Any idea what would cause this? Thanks again!

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    jeni says

    Hi Chris, the top image is supposed to link straight to the post; there’s a problem with your link code for that one. You have “ahref=” all together there, and it needs to be “a href = ” with the URL in quotes right after it. When you get that image working properly as a link, the Pinterest button will move down just a bit and match the one below it. Hope this helps!

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    Chris @ The Café Sucré Farine says

    You are amazing! 🙂 I did it! Thanks so much Jenny!

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Mark Barnes says

Hey Jeni, as someone who creates screencasts regularly, let me say this is a tremendous how-to video. I intend to repost the YouTube video at my education video site, Learnitin5.com. I’ll send you a link, when it’s up, and I’ll be sure to link back here. Thanks for this. I’m looking forward to adding a Pinterest pic and link to my blog.

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LyndaS says

Great tutorial!

I am having a problem getting the counter to work. I tried adding the java script and it still didn’t work so I removed it. I hope it is just a hiccup on Pinterest’s part. (The preview on Pinterest showed the counter.)

I am so glad I found your site and cannot wait to learn more so that I can make my blog better.

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    Jeni Elliott says

    Hi Lynda, I just checked over on your blog and it looks like you got your Pinterest pin counts working – great work!

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Meaghan says

I wish I had found this post weeks ago! Before I spent HOURS trying to do what you helped me do in 10 minutes. Thank you!!

~Meaghan from DIYfaerie

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Kerrie @ Mom vs. Marathon says

I did it! Thank you!

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Nagi@RecipeTin Eats says

Jeni – today is the first day I came across your blog and I’ve probably skewed your traffic today because I’ve been on it for HOURS. Your posts are awesome!! Actually I was having a down day about my blog and reading your stuff has inspired me again!! Thank you so much.

I hate to ask because you’ve already been so helpful…..but there is quite a large gap between the image and Pinterest counter on my blog http://www.recipetineats.com Is there a way I can reduce that gap? I notice that the gap for yours is much smaller.

Thank you again! I am SO GLAD I found you!!

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    Jeni Elliott says

    Hi Nagi,

    The gap between the pinterest counter and your image is due to the CSS that’s controlling images in your sidebar. I don’t know how comfortable you are inspecting and editing CSS, but your designer could fix that in a heartbeat. 🙂 Hope this helps!

    Jeni

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Jennifer says

This was really helpful and I did get one image to show up in my sidebar with a pin it button but I’m getting a message when I hit the pin it button and it takes me to pinterest that it isn’t a valid image. Any ideas what I’ve done wrong?

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    Jeni Elliott says

    Hi Jennifer,

    I’m not entirely sure that this is the source of the problem, but I noticed that in the code for the pin button itself, the link’s URL is starting with two slashes ( // ), and this should have an http: right before it…in both links within that code, actually. Try adding the http: before those slashes and let me know if that solves the problem.

    Hope this helps!
    Jeni

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Alyssa says

Mission complete!! I picked out 3 posts and they are now on my sidebar! Thanks for the coding and simple instructions!

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Cheryl says

This worked great except I couldn’t locate the code within your post (user error?) and had to input it manually. This is a great option for a blog. Thanks!

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    Jeni Elliott says

    Thanks so much for pointing out that the code wasn’t displaying, Cheryl. When WordPress updated last time, apparently it broke the code, but it’s fixed now. 🙂 I appreciate you letting me know!

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Paula says

Jeni- This is SO great! I was able to do everything except the Pinterest button because the WordPress.org template I use already has some kind of hover button built in. I couldn’t figure out how to do the counting one. but I was able to have the PinIt button go to my Pinterest page. Thanks so much! Also for the 5 Things You Can Fix… guide. I implemented many of those tips as well. I am posting on my blog now about your site with links!

Please take a look at my revamped site (it’s always a work in progress, especially since I’m still new to blogging) http://thatwasthenthisiswow.com and see how my Pinterest sidebar feature came out! I also have the Pinterest widget right underneath it.

Thanks,
Paula

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    Paula says

    Oops! I meant I got the link to go to my blog post, and when the pinIt button gets clicked, it references my Pinterest site and my blog.

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      Jeni Elliott says

      Hi Paula,

      It looks like Pinterest has changed their layout since I created this tutorial; I’ll post new screenshots this weekend that should help point you in the right direction! Check back Monday and it will be ready. 🙂

      Reply
Marv says

Hi Jeni, thank you so much for this tutorial. Just have a question. Why wouldn’t the image itself link to the post on my page ? I thought with the code you provided when you hover your mouse you will be able to click and see the post, but didn’t seem that way. I’m wondering if I did something wrong. This is what I have :

SPAGHETTI FRITTERS

Thank you so much for your help.

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    Jeni Elliott says

    Hi Marv, I was just checking your site to see what’s up with the sidebar images not linking, but it looks like you got it fixed. 100 points for you! 🙂 Hope those widgets get you some extra reader love to those recipes!

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Krin says

Hi Jeni,
I am reading “Growing your blog with Pinterest” Thank you. My question is about franchise stores, my company has 100 that range from having their own page to not touching a computer. How can I best benefit them with the corporate page? Can non tech franchisees use the corporate Pinterest URL for their customers, so they get the value of Pinterest without having to make their own page.
Thanks, Krin

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Kelly Stilwell says

Thank you so much!! Did Pinterest ever fix the counter? I couldn’t find that code you were talking about. Subscribed and looking forward to learning more!

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Shop with Me Mama (Kim) says

Thank you so much! SO easy and worked like a charm 🙂

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Andrea Beltrami says

Hell yeah, this is a FANTASTIC idea. Off to get some pins on my sidebar now. Thanks a ton, Jeni – you ROCK! 😉

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Debbie @ One Little Project says

LOVE this tutorial, and I have been doing the widgets this way since I read your post a couple years ago! But now that I switched my website to have the sidebar on the left, when someone goes to pin something from my site, all of the pin it images in my sidebar show up before the images of the actual post, so for example, I have 8 images not related to the post, before the posts images load, which is distracting for people trying to pin one of the images in my posts. Is there a way to hide these widget images from Pinterest so they don’t show up when the “Choose a Pin to Save” page comes up? I tried nopin = “nopin” in the img src but it doesn’t seem to be working?

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    Jeni Elliott says

    Hi Debbie,

    Unfortunately, that’s a limitation of how web browsers read web pages: they work top to bottom, then a full left column, then a full right column. You’re sending conflicting messages to Pinterest if you have a pin-it button below the image (with a link to pin the image) but don’t actually want it available for people to pin! It’s possible that your Pinterest plugin is interfering with the nopin code as well, but you wouldn’t want to sacrifice a Pinterest plugin for the sake of the sidebar images. Sorry I don’t have any specific solutions for you! If it were me, I’d switch to a right-hand sidebar if it’s a big enough deal. 🙂

    Reply
Helena Bochiski says

Hi Jeni !
My name is Helena, and I am a brazilian blogger on a personal development niche. Thanks a lot for your “pinterest serie”. Here, in Brazil, people doesn´t discover the pinterest´s power for their blogs. I like so much the pinterest, and now, I just know, how I do to get more subscribers to my blog with him ! Thanks a lot ! Sorry about my bad english, I still learning ! Best regards from Sao Paulo – Brazil, the big country in the South America. 🙂

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Rilla Banks says

Hey, thanks for the great video! It was very easy to follow, and and it worked great. I’ve only added one so far but I think I might add a couple more. Thanks for the great post!

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Angela @ Setting My Intention says

Jeni! I just did it and it looks great! You always make things so clear and easy to understand – for a non-techy person like me. I couldn’t figure out how to get the # of times it’s been pinned, but I’m happy with it like it is. I may try and figure out how to do it tomorrow. Why do you think it’s important to have the # next to the Pin it button? Do you think my header should say “Most popular pins” or “Most popular posts?”

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    Jeni Elliott says

    Either way you go, Angela, it would work well. The main point is to show that this is your most popular content – so it doesn’t matter whether you call it a pin or a post. When you have the number of times the post has been pinned, it just adds an element of “social proof” – meaning your readers can see how popular it is.

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Nicole Mölders says

What do I do when I am on wordpress.com, where javascripts don’t work?

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    Jeni Elliott says

    Hi Nicole,

    If you’re on wordpress.com, your options are really limited…and if your reasons for using extra plugins or code are important for your business, it may be time to think about moving to self-hosted!

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Jamie Yonash says

I loved this tutorial and have started implementing it! The problem I am having is that the pin count number doesn’t look right. The “2” is in the little arrow box, but the K and + are under the arrow box vertically. I have the Pin It Button Lite plugin. I tried it with and without the CSS and it is the same. Any ideas? Here is a link to my homepage. It is the Crazy Good Corn Dip on the primary side bar at the very bottom. Thanks!

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    Sherri says

    I am having the same issue that Jamie is having. I am not using the plugin. Any ideas as to how to fix this?

    I’m so excited I found you!

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Nancy | Plus Ate Six says

Hi! I can’t tell how old this post is but I really appreciate that you took the time in the written instructions to update the information in the video that is now not working – things move fast on the internet!
I’m way behind the eight ball when it comes to Pinterest but hopefully I’ll see a few more people sticking around – Thank you so much.

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Jennifer says

I did it! It looked intimidating, but it only took about 10 minutes 😉
Now if only I could figure out how to get my sidebar to be narrow-er… 😀

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Maria says

I was wondering if there is any way to feature specific Pins on one’s Pinterest page. Similar to Instagram?

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