Pinterest Search Volumes on Interest Pages: How to Use Them [New Feature]

As of fall 2024, Pinterest introduced a new feature on their interest (topic) pages, where they show number of people that search for that specific topic.

In this article, I will cover what it means and how you can use this feature.

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Where Can You See Interest Search Volumes?

Pinterest started displaying search volumes only on their interest pages, which look like this:

Currently, the search volumes are displayed on all interest pages, even the smallest ones.

To access the interest pages, you can either navigate via the main Pinterest explore page here, or check which interests are annotated with a specific pin by opening it in a new incognito window.

Here is how the annotated interests look like.

Alternatively, I personally use a new tool called Pin Clicks, where you have a whole library of all interest pages, and you can search for a specific interest in a matter of seconds.

Get PinClicks

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Now that we know where to find them, what does this information even mean and what are you supposed to do with it?

What are Interest Search Volumes?

Based on the location of this data point, we could assume that the search volume indicates a real time estimate of how many people searched for this specific interest or topic within the last month.

That would be my educated guess, based on the fact that the metric also shows when it was last time update.

Pinterest does not provide any explanation for how they come up with these numbers, and whether or not they are country-specific volumes or global data.

In my previous articles on search volumes on Pinterest, I was advocating AGAINST using the Pinterest ads as an estimate for search volumes, because they are extremely inflated and only added there to attract advertisers to the platform.

It looks like this new feature just confirmed the conclusion – I checked the same interest search volume from a page, vs search volume indicated in Pinterest ads, and the difference was huge.

Not in all cases, though; some of the bigger interests match the search volumes from Pinterest ads (perhaps by coincidence?), while the majority of the keywords I checked had a huge discrepancy.

Keyword: Quick dinner ideas

Search volume on interest page: 632,000

Search volume in Pinterest ads: 5M+

Here is another example, where the search volumes match:

Keyword: easy dinner recipes

Search volume on interest page: 5M+

Search volume in Pinterest ads: 5M+

And another one with a ‘small’ 1 million discrepancy:

Keyword: Healthy dinner recipes

Search volume on interest page: 4M+

Search volume in Pinterest ads: 5M+

Note that the search volume in ads is provided for a keyword, while in interest pages they show search volumes for interests. I have no idea how they separate those two and report two different search volumes, perhaps any upcoming updates to their engineering blogs will clarify that.

How to Use Interest Search Volumes?

I was very excited to see the search volumes added to the interest pages, because as a Pinterest manager, it gives me more data to work with, and make decisions based on data points.

Up until now, selecting keywords was based on the order in which they are displayed in the search bar.

With the keywords suggested higher up in the results having more search volume than those lower down in the list.

The search volumes for the interest seem to confirm that this is indeed true as you can see from the screenshots below.

I did a test with 5 keywords, and here is the order in which they are displayed, with their respective search volumes:

Healthy dinner recipes – 4 million searches
Healthy dinner recipes for family: 169,000 searches
Healthy dinner recipes for two: 84,000 searches
Healthy dinner recipes vegetarian: 16,000 searches

So what can you do with this information?

Here are a few ideas how to use them.

1. Use Search Volumes to Plan Your Board Strategy

Up until now, your board selection has centered around covering the main topics for your main content categories.

However, for some topics, you might have a selection of 10 to 20 potential boards to choose from – how do you know which ones will perform the best?

You can use the search volumes as an indicate how popular certain topics are, and choose only those with higher search volumes as your boards.

Note: The boards still need to be relevant to your content, and you will need to have enough pins to save there over a long period of time. Don’t get carried away!

2. Use Search Volumes to Plan Your Future Content

The search volumes are a gold mine for discovering new content ideas, especially if you use a tool like Pin Clicks, which allows you to filter the interests by keywords or topics, so you can quickly find relevant interests for your content categories.

In Pin Clicks, you can also top performing pins for that specific interest, including number of saves and other data points.

It will also show you which interest are annotated with that specific pin, without having to open them up in an incognito window.

It’s a huge time saver, especially if you need to find a lot of topic ideas very quickly.

3. Use Search Volumes to Audit Your Account

Finally, you should cross check the interests with the highest search volumes against your account and boards.

Are you using the most popular interest in your account description? Do you have some boards that you are missing out?

Are you using the interest names as headlines in your pin overlays?

All of these things should be considered when you’re reviewing interest volumes.

I recommend compiling a list of all interests associated with your account in a Google sheet, and writing down the search volumes and saving a link to the top performing pin.

This will give you a very clear idea of how your content category performs on Pinterest, and which aspect of that specific topic your audience is most interested about.

Best Tool for Interests: Pin Clicks

I have started using Pin Clicks from Tony Hill couple of months ago, and can’t recommend it enough.

It saves a TON of time when you’re researching keywords, interests and provides all the data on top performing pins, so you can remove a lot of guesswork from your work.

If you’re wondering how it’s different to Pin Inspector:

Pin Clicks is a browser based software with a monthly subscription fee
It’s the only software with a full database of interests and search volumes
Much of the data available is the same as in Pin Inspector, but presented in much more user friendly way
It is also the only tool that allows you to track ranking of keywords on Pinterest for your claimed domain

Get PinClicks

Optimize your pins to get more traffic

GET IT HERE

Final Thoughts

I hope you’re as excited as me about the addition of search volumes – finally at least some kind of indication of how popular topics are on Pinterest, and a tool to help us steer our Pinterest marketing strategy!

Let me know in the comments if you started using it already and what you think about it!

Want to Learn More?

This PDF guide will give you a crash course in Pinterest Marketing – plus I included access to my free AI tool for creating SEO optimized titles & descriptions.