Granny Geek’s Guide to Hiding Secret Pins on Your Blog

Shhh! The Secret of Secret Pins Revealed

Now that you’ve learned how to create great graphics, put the right things in your alt tag descriptions, cleaned up your boards, created a pinning strategy, mastered manual pinning, and applied for Rich Pins, you’re ready to learn the secret of secret pins.

Have you ever wondered why, when you click on some people’s Pinterest icon, you discover a wide selection of pins to choose from? But when you click on other people’s Pinterest icons, you have one choice? You, too, can have a plethora of pins for people to choose from (without burying your blog post text with multiple graphics).

Hang on tight here, because this requires upping your geek game. Rest assured, if an old granny like me can figure it out and execute it, you can, too!

Get to Know Your Panels

First of all, make sure you know the difference between the two editing panels on your self-hosted WordPress blog. They look like this:

The Visual Panel

The Text Panel

We should also talk a bit about how you compose your blog posts. I find it easiest to write blog posts using Microsoft Word, because I’ve used it for eons. When I finish writing, spell-checking (you should ALWAYS spell-check before you hit publish), and revising a blog post, I select everything and copy it. I log in to my blog account and click on ‘Add New Post.’ Then I look for the ‘Text’ tab in the upper right-hand corner of the composing panel and click it. NOW I paste the document that I’ve copied from Word. If you paste directly into the ‘Visual’ panel, your post will have weird spacing problems between paragraphs.

I quickly click on the ‘Visual’ tab, because all that mumbo-jumbo I see in the ‘Text’ panel freaks me out a little. (Ok, not so much anymore, but when I first started it really bothered me). I do the rest of my post preparation in the ‘Visual’ panel. Things like adding paragraph styles such as headings (you should always add headings about every 300 words) and graphics.

After adding a graphic for the top of my post, I choose a likely spot for my Pinterest graphic. Usually in the second or third section, and definitely not in a section that has a Click to Tweet tweetable. I’ve discovered that graphics and tweetables don’t always mix well (the tweetable will cut off the graphic).

Inserting the Graphic You Want People to See

Click where you want the graphic to appear, click on “Add Media,” and then upload your beautiful graphics. Yep, I used the plural. I usually make all of my graphics for a post at once, and then upload them all at once. Deselect the ones you don’t want, add good copy to the alt tag box, choose the placement and size, and then click on “Insert into Post.”

Now, click back on the “Text” panel tab, and see what happens to your post. A bunch of lines with gobbledygook show up. Most of that is HTML code. Go back to the “Visual” panel and adjust your graphic (you can resize it by clicking and holding on the corner and pulling out or in to make it bigger or smaller).

The Secret Code to Secret Pins

Go to the bottom of your post and insert a second Pinterest-worthy graphic. Just click your cursor at the bottom of the post, click on “Add Media” and check the box in the upper right corner to select that graphic. You don’t actually have to go to the end, but I suggest that you do to make it easier to insert the code.

Now, go to the ‘Text’ panel, and scroll to the bottom of the page. The words that represent the graphics (otherwise known as the code for the graphics) should start like this: <img class=”” />.

Click RIGHT BEFORE the ‘greater’ symbol: < and start typing this code: <div style=”display: none;”>

Now click back over to the ‘Visual’ panel, and the graphic you inserted at the bottom of the post should have disappeared! Check to make sure you’ve successfully entered the code by clicking on “View Post” and then clicking on your Pinterest button. You should see the secret pin.

If at First You Don’t Succeed

Yep. Try again. If you get even one little space or letter or character incorrectly, it won’t work. But no worries, just erase all of the code—including the graphic code (from the ‘Text’ panel), and start over.

Now you try! Let me know in the comments how it worked!

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