If there’s one thing your Pinterest success rides and dies on, it’s your keyword research.
As a visual search engine, Pinterest depends on the context you give it about your content to know how to distribute it in the algorithm, which boils down to the words and phrases you use to describe your content.
“Keyword” is definitely a buzzword in the world of marketing, but to boil it down to its most essential meaning, keywords are simply the words and phrases users are searching for on Pinterest.
What are they typing into the Pinterest search bar? Those are your keywords.
But it’s more than just knowing what Pinterest users are looking for. You need to know your particular audience, content, and goals, so you can choose keywords that will get your content in front of your dream clients.
Keyword research for Pinterest doesn’t have to be complex though. I’m sharing my best tips and tricks on how to do Pinterest keyword research, both for your account overall and individual pieces of content, so you can excel at Pinterest SEO!
The Essential Guide to Pinterest Keyword Research
When you’re doing Pinterest keyword research, remember that your Pinterest keywords should be two things:
- Relevant to your content
- Relevant to your audience
If you’re using keywords that describe your content, but that your audience isn’t searching for, you’ll have a hard time converting impressions to traffic and leads.
On the other hand, if you’re using keywords that are relevant to your audience, but that don’t accurately describe your content, Pinterest will notice the disconnect and your content likely won’t rank for the target keywords.
Keep both of those things in mind as you’re looking for keywords and when you’re using those keywords to write your pin titles and descriptions.
How to Do Keyword Research for an Entire Pinterest Account
Whenever I start working with a new client, I always start by doing keyword research for their account overall. If you’ve never done Pinterest keyword research before, I highly recommend you start here, too.
Having a thoroughly researched bank of keywords will help you develop your understanding of your niche on the platform, optimize your Pinterest account overall, and save time on content creation in the future.
Before you start doing your keyword research, I also recommend having some sort of system to track and retain the keywords you research! I use Google Sheets, but you can choose your favorite method.
Now, let the keyword research begin…
1. Considering your current content, products, and services, create a list of 3-5 broad topics that encompass those
These words will be our “seed keyword” from which the rest of our keyword research branches off.
For my business, these topics might be Pinterest marketing, content strategy, and business tips.
Don’t worry about getting too specific here, we’ll have time for that later!
2. Identify your target audience and any other topics they might be interested in and searching for
Remember, it’s not just about our content, but also about our target audience and what they’re looking for.
Let’s say your target audience is coaches. In that case, you might add “coaching business” to your list of seed keyword topics.
3. Use Pinterest’s predictive search to find long-tail keywords
Now that we have a few seed keywords to start with, you’re going to head over to Pinterest and use the tools native to the platform to do further keyword research.
When you start typing in a phrase or keyword in the Pinterest search bar, Pinterest will automatically suggest what they think you might be interested in searching.
This is based on what users are actively searching for the most on the platform, which means these are great long-tail keywords to collect for your Pinterest keyword research.
You can see the suggestions that pop up when I type in my seed keyword of “Pinterest marketing” here:
And if you actually do the search, above the pin search results, you’ll (usually) see several colorful bubbles, called guided search bubbles. These words and phrases can be added on to the seed keyword to get more long-tail keywords.
4. Rinse and repeat with your other seed keywords and long-tail keywords to fill in your keyword bank
You can get really specific and detailed with your keyword research. For example, you can take some of the initial long-tail keywords from the seed keyword and repeat the process in step 3 to get even more keywords!
I did this with the keyword “Pinterest marketing tips” and got a lot more specific keywords that would be great for me to use!
You’ll want to do this to cover as much of your content topics as possible until you feel like you have a good starting point. Remember, the more work you do upfront, the less you’ll have to do on the fly when you go to create your Pinterest content.
Pinterest Keyword Research Process for a single blog post
If you do find yourself in a situation where you’re creating pins and don’t already have keywords researched for the content, let’s go over how to do Pinterest keyword research for a single piece of content!
This will essentially be the same process as doing keyword research for your Pinterest account, but with a little bit less prep.
1. Start by identifying the main topic of the post
Type that into the Pinterest search bar to see related keywords. Also check out what pins are currently ranking in those searches. What kind of language and keywords are they using?
2. Are there any related or adjacent topics that might be relevant?
If you’re writing a blog post about welcome sequences, you’ll also want to check out the keywords for email marketing.
3. Choose a handful of keywords you want to target for the post
I won’t go fully into how to use all these keywords you’ve researched (that’s another post entirely!), but once you’ve done your keyword research, choose a few that you definitely want to make sure to use in your pin titles and descriptions.
My Favorite Pinterest Keyword Research Tools
Pinterest Trends
You can do keyword research right on Pinterest itself just using the search bar. If you want to get a little more specific, you can also go to Pinterest Trends.
Pinterest Trends shows a historical search volume for lots of different keywords. The keywords that show up in Trends tend to be in the stereotypical Pinterest categories of food, decor, fashion, beauty, etc.
But it’s still worth checking out, especially if you know your business falls into one of those categories or has strong seasonal trends.
Pinterest Trends is a great tool for keyword research, but more than that, it’s great to help you plan your content and identify growing trends to jump on!
Pin Inspector
My other favorite tool for Pinterest keyword research is Pin Inspector. This is a software that scans through open-access Pinterest data to speed up the keyword research process I detailed up above.
There is some controversy among Pinterest managers about Pin Inspector, as it’s not a Pinterest “verified” tool. However, you don’t have to log in to Pinterest to use the tool, so there’s no reason it should have any negative blowback for your account. It’s simply automating the research process.
Truly, it’s ridiculously sped up my Pinterest keyword process, and I recommend it for Pinterest managers especially.
Pinterest Rank Boost
Since SEO is essential to growing your Pinterest account, I knew I wanted to invest in quality education to improve my understanding of Pinterest SEO. Nearly everything I’ve learned about Pinterest keyword research is from this course.
It’s one of the best out there and teaches you how to find your Pinterest keywords in a really straightforward, easy-to-follow way.
Honestly, you’ve probably been making Pinterest keyword research more complicated than it needs to be.
And I get it! I’ve been there!
In the world of Google SEO, keyword research is complex and has a lot of different factors that go into choosing keywords to target.
Luckily over here in the Pinterest world, things are a lot more simple. I hope this has given you a good overview of how to brainstorm and find the right Pinterest keywords.
Or if you’d prefer to skip it entirely and have someone do all the keyword research for you (and get a custom Pinterest strategy to boot), you can book an account audit here!
Psst! Online service pros! If you’re just looking for the keywords, you can grab a full keyword bank in the Pinterest Toolkit, already researched and organized for you to plug-and-play!
