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Pinterest is a visual discovery tool that lets users connect with other users, discover new content of interest, pursue fashion styles, redecorate their interiors and create new hobbies by following various boards that use Pinterest categories to organize them all. The platform has more than 100 million users and 50 billion pins to date.
While Pinterest has a helpful categories page on its website, not all of these categories show up in your Pinterest feed. In fact, there are only a few categories that you see organically. Read on to learn more about Pinterest categories and how to use them to improve your user experience.
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What Is Pinterest Interest?
As of 2020 they specifically call ‘interest’ categories ‘Ideas’ now.
They use the Interest Taxonomy to help you classify your content to reach the right people who are searching for that specific content on the platform. They have set up code to help users reach the right audience based on the pinner’s unique use of the platform, like what they are planning, what they are searching for, and what they are clicking on.
Pinterest said:
Taxonomy is a methodology that classifies entities and defines the hierarchical relationship among them. It’s widely used as a knowledge management system in the industry, and has proven success in improving the accuracy of the machine learning models in search, user-behavior modeling, and classification tasks.
Did you know that more than 99% of the Pins can be mapped to at least one taxonomy node?
How do I add interests on Pinterest?
Click your profile picture in the top right hand corner. Go to settings, then click ‘Tune your home feed’. Select Interests. You can remove interests you no longer want to see or add categories that you enjoy here. You can also select the Boards tab and select the relevant topics you do or don’t want to see more of. Don’t worry this setting will not affect your board in any way.
This will only be for YOU to view though. This will NOT effect the classifications of your pins. That we will get to next.
What Are Pinterest Categories?
A category is a board on Pinterest that displays related pins. If you are familiar with Twitter, a board would be like a Twitter list. There are currently 21 categories, each full of pins. Below is a sample of how Pinterest lists them. Check out the complete list here.
Highest-Ranking & Most Popular Pinterest Categories
Pinterest’s most popular categories change constantly. Below are some of the most consistently highest-ranking categories each year. Other than Pinterest everything category which is diverse, this list is data from the number of people who have saved specific things to their Pinterest boards.
- Home Decor
- DIY And Crafts
- Women’s Fashion
- Food And Drink
- Quotes
- Lawn and Garden
- Travel
- Photography
- Weddings
- Education
Why You Should Care About Pinterest Categories
Pinterest is actually a pretty good tool for generating traffic to your website. It’s great for driving both paid and organic traffic. This is because you can target specific demographics with the help of Pinterest categories.
Each Pinterest board has a specific theme. Therefore, certain boards are more relevant to particular markets. For example, if the Pinterest board for fashion is all about beach clothes, you’re going to want to post items and pictures related to that theme. You can target different markets with the help of Pinterest board categories.
When you learn about various Pinterest boards, it becomes easier to select the one that best fits your needs.
Optimizing Your Pinterest Boards for Success
It’s easy to get bogged down by how many boards you have created or how many categories you might have a chance at. However, not all boards are similar.
Different boards have different levels of interest and utility. So how do you decide which boards to promote and maintain? By using these tips, you’ll learn how to optimize your Pinterest boards for success.
3 Tips and Tricks for New Pins
Tip 1:
Use this Pinterest “board optimization” checklist to list off each board as you create it. You can update these as needed as you expand your Pinterest site. You may find these tips helpful when creating new boards too.
Your boards are not static. Meaning you can change the board title & description at any time you feel that it is not reaching the right audience or Pinterest is not classifying it correctly.
Here is a quick screenshot of the stats just 48 hours after making some changes and following the board optimization SOP workflow I teach in my Pinterest course. Same board, same name – different classification techniques that more than doubled my impressions and outbound clicks!
Tip 2:
Don’t get too hung up on creating “interesting” boards. You want to focus on the actual terms (word for word) that are the top ‘pillar’ keywords that are ranking for the interests you have found relevant to your brand.
For example – don’t title your board “Laura Rike’s Blog” because no one will be searching online for that (even if they do know me). I would instead title the board “Marketing Tips” or “Inbound Marketing for Pinterest” because that is something they would be looking for help with online!
Tip 3:
Pinterest will provide you valuable data into what is working for your board titles and categories so that you know what is working or what needs to be changed. You can view the insights from their analytics page.
I like to sort by 90 days for the date range, and organic for the content type. Scroll down to the top board section in analytics and then I sort by outbound clicks to see what boards are my top performing boards and which ones might need some reclassification optimizations done.
How do I find categories on Pinterest?
Answer: From the Pinterest homepage, you’ll see a navigation bar on the left side of the screen. Click “Explore.” This will take you to a scrollable list of categories that are popular on Pinterest with smaller icons towards the bottom that allow viewers to jump directly to more specific types within them. These can be narrowed down by rating or search.
You can also filter boards and pins by type (e.g., fun boards, food pins) from this part of your home feed as well as following other users in order to explore their individual boards that they’ve created for different topics related to your interests or ideas for things about which you’re curious if others have found success with one way or another.
Need More Tips?
Pintastic Rockstars is a step-by-step guide to building an empire with Pinterest. You can learn how to direct traffic to your site with Pinterest and also how to scale it easily with valuable tips and tools.
