Have you heard about the Pinterest Trends tool?
While Pinterest doesn’t have a keyword research tool – it does have this handy feature that can help you:
- Research Pinterest-friendly content.
- Plan your content calendar.
- Decide what to Pin.
- Know the best time to Pin it.
Let’s look at how to use the Pinterest Trends tool to help you make content that will get more clicks!
What is the Pinterest Trends tool?
Pinterest Trends is a feature within Pinterest that’s designed to help you understand what content is working – and when – on the platform.
Pinterest Trends shows a historic view of the top search terms and topics in the US, UK and Canada within the past 12 months. source
It can be used alongside other tools, such as their monthly and seasonal updates, to help you decide:
- When you should publish content.
- How to handle seasonal topics.
Your Pinterest business account should have access to it now.
Pinterest Trends is available to anyone wanting to learn when people start searching for various topics and what content is popular on Pinterest.
To find it, select the Analytics drop-down menu within your Pinterest profile.
At the bottom there’s the ‘Trends’ option. Select this for the tool to open.
Why use the Pinterest Trends tool?
You can find some valuable info by using this tool!
- Learn when people start searching for various topics on Pinterest.
- Discover what content is popular on Pinterest.
- Decide which of 2 to 4 topical keywords is most popular.
- Get suggestions for related search terms.
- See Pins that are already popular for your keywords.
And, it’s free! So let’s check out how to use it.
How to use Pinterest Trends to research a topic
Trends will default to either your location (if available) or to the US.
You can change this, if you want to research a topic for somewhere else. For example, someone in the UK might want to see when Mother’s Day content is popular in the UK, and then compare this to the US as they are at different times.
If your business is online, why not hit both?
Currently, US, UK, and Canada are available. Select one in the dropdown menu.
Below the search bar, there’s a slider of This week’s top Pinterest trends. These aren’t based on your account, but on Pinterest as a whole, so some may be irrelevant to you.
If you do want to know more about them, select one to open the trends search.
Otherwise, pop the search term you want into the search bar and hit your return key to search.
How to use information from Pinterest Trends
As long as the term is in the keyword database, you’ll open up a screen with a graph on it.
The graph always starts with the last completed week on the right, and goes backward one year. The peaks and valleys will vary as you go through the past year.
The idea is that the highest peak is when the topic is most popular. It shows a a years’ worth of dates across the bottom bar for guidance. If you hover over a certain part of the graph, it will show you the exact information for that date.
It does not show the number of searches at the times listed below the graph.
It shows 100 at the time of year the term is most popular, with other times plotted relative to that.
To make comparisons between terms easier, the highest point of the search term is indexed to 100, and the lowest point is indexed to 0 on each plot. The rest of the points on the plot are proportional to the highest and lowest point.
Underneath the graph are related terms that you can use to compare the trends. Click to add one. The more you add, the more niched the related terms become.
You can see that, while these 3 searches just happen to peak around the same time, there’s a huge difference in the relative amount of searches.
Under this is another section that includes popular Pins for that search. You can click any of these to open the current top searches for the term in a new window.
You might use these popular Pin designs to inspire you on how to make Pinterest Pins for your own content.
Sometimes this Pin search will even include some keyword colored blocks to indicate the terms associated with it.
How to compare terms in Pinterest Trends
A great feature of Trends is being able to compare up to four keywords at a time. You can choose from related terms under the graph, or add something in search bar.
Pinterest will suggest terms as you start to type.
Each graph line will have its own color, and the one with the most searches will be the one with the highest spike.
So if you want to see when spring dresses are popular, and when the trend switches to summer dresses, just add both terms. The graph will show when one died off and the other picked up.
And it’s quite interesting to see how different the search volume is!
To remove terms from the compare view, click the x icon to the right of each term.
How to use Trends for content research
In addition to finding out when you should publish content to get the maximum exposure on Pinterest, Trends helps you find ideas for long-tail keywords you might not have considered. The suggested terms underneath will often include related or long-tail keywords. The more you explore, the more you find.
You can also compare various ideas to see how interested Pinners are in your topic – though many low-interest terms haven’t been plotted yet.
A handy free tool
Trends is a handy free tool now included on most Pinterest accounts.
It’s helpful for seasonal content, for occasions and events, and also to get ideas for content topics that are a little more specific – and therefore more likely to rank on a newer account.
There’s also a new report from Pinterest that you may want to check out: Pinterest Predicts.
But the Pinterest Trends tool is the one you need for making comparisons.
Have you tried it? Share your thoughts in a comment!
Cheri says
I don’t have the trend tool for my business profile. Did they get rid of it?
Louise Myers says
Nope! You might not even need an account to see it. Just tap or click the link in the article 🙂