Pinterest SEO: What Are Your Customers Looking For?

Is Pinterest SEO part of your social media strategy? If your brand is active on the platform, it should be.

Pinterest is best known as a social network for sharing recipe ideas, decor inspiration, and DIY hacks. But the site also doubles as one of the largest search engines on the web.

If your Pinterest content isn’t optimized for Pinners’ searches, you may be missing out. Keywords are the building blocks for search engine optimization, and Pinterest is basically a visual search engine.

Using the right Pinterest keywords will help your content reach the right audience.

There are several ways to do keyword research on Pinterest, like using guided search to see automatic suggestions or getting inspiration from hashtags. Lucky for you, however, we’ve found the top 100 Pinterest keywords and tips on how to use them here.

100 most searched keywords on Pinterest

Data from August 2017 to August 2018

1. dinner recipes
2. quotes
3. keto recipes
4. healthy dinner recipes
5. hairstyles
6. nails
7. Halloween costumes
8. chicken recipes
9. Bridal gown
10. short hairstyles
11. casserole recipes
12. easy recipes
13. Instant pot recipes
14. autumn clothes
15. summer clothes
16. chicken recipes
17. tattoos
18. dinner ideas
19. bedroom ideas
20. tattoos for women
21. nail designs
22. christmas decorations
23. funny memes
24. inspirational quotes
25. engagement rings
26. Hair colour
27. acrylic nails
28. wedding ideas
29. winter clothes
30. keto diet for beginners
31. healthy recipes
32. bullet journal
33. relationship goals
34. healthy snacks
35. baby shower ideas
36. prom dresses
37. love lyrics
38. living room decor
39. motivational quotes
40. breakfast ideas
41. home decor ideas
42. do it yourself home decoration
43. vegan recipes
44. bathroom ideas
45. low-carb recipes
46. Minced meat recipes
47. valentine gifts for him
48. ketogenic diet
49. summer nails
50. Food
51. small tattoos
52. vegetarian recipes
53. thanksgiving recipes
54. Christmas
55. Happy Birthday
56. Pork Chops recipes
57. kitchen ideas
58. Gender reveals ideas
59. make up
60. elf on shelf ideas
61. master bedroom ideas
62. wallpaper iphone
63. living room ideas
64. Wedding
65. fall nails
66. Blond hair
67. christmas crafts
68. christmas cookies
69. fall decor ideas
70. Clothes
71. tattoo ideas
72. Humor
73. shrimp recipes
74. spring clothes
75. All 30 recipes
76. farmhouse decor
77. apartment decoration
78. Dinner
79. medium length haircuts
80. weekly meal prep
81. Halloween decorations
82. cute clothes
83. Pumpkin carving ideas
84. medium length hair
85. ketogenic
86. love words for him
87. banana bread
88. wedding hairstyles
89. do it yourself
90. salmon recipes
91. braided hairstyles
92. breakfast casserole
93. drawing ideas
94. healthy breakfast
95. short haircuts for women
96. stew dishes
97. Chocolate chip cookies
98. bathroom decor
99. desserts

Key takeaways to inform your Pinterest SEO strategy

How can you use this list to tailor your Pinterest SEO strategy?

For starters, if there are themes on the list that align with your business goals, make sure you use the right keywords.

Here are a few more takeaways:

Use keywords to inspire your content calendar

Depending on your business goals, these keywords can be used to inspire content for the next year. For example, if you’re a clothing retailer, create boards and Pins for each season.

Recipes are popular on Pinterest. Nearly every six of the top 500 keywords have the word “recipe”.

Consider creating recipes associated with these Pinterest keywords for companies in the health and food space. Bonus points if they meet the Keto Diet standards: “Keto” appeared four times in the top 100 keywords.

Plan like a Pinner

Pinners are planners; this means that seasons, holidays and life events affect the keywords they search for. For example, instead of searching for “nail inspiration”, more Pinners are looking for “summer nail polishes” and “autumn nail polishes.”

Holidays such as Christmas, Valentine’s Day, Thanksgiving, and Halloween also appear on the list. Important life events such as weddings and birthdays are also popular.

According to Pinterest, Pinners tend to start searching twice as early as people on other platforms. So if you decide to create holiday content on the brand, plan to do so ahead of time.

You can also use Pinterest’s Possibilities Planner for additional stats and keyword inspiration.

Fasteners are enthusiastic

Because Pinners are planners, they often search early for inspiration. The word “ideas” appears 16 times in the top 100 Pinterest keywords.

If you want your content to be one of the ideas they come up with, consider including the word “ideas.”

The top 100 Pinterest keywords show that Pinners are also target setters. Inspirational and motivating quotes are in high demand, such as “relationship goals” and “healthy”, “diet” and “low-carb” options.

don’t be too general

Generic keywords are helpful, but consider adding descriptive details to them as well. For example, “recipe” is the most popular word on the list, but it is never used alone. “Christmas decorations” precede “Christmas” and “autumn dresses” and “summer dresses” precede “clothes”.

Put keywords in your clipboard too

It’s not all about Pins. Use top-performing keywords to inform board names, descriptions, and categories.

You can also add them to your profile as long as it makes sense.

Try using keywords as hashtags too

If Pinners are searching for these keywords at high rates, there’s a good chance their hashtag equivalents will be followed by many Pinners.

Don’t worry about keyword variations

Those of you who have noticed that “hairstyles” are misspelled may have wondered if it is necessary to include keyword variations in your descriptions. Answer is no. Pinterest does this for you automatically behind the scenes. Therefore, avoid keyword stuffing in your descriptions.

Put money behind the popular

If your brand uses Pinterest Ads, keyword targeting can help you rank higher with audiences looking for specific ideas. Consider dedicating a higher portion of your ad spend behind suitable high-volume keywords to maximize ROI.

Be sure to monitor your keyword performance.

10 SEO tips for Pinterest

Keywords are a very important component of Pinterest SEO, but there are other ways to optimize for the Pinterest search engine. Here are some additional tips:

1. Write thoughtful Pin descriptions

Don’t just tag your description with various popular words. Good descriptions will help your Pin perform better, which can improve your Pin’s SEO ranking.

Tell Pinners your Pin, where it links to, and add a strong call to action.

2. Use Rich Pins

Rich Pins are actually Pins with more detail, and this added detail can improve ranking. There are four types of Rich Pins: app, product, recipe, and article.

3. Fix at optimum rate

Pinners have gone mobile: 85 percent of all Pinterest searches happen on smart devices. This means that Pins with vertical images tend to outperform squares or landscape images. The optimum aspect ratio is 2:3 (600 pixels wide: 900 pixels high).

4. Optimize Your Pinterest Boards

As with pins, quality board names and descriptions will improve SEO performance.

And don’t forget to choose a relevant board category. To do this, select the pencil icon at the bottom right of your dashboard and choose the category that best describes it.

The same goes for your profile. Make sure you have an SEO friendly username, fill in the “about you” section and upload a profile picture.

5. Save Pins to Related Boards

The more consistent you are on Pinterest, the better. When you create a Pin, the first board you pinned it to will also remain associated with it. Therefore, the more relevant the Pin is to the board, the better the chances it will rank well.

6. Claim your website

Pinterest prioritizes Pins created by the appropriate website owner. To link your website to your content, you need to claim your website. An added benefit is that when you claim your website, you unlock additional analytics on Pinterest and website content performance.

7. Create new content from your website

It may be a good idea to create content from your website, as Pinterest prioritizes owner-created Pins. Before you do that, you can check what people are pinning from your site by typing. https://www.pinterest.ca/source/[yoursite] enter your browser.

8. Avoid duplicate content

There are rumors that Pinterest is planning to take action on this and also fresh is always better.

9. Fasten consistently

Pinterest prefers regular and consistent Pinners. So, instead of Pinning everything at once, Pin it periodically. Make sure you Pin it at the best time of day to maximize performance. You can determine optimal times based on audience location statistics and by looking for periods of high engagement in your analytics.

10. Target engagement

Healthy engagement metrics can have a positive impact on SEO. Work to maintain an active base of followers.

And most importantly, create regular analysis reports to see what works and what doesn’t, and tailor your strategy accordingly. Refresh our simple guide to using Pinterest Analytics.

Save time managing your Pinterest presence using Moyens I/O. You can create, schedule and post Pins, create new boards, pin to multiple boards at once, and run all your other social media profiles from a single board. Try it for free today.

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