How do you create your Pinterest boards?
Do you choose them randomly or do you have a plan that you follow?
If you’re struggling with your marketing strategy for Pinterest, having a board plan is a great place to start to get your account back on track.
I have helped countless clients get their messy boards back in order, and help them to rank faster.
In this article, I will cover a simple process on how to research and plan your boards using Pin Inspector, which will make the whole process much faster and easier.
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What is a Pinterest Board Strategy?
Pinterest board strategy is a crucial part of your account optimization and marketing.
Board titles and descriptions are two of many places from where the algorithm extracts keywords, which help it to understand your content, and distribute it to the correct audience.
Having a proper board strategy in place will allow you to plan your content in a more strategic way, for example covering one content cluster at a time, to establish topical authority for that category on Pinterest (at least that’s what I like to do!).
So what should be part of your board strategy?
Here is a complete list of what my board plan includes for each of the clients I work with:
- main keywords covering all the topic categories on the website
- potential board names for each of the topic clusters (related keywords)
- interest search volumes for the board candidates
- status of each board
- top ranking pins for specific board keywords
- notes on potential future actions or future boards to create
I create a new board planner for each client I work with, and based on that start, executing the strategy – usually by auditing existing boards, and making a plan to add new boards over time.
I won’t be covering the details on how to name your boards or choose your board names, you can check the details in these related articles:
- Pinterest Board Ideas: Use These Board Names to Rank Faster
- How to Make a Pinterest Board That Ranks Fast
- What Pinterest Boards You Should Have to Rank Faster
- Pinterest Search Volumes on Interest Pages: How to Use Them
Why Use Pin Inspector?
Pin Inspector is the best keyword research tool for Pinterest – it saves you a TON of time!
Instead of manually typing in your keywords in the search bar, and recording them one by one, you can do the same job in Pin Inspector in a matter of minutes.
What I love about it is that it’s a one-time payment. With my discount code below, you can get it for just $40. I can guarantee it will pay back for itself right away!
If you don’t have it yet, you can grab it via the link below, and continue reading on how to use it to create a board strategy fast.
Creating Pinterest Board Strategy with Pin Inspector
I like to scrape all keyword ideas for boards from Pin Inspector, record them in my spreadsheet, and then go through the process of elimination and selecting only those that would make good boards.
Let’s break this down into individual steps.
1. Identify Your Main Keywords
First up, you need to identify the main categories you cover on your website.
For each one, find a matching keyword on Pinterest .
This is important because your category names don’t always match keywords on Pinterest. And you want to ONLY use keywords that EXIST already on Pinterest.
Here is an example:
Let’s say you have a category called minimalist recipes. This keyword does not exist on Pinterest.
So you need to search for something relevant and similar. Instead of minimalist recipes, you will find keywords like: 5 ingredient recipes, simple recipes, 6 ingredient recipes.
All of those would make great keywords because that’s how people search for this topic.
2. Find Related Keywords
Once you have your main keywords, covering the main categories on your site, you need to find related keywords for each one.
These related keywords will be the candidates for your potential boards.
You can do this step in Pinterest search bar as you can see below – by typing in your keyword, and then checking for all letter variations (going from a to z).
Record all suggested keywords in row 2 to 3 in the search recommendations, as they would have higher search volumes.

In Pin Inspector, you can do the same job much faster – add your main keyword and hit generate.
It will give you the full list of keywords from Pinterest, which would take you a long time to search for manually.

3. Use Rank Filters
In Pin Inspector, you want to then apply the ranking filter to only see keywords ranking at spots 2 or 3.
This means, you’re seeing keyword suggestions that come up on spot 2 or 3 in the search recommendations.
These are the ones that have higher search volumes.

To make the process faster, you also want to apply the filter for word count, and rank the suggestions from smallest workcount to highest.
That’s because we only want to use keywords that are 2 or 3 words long.
Select the ones that match, and export them into a google sheet.
Simple, and it takes seconds!

4. Optional: Check Interest Volumes
This is an optional step that you don’t have to take, but I started doing it for my clients recently to get more data to work with and to make more informed decisions about the board plan.
In this new tool called Pin Clicks, you can access a Interest database on Pinterest.
Recently, Pinterest introduced search volumes on interest pages, which is a huge game changer as it gives you a better idea about which content is more popular and has more searches.
So I like to go into Pin Clicks, and check the potential candidates for my boards against their respective search volumes.

The tool will list all related interests, and each one has a dedicated page where you can see top ranking pins, and also related interests displayed.
You can then click on the main headline, which will open up a Pinterest page for that specific interest.

On that Pinterest page, you can then see the total number of people who search for this topic.
You can of course find the interest pages also by searching Pinterest platform, but its not as easy as you can’t simply search for a specific interest – you will have to open up some pins and dig around their annotated interests.

Here is a link to Pin Clicks if you would like to test it, I think they have a free trial period:
5. Record in a Spreadsheet
Finally, all the data I extracted from Pin Inspector, I like to record in a spreadsheet, to compile a complete list of all the potential boards and topics to cover on the account.
This is super useful as sometimes you come up with variations of similar keywords, so this planner will also help you eliminate any potential duplicates.
PS: those interest volumes are not accurate, I just filled in some dummy data to give you a quick example

Auditing Existing Pinterest Boards
Now that you have a complete board plan, the next step is editing any existing boards you have.
I like to scrape their names from Pinterest profile, and compile them into a new list. In the list, I then make an action note for each board: optimize, archive or merge.
1. Pinterest Boards to Optimize
If you have existing boards with a lot of content, and they only need a tweak in the name, the best course of action is to optimize them.
2. Pinterest Boards to Archive
Any boards that do not fit your niche (for example travel board on an account about vegan recipes), boards that are outdated, boards for which you do not have any new content, or group boards where you have no engagement or clicks, should be archived.
If you archive them, you can access them from the bottom of your profile, but they won’t be visible on your account. If you have some clicks coming from them, archiving won’t impact it as you did not delete the board, just put it out of sight.
3. Pinterest Boards to Merge
For boards which are very narrow or specific, and you don’t have a lot of content in them (like 20 pins), the best way to deal with them is to merge them with a bigger board.
Pinterest Board Descriptions
Finally, each board should have an SEO optimized board description.
I like to use the suggested keywords from Pinterest search bar, and create unique description by adding them to my AI tool. You can get access to the tool if you sign up to my free mini course at the end of the post (you will also get access to my title & description AI generator).
Key Takeaways
- Pinterest board strategy is essential for account optimization and marketing on the platform.
- Board titles and descriptions help the Pinterest algorithm identify keywords, influencing content distribution.
- A proper board strategy involves planning content around specific clusters to build topical authority.
- Effective strategies include using main and related keywords for board names, analyzing interest search volumes, and identifying top-ranking pins.
- Tools like Pin Inspector and Pin Clicks can significantly speed up keyword research and content planning.
- Regularly audit existing boards to optimize, archive, or merge based on relevance and content volume.
- Board descriptions should be SEO-optimized to enhance visibility.
Action Points
- Identify main keywords relevant to your website’s categories.
- Research related keywords using Pinterest search or tools like Pin Inspector.
- Use keywords that already exist on Pinterest for board names (2-3 words long).
- Create a spreadsheet to organize keywords, board ideas, and interest volumes.
- Audit existing boards: optimize names, archive irrelevant ones, and merge narrow boards with broader ones.
- Write SEO-optimized descriptions for each board using suggested keywords.
- Utilize Pin Inspector and Pin Clicks to refine your board strategy and maximize efficiency.
Key to Success on Pinterest
I only scratched the surface with these tips, and will expand on them in more detail in my free mini course!
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