In this Pinterest for WordPress tutorial, we’ll walk you through creating a widget to display a Pinterest board on your website.
Adding a Pinterest board to a WordPress site is a super easy way to jazz up your blog. You can embed a Pinterest board in any of your theme’s widget areas or add it directly to a WordPress page or blog post.
No Plugin needed!
There are a number of plugins that you can use but you really don’t need one. Pinterest makes it so easy.
Works with any WordPress Theme
This tutorial will work with any WordPress theme.
It works differently over on WordPress.com
These instructions are for a WordPress.org self-hosted site (maybe you want to move from .com to .org). If you are blogging on WordPress.com, read about how to embed from Pinterest.
How to Embed a Pinterest Board on your WordPress Blog
STEP 1: Go to the Board on Pinterest that you want to embed.


STEP 2: Click on the dots & then click Make a widget
A popup window will appear — like this ⟶
STEP 3: Copy the code provided to your clipboard
STEP 4: Now move over to your WordPress website …
If you want to add a sidebar widget go to Appearance -> Widgets (or open customizer). Add a text widget to the appropriate theme widget area and paste the code into the text widget.
If you want to embed the board in a page or post,
- Use this Pinterest Widget Builder for creating custom sizes.
- Grab the custom code and copy it to your clipboard. Return to WordPress and
- Edit the page →
- Switch from the Visual Editor to the Text editor and paste the code into the page.
- Then Update or Publish your page. Don’t worry that you don’t see the board in the visual editor. Just Preview the Post and you will see it in the front end.
That’s all there is to it!
UPDATE
You need to add the provided pinit.js code to your theme’s header.php file. You will need to be running a child theme or you’ll lose the code if your theme updates. You can also check your theme options to see if there is a field provided where you can paste the code.
If you’re not running a child theme or you’re still having problems — give this plugin a try.
Thank you so much! This was really helpful. x
Great Erica glad to help you out 🙂
Thanks Ruth for this tip! It worked beautifully.
I did have some issues regarding the pinit.js code, because there isn’t a header.php file, at least in the version I have. If anyone is having problems, try going to ‘Settings’ in your dashboard, then click ‘Insert Headers and Footers’. You can paste the pinit.js code you copy from Pinterest to the bottom of the code there. Works great!
I’m just starting out, and this dressed up my sidebar. Thanks so much again, Ruth!
Glad it helped you Kimberly. It must be that your theme is hiding the header.php file and the ability to add the code is also coming from your theme or a plugin.
I actually discovered just recently that child themes (which I am running) don’t typically include a header.php file. 🙂 Made some things a little more difficult until I learned how to copy the header.php file from the parent theme over to the child theme. Thanks again, Ruth!
Glad that you figured it out, Kimberly!
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Our website has a Child Theme, domain is .in. Have tried all the above, nothing works. Any ideas?
Did you add the pinit.js code to the header.php file of your child theme? If you’re still having issues try this plugin https://en-ca.wordpress.org/plugins/pinterest-widgets/
I can’t seem to get this to work, it just shows up as blank, no link, no image 🙁
Hello this isn’t working for me either, having followed the instructions on our self hosted website 🙁
trying to embed it in a page or post.
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I wanted to put my pinterest board/profile on the sidebar but i noticed that option has been removed. Is there a way around this? I have embedded my pinterest on my side bar for now but hopefully i should find a solution to show pinned images on the sidebar.
Hi Charlene, I see that you are on WordPress.com not a self-hosted WordPress.org blog. Did you try the embed from Pinterest link provided in another comment reply?
I’m having the same problem. The embed from Pinterest link only discusses pages and posts, it doesn’t work for sidebars.
What these instructions are lacking: The pinit.js script needs to be embedded on your site (the code under the red letters in the widget builder). This might be the case when you’re already using some kind of pinterest widget on your wordpress installation. If not you need to include it manually in your theme at some point. Preferably in the footer.
Thank you! To both you Heine and Ruth Maude for this excellent and easy explanation. It works!
You’re most welcome. We’re glad that this helped you.
Wow, thank you so much!! This was so easy and it work perfectly!!
This worked for me! Thanks! We’re just getting our site started, and this is great.
This was just what I was looking for! Thank you. 🙂
You’re welcome Jessica. Glad that we could help.
Neither of these instructions worked. All I got was the link. Part of the coding was removed by WordPress.
Michelle and Jo I think the problem is that you are both using WordPress.com not a self-hosted WordPress.org site. I’m not familiar with .com but I found this – https://en.support.wordpress.com/embed-from-pinterest/
Michelle note that Pinterest embeds will not display whenever your blog is marked as Private.
I hope this helps.
I am self hosted and I still only see a link and not the board’s pins or widget. 🙁
HI Amanda,
I looked at your site and I see it there so I assume you got it working. Let me know if there is something that needs updating in my instructions
I have the same problem , I get to sets of code and the second one say place in front of the body and I am not sure where that is ?
Did you check your theme options? Some themes provide a place to paste the code. If yours doesn’t, you need to add the pinit.js code to the header.php file of your child theme. In Appearance -> Editor -> open header.php and paste before the
tag. Instead of making theme edits, you may be better off trying this plugin https://en-ca.wordpress.org/plugins/pinterest-widgets/This didn’t work! I tryed and copyed the code and still, it showed up as a link
Did you do step 4 and switch from the visual editor to the text editor?
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