How to use Pinterest Trends

Pinterest Trends tool explained – how to use it to get more traffic to your website from Pinterest

Excitement can’t even begin to describe my reaction to hearing that Pinterest was releasing a new tool called “Pinterest Trends” that will change the way marketers use Pinterest. With this move, Pinterest further solidifies their position as a search engine, giving Pinterest business users more insight into how to best use Pinterest as part of their marketing plan.

I was recently asked to share my thoughts on Pinterest Trends with Social Media Examiner’s audience here.

Our community members started asking questions … so I did a deep dive into all things Pinterest Trends via video here:

Here’s what we know about Pinterest Trends … and how it can be a game-changer for your Pinterest results.

What is Pinterest Trends?

Announced in December 2019, “Pinterest Trends will help brands get deeper insights into planning behaviors on the platform, and allow them to allocate budgets to campaigns during various planning stages.“

Pinterest Trends will help business owners and marketers see:

• Which search terms people are using on Pinterest
• Suggested search terms
• Trends in volume over time
• Comparison of search terms with relative volume

Why We See Pinterest Trends as Key to Pinterest SEO

Whenever a platform invests in a new tool or feature for users, it’s a signal about their priorities. Pinterest’s strong emphasis on both Pinterest Trends and the Pinterest 100 this year over previous years indicates a move towards a better search, or “planning”, experience for end users.

Why?

When marketers have tools to help them better optimize their content to reach those end users, everyone wins:

• Users find what they are looking for faster and more accurately
• Marketers and business owners get their content and products in front of the people who want them most

Pinterest Trends allows you to:

• Research keywords and potential content ideas before you create content
• Compare search terms to choose the best terms for your content
• Identify trends over time in how people use those search terms

One more step towards Google-based SEO, Pinterest Trends gives you more of the information you need to make better content marketing decisions and further optimize your content on Pinterest.

Top Questions About Pinterest Trends

We asked our community what they wanted to know most about Pinterest Trends … here are the top questions & answers about Pinterest Trends.

How is Pinterest Trends different from the Pinterest 100?

Pinterest Trends is a tool to help marketers identify keywords and search terms being used to search on Pinterest.

The Pinterest 100 is an annual report of the top Pinterest trends coming in the next year.

You can use both to inform your content strategy on Pinterest.

How is Pinterest Trends different from Google Trends?

Pinterest Trends is very similar to Google Trends, however, all of the data is sourced from Pinterest searches rather than Google searches.

Can I just use an SEO tool to do the same thing as Pinterest Trends?

Pinterest Trends doesn’t actually show the same data as a traditional keyword research tool such as ahrefs, KwFinder, or SEMRush,

In addition, Pinterest trends only uses data from Pinterest while keyword research tools tend to focus on data from search engines like Google.

Use Pinterest Trends to compliment the SEO research you do during your content planning process.

Does Pinterest Trends Show Search Volume?

Pinterest Trends does not show overall search volume. Instead, it displays search volume relative to the terms entered into the tool.

Gain insight into search volume by comparing the results from the various terms searched. While you won’t be able to see actual volume, you can see comparative volume.

Where is Pinterest Trends available?

Pinterest Trends is available via early access (beta) in the United States only. There’s not definitive word or date for if and when the tool will roll out worldwide.

How to Use Pinterest Trends

We all want to know: how do we use Pinterest Trends to get the results we want?

Interpreting Pinterest Trends Results

Type in a search term in Pinterest Trends and you’ll see a graph of activity for that term, likely, with a spike in the graph that reaches the value of 100. That means this term will perform well, correct?

Not necessarily.

Search results in Pinterest Trends are comparatively ranked from 0 to 100 in terms of volume. If you search one term, it’s peak activity will automatically rank at 100.

Search a second term on the same screen and the ranking will be based on comparing the terms. The term with the highest volume will have a value of 100 at that peak in the graph … all values are relative and not absolute.

If all of the results are relative, how is Pinterest Trends useful to marketers?

Compare search terms to one another

While we won’t know exact search volume for a given term, knowing how various related keywords perform in relation to each other can provide massive insight into:

• how to optimize our content
• how users are searching for that content

Compare search terms to determine which to treat as long tail keywords … and which to use in more general overarching ways.

In the example pictured above, you can see volume for 3 different search terms compared to one another, each represented by a different colored line on the graph.

Identify additional keyword combinations

Predictive search in Pinterest Trends can clue marketers in to keyword combinations they may have missed.

Many keyword combinations we searched did not show up in Pinterest Trends but did show up in searches on Pinterest.com. It’s unclear if Pinterest Trends contains only a sampling of the full potential keywords list or if Pinterest Trends’ keyword library is complete. Right now, there are no inferences we can draw from this.

Get insights into seasonality of search terms

The graph of search volume over the last year generated in Pinterest Trends can indicate periods of high and low search volume for a particular term.

• Identify when to push content for particular keywords
• Different keywords may have different periods of high and low search volume

Optimize your publishing plan by promoting pins targeting different keywords during months of high search volume.

In conclusion, use Pinterest Trends to:

• Compare search terms relative to one another
• Identify additional search terms missed in initial searches
• Get insights into the seasonality of search terms
• Plan content

Share your thoughts and experience with Pinterest Trends in our free online community HERE. See you on the inside!