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How To Add The Pinterest “Pin It” Button to a Website, WordPress Blog, or ecommerce CMS

February 13, 2012 By Glenn Gabe

Pinterest

There’s a good chance you’ve heard of Pinterest lately. It has been all over the news, as it’s growing like mad, and driving a lot of traffic to ecommerce retailers. If you’re not familiar with Pinterest, it’s a new social network/application that enables users to pin photos to virtual pinboards, organized by topic. Once pinned, other users can view your photos and pinboards, “repin” photos to their own pinboards, comment on photos, and like them. This had led to an explosion of traffic for some websites, especially ecommerce retailers. Many people use Pinterest when researching new purchases, to organize ideas, etc. For example, I just created a pinboard containing the top golf drivers I’m researching for the 2012 season. That’s if I get to play this year. :)

Based on the rapid growth of Pinterest, and all the buzz associated with that growth, I’ve received a lot of questions recently about how ecommerce retailers could get more involved. Also, website owners want to know the best ways to make it easier for Pinterest users to pin photos that are located on their respective websites. So, I decided to write this post to explain various ways to include the “Pin It” button on a website. I will include instructions and information below for how to include a “Pin It” button on a webpage, on a WordPress blog or website, and how to address adding the “Pin It” button to an ecommerce CMS (which is the most challenging of the three).

What is the “Pin It” Button?
Before we hop into the instructions, I’ll quickly cover what the “Pin It” button is. You have inevitably seen Like buttons, Tweet buttons, +1 buttons, etc. as you travel the web. Those social plugins make it easier for users to share content to Facebook, Twitter, and Google+ from websites across the web. Well, Pinterest also wants to make it easier for users to quickly pin content. So, they created the “Pin It” button. In its simplest form, it’s a small button that you can place on a webpage that enables users to quickly pin content to a pinboard, while also showing how many “pins” it has received. You can tailor the code of the “Pin It” button to specify the URL of the webpage, the URL of the image you want users to pin, and the description that populates the “Pin It” form. You can also tailor how the “Pin It” button displays on your webpages.

The “Pin It” button (both horizontal and vertical layout listed below):
Pinterest Pin It Button

Since there are several types of websites, and each brings its own type of installation, I’ll cover a few of the most common methods below. My hope is that the following information and instructions can help you get up and running quickly. Let’s face it, if you make it easier for users to pin content, the greater chance you have of receiving a spike of traffic from Pinterest. Let’s jump in.

Instructions for Adding the Pinterest Button to a Simple Webpage
This is the most basic implementation of the “Pin It” button. Let’s say you have a webpage with a killer photo of your core product. Maybe you don’t have many products, but just sell a handful of core products. If that’s the case, you could use the following instructions to add a “Pin It” button to those product webpages.

Pinterest has created a simple tool on its website to help webmasters create a static “Pin It” button. You can visit http://pinterest.com/about/goodies/ and scroll down to section titled “Pin It” Button for Websites. You will see fields for URL of the webpage the photo is located on, URL of the image located on your servers, and then a description field. The description is optional, but I highly recommend adding that to make it easier for users (since it auto-populates the “pin it” form once the button is clicked). You can also select how the “Pin It” button displays. There is a dropdown that lets you choose if the pin count shows up next to or above the pin button. You can also choose to not show the pin count at all.

Once you enter the required information, Pinterest will generate the code for you below the form. Then you can copy the code and add it to your webpage. There is “Basic” code and “Advanced Code”. The advanced code loads asynchronously, which can help with performance. Also, you should use the advanced code when you want to add several pin buttons to one webpage. You will need to add the resulting code to your webpage (in your html).

Screenshot of what the “Pin It” button form looks like when populated with sample data:
Pinterest Pin It Form

How To Add a Pinterest Button to a WordPress Blog (via a WordPress Plugin)
If you are running a WordPress blog, you are in luck. There are several plugins that you can install that makes it easy to add “Pin It” buttons to your blog posts and pages. I’ll explain two of those plugins below.

The first plugin I’ll cover is called Pinterest Pin It Button, and it provides some great functionality. Using this plugin, you can add “Pin It” buttons to your posts, pages, homepage, archives, etc. In addition, you can choose to show the “Pin It” button either above or below your main content. For even more customization, you can use a shortcode in your post to add the “Pin It” button within your main content. For example, you can use the shortcode [pinit] within your post to add the “Pin It” button within your content (versus just at the top or bottom of the post).

The Pinterest “Pin It” Button plugin settings in WordPress:
Pinterest WordPress Plugin

The second plugin I’ll cover offers basic “Pin It” button functionality. The Pin It on Pinterest plugin adds a “Pin It” button at the end of your posts, and it enables you to select which image should get pinned, as well as what the pre-populated description should be. Once installed, you will see Pinterest options in your post editor within WordPress.

How to Add a Pinterest Button to an eCommerce CMS
I mentioned earlier that adding a “Pin It” button to an ecommerce CMS is the most challenging to address. The reason is simple. When you have hundreds (or thousands) of products being handled dynamically by a content management system (CMS), you can’t simply add a static pin it button like we did earlier in the post. The code needs to be dynamically tailored based on the product at hand. There aren’t separate pages for each product within an ecommerce CMS, but instead, the CMS dynamically handles each product via database-driven code. This means you cannot simply ftp product pages to your server for each product you sell on your website. The underlying code needs to determine the right URL’s and description for the “Pin It” button.

In order to add any code to an ecommerce CMS that addresses the specific URL, images within the post, etc., you will need to understand the specific functions and variables that your CMS uses. By the way, even WordPress works this way. WordPress is a CMS, although many people don’t realize this. For example, there is a function that WordPress uses to determine the current URL, and it looks like this:



In WordPress, the_permalink() returns the current URL, which can be used to populate the “Pin It” button code. This is the approach you would need to use for your own CMS. The good news is that any reputable ecommerce CMS will provide a reference guide that includes the various functions and variables that can be used. Actually, it’s common to use these functions and variables to perform other tasks.

For example, here is a webpage explaining how to add a pin it button to Shopify. You’ll notice that the example includes variables specific to Shopify for determining the current URL, image URL, and description. Again, your own ecommerce CMS provider should provide similar variables you can use when adding the pin it button to your website.

A “Pin It” button on a Shopify ecommerce website:
Pinterest Pin It Button on a Shopify ecommerce Website

My recommendation is to contact your ecommerce CMS provider and track down the necessary code for referencing the current page, images within product pages, and the description you want to use for the image. Once you have that information, you can add the necessary code to your CMS template or theme to handle the “Pin It” button. It will then dynamically pull the correct information for each product page on your website.

Summary – Enable Users to Pin Content Easily
I hope this post helped you understand more about Pinterest, including how to add a “Pin It” button to your website, WordPress blog, or ecommerce CMS. Pinterest is growing rapidly and adding the “Pin It” button to your website can make it easier for users to share your content. This can give you a greater chance of having that content get noticed, shared, etc., which can result in increased traffic, exposure, and sales. And that’s what ecommerce is all about!

I recommend you start thinking about Pinterest today. You should speak with your development team or programmer to see how you can implement the “Pin It” button soon. Pins are waiting. :)

GG

Filed Under: cms, ecommerce, small-business, social-media, wordpress

A Baker’s Dozen: A Quick Update on Kati’s Kupcakes, The Winner of The Search a Small Business Holiday Giveaway [PODCAST]

April 25, 2010 By Glenn Gabe

Kati's Kupcakes New CMS and Website DesignIf you’re a frequent reader of my blog, then you probably remember the Search a Small Business Holiday Giveaway I launched this past December.  The purpose of the contest was to give an ultra-small business in New Jersey a free online marketing audit, which would produce plan for enhancing the company’s digital strategies.

I launched the contest because it didn’t seem fair that many small businesses lack the resources or budgets to tackle online marketing the right way.  Many SMB’s move at light speed to keep their businesses running and simply don’t have time to keep up on the latest strategies and tactics.  I opened the contest to any small business in NJ with less than ten employees (what I categorized as an ultra-small business).

The winner of the contest was Kati Angelini and she owns Kati’s Kupcakes, a gourmet cupcake business in Moorestown, NJ.  Kati’s Kupcakes creates specialty cupcakes, cupcake towers, wedding cupcakes, etc.  When I first spoke to Kati after announcing the winner, I could tell right away that she was passionate about her business, and was eager to learn more about SEO, Local Search, SEM, Web Analytics, etc.  It also became apparent to me that Kati represented the classic case of someone that had serious skills and was extremely talented, but lacked the exposure she needed to rapidly grow her business.  So, after my initial conference call with her, I got started on analyzing her business, her site, her current marketing efforts, etc.

What I Found and How I Helped (And We’re Not Done Yet…)
During my audit, I began to analyze Kati’s website, her presence in Local Search, her rankings in Natural Search, her tracking capabilities, etc.  It didn’t take long to understand the path we needed to go down.  In a nutshell, the content management system (CMS) Kati was using to run her website was wreaking havoc on her efforts.  The website had a rudimentary design, it was riddled with technical problems, her content wasn’t optimized (at all), she had no presence in local search, and lacked the ability to quickly add new content or blog posts.  For a local small business, the combination I listed above was causing serious problems for gaining exposure, rankings, quality visitors, and customers.  When you boil it down, Kati needed to show up when people were searching for her services.  At the time, she simply wasn’t.

The Marketing Spot with Jay Ehret
When I launched the holiday giveaway, Jay Ehret from The Marketing Spot reached out to me to learn more about the contest.  In case you don’t know Jay, he focuses heavily on small business marketing and branding and he also runs a podcast called Power to the Small Business.  Jay learned about the contest via Twitter (since we have been following each other for some time now).  Jay recently invited me to be on his podcast to speak about the contest, the changes we implemented for Kati, and the results from our initial efforts.  Both Kati and I were on the call and we had a great conversation with Jay about the project.  The podcast launched today and you can listen to it now by visiting the blog post (listed below) or by downloading the podcast via iTunes.

Listen to the Podcast About Kati’s Kupcakes:
Local SEO Clinic: Improving Traffic, Improving Business

Kati’s Kupcakes: Highlights From Our Initial Efforts
Although we are only a few months in, there have been some great improvements marketing-wise.  Kati still has a long way to go, but our initial efforts are definitely paying off. Again, you can listen to the podcast to learn more (it’s 30 minutes long).  Here are some highlights from the project and I’m eager to keep helping Kati grow her business.  By the way, you can hear Kati’s view of the projects on the podcast (including how they have impacted her business.)

  • I performed a thorough SEO technical audit, which revealed a number of technical issues impacting her performance in Natural Search.  There were also a number of content optimization problems on the site (to say the least).  The deck was 30 slides long…
  • We moved Kati’s website from a problematic content management system (CMS) to WordPress, which helped fix a number of technical problems inhibiting her efforts (usability, SEO, blogging, domain strategy, etc.)
  • Kati’s indexation (the number of pages indexed by the search engines) has increased from 12 unoptimized pages to 136 pages.
  • I developed a local search strategy for Kati’s Kupcakes in order for the business to show up for local searches.  This included making a number of changes and additions across several websites and databases.
  • I started training Kati on best practices for Search Engine Optimization (SEO).  Kati is the person that would be creating new pages, new blog posts, etc. and needed to understand how to properly optimize those pages on her site.  This took the form of multiple one hour training sessions (and the training is on-going).
  • I explained the power of the long tail of SEO, as well as how to target it.  The long tail is incredibly powerful and businesses should avoid the long tail at their own peril. A bit dramatic?  Sure, but definitely true.  :)
  • Kati’s original website ranked for almost no target keywords.  Since March 1st, 622 keywords have led visitors to Kati’s website, 561 of those keywords were unbranded terms (not someone simply searching for Kati’s Kupcakes), and 128 of those keywords included a local qualifier.  For example, using a town, zipcode, or state along with target keywords.  Down the line, I believe that Kati’s website can rank for thousands of keywords, but 622 is a great start (and a huge improvement.)
  • We added Google Analytics for tracking site performance, which enables Kati to view granular reporting across traffic sources, campaigns, keywords, etc.  I am going to help Kati develop an analytics strategy, including identifying conversions and events to track, so she can quickly and efficiently identify which efforts are paying off for her business.


A Good Start, But There’s Still A Lot To Do:

Although we have made a lot of changes and Kati’s business is seeing a nice impact, we still have some things to do marketing-wise.  For example, there are several content optimization projects we need to perform on the site.  I also want to help Kati learn more about paid search and understand how it can supplement organic search.  I think Kati can have a stronger integration with Facebook and Twitter, and possibly start to use location-based services like FourSquare or Gowalla.  And I want to keep training Kati on SEO best practices so she feels comfortable with making changes that will help her organic search efforts.  In addition, I mentioned that I’ll be helping Kati develop an analytics strategy.  That’s probably our next major step.

So, if you are interested in hearing more about the contest and the projects we tackled, head over to the Marketing Spot and listen to the podcast.  Again, it’s about 30 minutes long, but contains some good nuggets of information for small businesses. Heck, put in on your iPod and listen to it during your next workout.  :)

GG

Filed Under: google-analytics, local-search, SEO, small-business, web-analytics, wordpress

The Internet Marketing Driver: New Layout, New Platform

April 6, 2010 By ggabe

If you are a frequent reader of my blog, then you’ll notice that I launched a new layout today.  I recently decided to upgrade the technology running my blog, including both the hosting and blogging platform.  The new setup will give me more flexibility while providing a richer experience for my readers.  In addition, the new dimensions of the layout will give me more room to write.  And if you’ve read previous posts of mine, then you know that I like to write.  :)

Here are some notes about the new blog:

  • Since I’m using a new blogging platform moving forward, new posts will reside in the /imd/ directory (for Internet Marketing Driver).  It made the most sense to start new posts in a fresh directory while keeping my current posts in the /blog/ directory.
  • My older posts (hundreds of them) are still located in the /blog/ directory.  So, if you are looking for those older posts, it’s probably best to use the search functionality in the right sidebar.  You can also visit my tag pages to track down previous posts (also located in the right sidebar).
  • My RSS feed is now pointing to the new blog in the /imd/ directory.  So, if you are already a subscriber, you don’t need to do a thing.  You will see my latest posts via my current feed.

If you’re new to my blog and think I’ve only written a few posts (due to my older posts residing in another directory), think again!  There are hundreds of posts covering the latest in online marketing strategy located in the /blog/ directory and I’ve provided links to my last seven posts below.  Again, you can always use the search functionality on my blog or visit my tag pages to see previous posts.  Also, I plan to refine my blog setup over the next few months, so bear with me in the short-term.

I hope you enjoy the new layout, platform, and functionality.  Keep on the lookout for my new posts as usual.

Here are my last seven posts to get you started:

Mobile Visitor Trending and The Impact On Search Engine Marketing (SEM) Campaigns

Mobile Browser ScreenshotAll you have to do is look around you right now to see the power (and promise) of mobile technology. Everyone is holding some form of mobile device, whether that’s a smartphone like an iphone or blackberry, or a feature phone (which is a marketing term for a standard cell phone with relatively basic functionality). And as mobile devices gain traction, more and more people are accessing the web via mobile browsers to research information, buy products, sign up for your services, contact local businesses, etc. It’s becoming hard to ignore that fact. Continue reading>>

.htaccess for Windows Server: How To Use ISAPI Rewrite To Handle Canonicalization and Redirects For SEO

isapi rewriteIf you’ve read previous blog posts of mine, then you know how important I think having a clean and crawlable website structure is for SEO. When performing SEO audits, it’s usually not long before the important topic of canonicalization comes up. Canonicalization is the process of ensuring that you don’t provide the same content at more than more URL. It’s also one of the hardest words in SEO to pronounce. :) If you don’t address canonicalization, you can end up with identical content at multiple URL’s, which can present duplicate content issues. And you don’t want duplicate content. For example, you don’t want your site to resolve at both non-www and www, at both http and https, using mixed case, having folders resolve with and without trailing slashes, etc. Continue reading>>

SES NY 2010 Series: Augmented Reality and Mobile Marketing, An Interview With Rachel Pasqua of iCrossing


Augmented RealityThis is the second post in my SES NY 2010 series. The conference is only one week away and I’ll be covering it again via blogging and Twitter. As part of my coverage, I’m writing a few posts about sessions that piqued my curiosity. As I was scanning through the list of topics being covered at this year’s conference, it was hard not to be interested in the session about Augmented Reality (AR). AR is the hot new technology that merges real world data with computer generated elements, and it provides a world of opportunity for mobile marketers. Continue reading>>


SES NY 2010 Series: Getting Penalized and Banned in Search, An Interview With Michael Stebbins from Market Motive


Penalized and banned in GoogleIt’s that time of year again. SES New York is only a few weeks away and I’ll be covering the conference again via blogging and Twitter. As part of my coverage, I’ll be writing a blog posts previewing some of the sessions that I’m excited about attending. My first post is about a session titled “Post Mortem: Banned Site Forensics” and it will be co-presented by Michael Stebbins, the CEO of Market Motive, and Rand Fishkin, the CEO of SEOmoz, on Tuesday, March 23rd at 12:45. During the session, Michael and Rand will share some of the most egregious tactics that can get you in trouble, and also how to deal with getting penalized or banned. I had a chance to interview Michael last week about the session and you will find the interview below. Continue reading>>


Advanced Segmentation in Google Analytics: How to Set Up and Use Advanced Segments to Analyze Social Media Traffic


Advanced SegmentationWhen I’m helping clients analyze website traffic and performance, I try and help them avoid the time-consuming process of “report browsing”. Instead, I emphasize entering the process with a very specific goal in mind. You need a purpose when diving into reporting or else you run the risk of spending hours scanning metrics with nothing to show at the end but a headache and a bottle of Visine. I also emphasize focusing on actionable data, or information you can analyze and then make decisions based on. This is why segmentation is so important. I’ll explain more about segments below, but for now think of a segment as a slice of your site traffic (based on traffic source, type of visitor, etc.) For the example I provide in this post, visitors from Social Media websites could be a segment of your site traffic. Continue reading>>


How to Upgrade Your HDTV Firmware [SAMSUNG] – And Get Rid of Annoying Audio and Video Problems


Upgrade Samsung HDTV FirmwareIt’s no secret that HDTV’s have taken off. That’s for good reason, considering the incredible image quality that HD provides. So, as people buy HDTV’s and set up HD service with their cable providers, you might think everyone is extremely happy in TV-land. But running some searches in Google for HDTV audio, video, or image problems shows you that everything isn’t perfect. Like many other gadgets and electronic devices, HDTV’s run software (AKA firmware). That software often needs to be upgraded as bugs and other problems are addressed by the manufacturer. Therefore, if you end up running into weird issues with your HDTV, don’t immediately think that your TV is shot. You just might need to upgrade your HDTV’s firmware. And that’s exactly what I’m going to walk you through in this post. Continue reading>>


Domain Strategy and SEO – Build Strength in Natural Search While Minimizing Security Risks


Domain Strategy for SEODo you know how many domains your company or clients are using? Are they building SEO power to one domain or splitting that power across ten? Do they use an excessive amount of subdomains or are they siloing content on their core website? From a security standpont, is there sensitive content sitting on test servers freely available to competitors? These are all important questions to explore, and how you address these questions can end up having a strong impact on your SEO efforts. Continue reading>>

Filed Under: blogging, wordpress

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