S1E10 Does Pinterest Search Volume Matter?

Summary

Pin Talk Podcast Summary: S1E10 – "Does Pinterest Search Volume Matter?"

Release Date: January 30, 2025

In the tenth episode of Pin Talk - Pinterest Tips and Updates for Creators, hosts Tony Hill and Carly Campbell, both Pinterest experts, delve deep into the newly introduced metric on Pinterest: search volume. This episode explores the significance of search volume for content creators and bloggers, how it influences Pinterest strategies, and how it differs from traditional search metrics like those found on Google.

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1. Introduction to Pinterest Search Volume

Tony Hill opens the discussion by introducing the episode's focus on Pinterest search volume, a relatively new metric that has recently become accessible to creators.

Tony Hill [00:26]: "With this new realization of search volume directly from the source, how does that change our strategy and approach to Pinterest now that we can see how many people are searching for all these keywords?"

Carly Campbell emphasizes the novelty and complexity of search volume, highlighting that it's not a straightforward metric and requires nuanced understanding.

Carly Campbell [00:26]: "It's a relatively new metric for us and a lot of people don't seem to realize that."

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2. Accessing and Understanding Search Volume Data

The hosts discuss how Pinterest has traditionally kept search volume data concealed, accessible only through ads or relative metrics. They explain the breakthrough of accessing accurate search volume directly from Pinterest for the first time.

Tony Hill [00:26]: "For the first time ever, we're able to get search volume directly from Pinterest."

They share their initial experiments with data collection, noting that search volumes appear to update on a rolling 30-day basis rather than all at once.

Tony Hill [03:07]: "It seems to be like a rolling 30 days because they're not all being updated at the same time either."

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3. Implications of Search Volume on Pinterest Strategy

Tony and Carly explore how the availability of precise search volume data can influence content creation and keyword prioritization. They discuss the potential of using search volume to sift through the vast number of keywords available on Pinterest, helping creators focus on those with higher traffic potential.

Tony Hill [19:27]: "I'm trying to figure out how do I prioritize keywords because I can get overwhelmed by them with so many possibilities."

Carly adds that while search volume is valuable, it shouldn't be the sole factor in decision-making. Understanding user intent and the platform's unique engagement patterns are equally crucial.

Carly Campbell [25:35]: "No matter what the volume says, it's very important to make sure that you are checking your user intent."

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4. Pinterest Search vs. Google Search: A Comparative Analysis

A significant portion of the episode is dedicated to contrasting Pinterest's search behavior with Google's. The hosts highlight that while Google’s search intent is highly transactional—with users seeking specific information—their findings suggest that Pinterest users are more exploratory, seeking ideas and inspiration.

Tony Hill [11:15]: "People are going to Pinterest to get ideas, and so the way they engage with Pinterest search and the search results is going to naturally look different than the way that they're engaging with Google."

They explain that on Pinterest, multiple pins are displayed simultaneously, leading to a distribution of clicks across many results rather than concentrating on the top few, as seen with Google.

Carly Campbell [12:08]: "You actually see more than one thing at a time... I see the first four okay, really easily."

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5. The Role of User Intent and Engagement on Pinterest

The conversation delves into how user intent on Pinterest doesn't always translate directly from search volume to site traffic. Tony shares observations that even high-volume keywords might not yield proportional traffic if the engagement (clicks) doesn't align with the search intent.

Tony Hill [10:07]: "This particular keyword said there's a thousand searches a month. And it's not showing that had a thousand impressions. It might only have, like, 300 impressions."

Carly discusses the concept of "interest volume", where topics that don’t necessarily have high search volumes still perform well due to their broad appeal and relevance to users' interests.

Carly Campbell [35:31]: "When things are applicable to the entire Pinterest audience. I think that's what I like the term that you've given it, interest volume."

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6. Practical Applications: Niche Examples and Strategies

Using specific niches like divorce, parenting, and food, Tony and Carly illustrate how search volume can vary and what it means for content strategy. For instance, in sensitive niches like divorce, search volumes for specific terms like "divorce quotes" are high, while more actionable searches like "how to get a divorce with no money" have significantly lower volumes. They debate whether creators should focus on high-volume aesthetic keywords or prioritize engagement through niche-specific content regardless of search volume.

Tony Hill [33:08]: "You have to have that intuition to know, like, okay, is this because maybe it's a sensitive topic and a lot of people aren't searching for it, or Pinterest doesn't want to create idea pages for it?"

Carly Campbell [35:31]: "If you're targeting divorce quotes, you're exposing your account and your pins to a highly targeted audience."

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7. Future Developments and Tools: Enhancing Data Utilization

The hosts touch upon upcoming features in their Pin Clicks tool, which aims to provide even more granular data, such as tracking keyword rankings over time and understanding the relationship between different keywords and pin performance.

Tony Hill [15:24]: "I really can't wait to launch the feature where you can take any PIN URL of yours and put it into a tool and it will show you all the keywords it ranked for and what the ranking was and when."

They express excitement about the potential to receive email notifications for keyword trends, allowing creators to stay informed about shifts in search dynamics.

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8. Conclusion and Key Takeaways

In wrapping up, Tony and Carly emphasize the importance of using search volume as one of several tools in a creator's arsenal. They encourage listeners to explore Pinterest’s new search metrics, experiment with different strategies, and continuously analyze patterns within their niches.

Carly Campbell [50:19]: "Discovering the patterns in your own niche is the best thing that you can possibly do for your business."

Tony Hill [50:45]: "Look for patterns. Take the time to really analyze your niche. And I think it's going to be one of the ways that you can kind of get a leg up on everyone else."

The episode concludes with an invitation for listeners to engage with their communities and utilize the Pin Clicks tool to better understand and harness Pinterest’s evolving search landscape.

Tony Hill [49:43]: "If you still have some questions about search volume, you can always reach out to us in one of our communities or pentalkpodcastmail.com."

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Notable Quotes

• Tony Hill [00:26]: "For the first time ever, we're able to get search volume directly from Pinterest."
• Carly Campbell [00:26]: "It's a relatively new metric for us and a lot of people don't seem to realize that."
• Tony Hill [11:15]: "People are going to Pinterest to get ideas, and so the way they engage with Pinterest search and the search results is going to naturally look different than the way that they're engaging with Google."
• Carly Campbell [35:31]: "When things are applicable to the entire Pinterest audience. I think that's what I like the term that you've given it, interest volume."
• Tony Hill [33:08]: "You have to have that intuition to know, like, okay, is this because maybe it's a sensitive topic and a lot of people aren't searching for it, or Pinterest doesn't want to create idea pages for it?"
• Carly Campbell [50:19]: "Discovering the patterns in your own niche is the best thing that you can possibly do for your business."
• Tony Hill [50:45]: "Look for patterns. Take the time to really analyze your niche. And I think it's going to be one of the ways that you can kind of get a leg up on everyone else."

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Key Takeaways

1. Pinterest’s New Search Volume Metric: Pinterest has begun offering direct search volume data, a significant shift from previous indirect estimates.

2. Nuanced Application: Search volume is valuable but should be used in conjunction with understanding user intent and platform-specific engagement behaviors.

3. Pinterest vs. Google: Unlike Google, Pinterest users engage with multiple results simultaneously, distributing clicks and making top rankings less critical for traffic.

4. Interest Volume: Topics with broad relevance can perform well even with lower search volumes due to their universal appeal and user engagement patterns.

5. Strategic Keyword Prioritization: Creators should prioritize keywords based on a combination of search volume, relevance, and user intent within their specific niches.

6. Ongoing Learning: As Pinterest continues to evolve and provide more data, creators should stay adaptable, continuously analyze their patterns, and adjust strategies accordingly.

7. Tools and Features: Leveraging tools like Pin Clicks and utilizing upcoming features can provide deeper insights and enhance Pinterest strategies.

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For more insights and resources mentioned in this episode, visit pintalkpodcast.com. If you found this episode valuable, consider rating and reviewing the show to support the hosts.

Transcript

[Tony Hill]

Hey, welcome to pintalk, the goes you podcast for all things Pinterest for bloggers and content creators. I'm Tony Hill and with me is my co host, Carly Campbell. So what are we talking about today, Carly?

[Carly Campbell]

We are going to talk about Pinterest search volume. What it is, where we can find it, if it matters, when it matters. It's a relatively new metric for us and a lot of people don't seem to realize that.

[Tony Hill]

Yeah, it is pretty new. And honestly, I want to preface this episode with we're still figuring this out because for the first time ever, we're able to get search volume directly from Pinterest. Right? So in the past, they've kept this pretty much hidden outside of like, say, Pinterest ads, which I've never found to be very accurate with my searching. And then, you know, Pinterest trends, of course, they don't really give you the exact numbers. It's more like a relative score of like 0 to 100. And then there's like third party tools that we've been using that kind of guesstimate that search volume there. So with this new realization of search volume directly from the source, how does that change our strategy and approach to Pinterest now that we can see how many people are searching for all these keywords? So that's what we're going to talk about today. And it's a bit nuanced and it's not as black and white as we probably all want it to be. And so maybe it's like less of a conversation of like, does Pinterest search volume matter? But it's more like, when does it matter? And so that's our goal here, is for you to walk away with a good idea of knowing when to pay attention to search volume and when not to pay attention to search volume.

[Carly Campbell]

Yes, I like that. I think it's really important on Pinterest that we, in almost all aspects of the platform that we differentiate this situation from that situation. Because, you know, we talked a couple episodes ago about how it seems so rare that there is actually anything, any blanket statements that can be applied across niches and accounts and situations on Pinterest. And I think that search volume is definitely one of them. I'm excited to do this episode because all of the questions that I have been getting recently about Pinterest have been kind of assuming that search volume is now kind of the core, most important metric that we should be talking about. And we've only had it for, for two months, and yet this is already the View that people are taking.

[Tony Hill]

Yeah. Do you remember when that happened?

[Carly Campbell]

Like, October?

[Tony Hill]

Was it October? Yeah, someone pointed it out to me and then I saw it and pointed it out to you. Like, this is crazy. So actually we did like a special kind of private episode of the podcast. Remember that?

[Carly Campbell]

Yes. That's great.

[Tony Hill]

Talking all about it. Yeah, it was pretty cool and mind blowing. And so as soon as I saw it, I was like, we gotta get this data into pin clicks as quickly as possible. Because with Pinterest, they're testing all sorts of things and they, you know, will take away things as fast as they give things.

[Carly Campbell]

Yeah. There one day and gone the next day. And since that conversation in October, we've already learned some things about search volume as it is visible on Pinterest. So in case anybody listening is unaware, search volume is visible on Pinterest now on the ideas pages, which they're hard to dig up if you don't have pin clicks. You could go to any pin in a logged out page and click on those gray links underneath the pin and those will take you to the ideas pages on those pages. Now they have a search volume. When we started talking about it in October, we didn't have any frame of reference for what time period that search volume might have been accumulated in. But we know more about that now.

[Tony Hill]

Yeah, that's right. Because the first thing. Well, I guess the second thing I did was I created a Google sheet and I went through Pinterest trends and got a bunch of popular keywords and, and immediately put in the search volume for all of them. When I found their correlating ideas page and then had someone go in every month. Well, actually it was, I think it was every day initially that first week to see and look at those idea pages for each of those keywords to see if the volume changed. It didn't. So then we switched to like, let's check it every week. We're checking every week. And like week after week, nothing changed. But then it was like week five, they started to change. So it kind of confirms that this is like a rolling 30 days because they're not all being updated at the same time either. So it's like, you know, starting, you know, January 1st, they all reset to a new number. If it changed. It seems to be like they rolled this out. And some days you'll see others change, some days you won't. So, yeah, we're still learning a lot about it.

[Carly Campbell]

Yes. And I think that it's really, really important. Also, you know, on top of the fact that we're learning about it is we can't put a hundred percent stock in whatever number we might see on the screen today. If you're doing your keyword research for a seasonal blog post and you're doing it three months out, that's really, really important because what's actually happening on Pinterest isn't being reflected or what will be happening on Pinterest isn't being reflected. It's only what's actually happening right now. And so is Pinks going to be able to have historical data in a year from now?

[Tony Hill]

Oh, yeah, it's gonna be.

[Carly Campbell]

That'll be good. That'll be fantastic. Okay.

[Tony Hill]

Yeah, I think we, we were recording it in December, maybe a little bit of November, but it took us a while to get that ramped up. I mean, there's over 12 million of these keywords that we had to get volume for. And so it was kind of a bumpy ride in the beginning to get our systems in place to start capturing all that data and to do it at scale, to do it like quickly.

[Carly Campbell]

Sure, yeah.

[Tony Hill]

What that means for next, next holiday season is we might not have all the maybe mid to long tail keywords for the holiday season from 2024, but we'll, we'll have some, I'm sure. Yeah.

[Carly Campbell]

Okay. And some is actually, in my opinion, we'll probably get into this. Some is a good enough amount to help guide the choices that you're going to make as far as your content creation goes. I don't think we need to have them all. I think some will do it for me.

[Tony Hill]

So, yeah, we'll get into that a little bit because you and I treat search volume differently.

[Carly Campbell]

Yeah.

[Tony Hill]

And so we'll, we'll talk about why that is. You know, one of the things that I am also excited about with pin clicks is now that we're capturing search volume and we're trying to match it up. So we're capturing it every 30 days for every keyword and we're storing it. Right. And so then what that means is we will know when a keyword search volume goes up or down in like a, you know, rolling 30 day period. And we can like send you an email notification of say there are some big keywords you're following. Whatever keywords you're, you're following, we can let you know if it's starting to trend up, starting to trend down with actual volume numbers. So that'd be kind of cool.

[Carly Campbell]

That's fantastic. There are so many things that I'm learning in an ongoing way while using Pinks. And I can see that this will be one of those things. It's difficult right now to even imagine the things that we'll start to learn as we watch these numbers change. You know, your PIN started ranking and your PIN stopped ranking. Those email notifications, I knew that would be cool to see. But at the time when I started getting the emails from pinklix, I didn't know what the full application would be for my understanding. And just this weekend, you and I were talking about things that I'm learning by watching those notifications. I've actually saved them all so that now I can go back and see, like, how the keywords are changing on my account easily. And I think this is going to be similar. We're going to get this information and learn more about it as we get it. Because it's so new.

[Tony Hill]

Yeah, it's so new. And it's one of the reasons, you know, why people are coming to us asking questions about it. But I think another reason why people are coming to us and wondering about search volume, what to do with it, is because they're coming from a traditional Google SEO background where it was all about search volume.

[Carly Campbell]

Yeah.

[Tony Hill]

Because it kind of is a zero sum game with Google. So it's like only one website can rank number one, Right. And it gets the lion's share of clicks. So I did a little bit of research because I wanted to get the data on how much traffic that number one ranking position in Google will get for a keyword. And the source I got it from says about 40% of people will click on that number one result, which is a lot. And then almost 19% will click on that number two result. So right there, that's what, 60% almost of people who just click in those top two results. So it's really important to rank in those top two top three results, which everyone's known that. So now they're pivoting over to Pinterest and they're looking at the search results and they're like trying to figure out, okay, how do I get my pen in that number one ranking position? And this leads me to what we were emailing back and forth over the weekend about. And that is, is it really that important to rank number one in Pinterest like it is with Google? Because now that we're seeing the search volume data, you and I were like, okay, well, let's try to correlate a keyword where we know we were ranking number one to look at how much traffic we got versus how much the search volume was showing up from Pinterest. And the ones that we were checking, like, they weren't totally matching up with post. All right. This particular keyword said there's a thousand searches a month. And my pen's been ranking number one for a whole month. And it's not showing that had a thousand impressions. It might only have, like, 300 impressions.

[Carly Campbell]

Right.

[Tony Hill]

You know, so, like, what do you. What do you do with that? Or I found some that had a very similar amount of impressions that were equal to the volume amount, but the amount of clicks wasn't that great. It might've been like, you know, a thousand impressions. It might've had five clicks.

[Carly Campbell]

Well, and to go further into that, I found some that had almost an identical amount of impressions to search volume. And I was like, yes, I figured this out. And then I found the same PIN ranking for other keywords. And so then all of a sudden, it's not the same because it's actually like, you know, the collective volume should have been the collective volume of multiple keywords. And there's only a fraction of the impressions. And so, yeah, I was seeing that too, on my pins. And the truth is that we are not on Google anymore.

[Tony Hill]

That's right. And so we can't treat Pinterest search and search volume the same way that we did with Google. I think we have to, all of us Google people have to just accept that. And it's going to be hard at first because there's just so much weight and value on getting that number one position. It was everything. And.

[Carly Campbell]

Right.

[Tony Hill]

Gosh, like, Pinterest is so different. And so we just have to reframe our thinking on this. And one of the things that we were talking about over the weekend is there was no strong correlation between, you know, high volume keyword. We ranked number one for it. We're not getting a lot of traffic from it. So, like, what's going on? And I just kind of had to step back for a second and remind myself, okay, what's different about Pinterest as a platform and how users use it versus Google and how people are using Google? And it goes back to people are going to Pinterest to get ideas, and so the way they engage with Pinterest search and the search results is going to naturally look different than the way that they're engaging with Google and those search results.

[Carly Campbell]

Yeah. And when you see all the pins there on the screen too, you actually see more than one thing at a time.

[Tony Hill]

Yeah.

[Carly Campbell]

You don't just See number one, Right. It's like the first, I don't know, depends on the size of your phone probably. But I see the first four okay. Really easily.

[Tony Hill]

You can get a lot more information from the pen and the design itself than compared to a search result on Google.

[Carly Campbell]

Yeah.

[Tony Hill]

And so because people are able to get more information for each result, what I think is happening is people are just kind of cruising through the search results and they're making those snap judgments of like, all right, I'm getting some ideas and maybe one will catch their attention and then they'll click on that to learn a little bit more and maybe click on over to your site. So what that means is people are probably spending more time on the search results on Pinterest search results compared to Google. And what's happening is it's distributing the clicks among all those pins instead of concentrating all those clicks on like the top three ranking pins.

[Carly Campbell]

I think that makes perfect sense. And I also think that we have to take it a step further with Pinterest than with Google. You know, very often the top 25 results in Google, I mean, I guess it doesn't matter past the top 10. Is that what they say? Only top 10 matter? But like, those are the same. But with Pinterest, as soon as we engage with a pin and then scroll, everything after the scroll should be a little bit affected by our engagement. Because that's what Pinterest is trying to do is serve you the most personalized. The top 1015 pins might always be the same, but there will come a point in your scrolling where now you're not seeing the same search results that everybody else has been seeing. Now you're seeing what's personalized to you. And so the top, you know, 1015 pins might be the same, but like you said, if you're going to scroll a little bit Farther, those top 10, 15 pins don't matter as much. One thing that's been really interesting for me to see in pin clicks is how often the top search results change on Pinterest.

[Tony Hill]

Yeah, they're changing a lot. And right now we have it set so that we will go and search that keyword once a week. So every seven days, basically, we almost could do it to every day. I'm trying to figure out the value in that and be able to see it like every single day. Cause it might be too much noise. But if a pin is hung around for a week or longer in the search results, then that might be more interesting or helpful of a data point to collect.

[Carly Campbell]

I'M collecting interesting data that way, even just from the way you're doing it right now. I'm seeing that I had a particular pin that started ranking on November 5, and as far as I can tell, it's never stopped ranking because I've never gotten a notification from pin clicks that it stopped ranking. And it is growing with a more interesting trajectory than some of the ones that go up and down. And so, I mean, it's just one pin. It's not a good lesson in anything yet, but it's a good signpost for where we should be watching to see what else we can learn. And so I'll be watching those pins, but overall, I think that just doing it once a week is enough, I think.

[Tony Hill]

So we'll keep going with that for now. I really can't wait to launch the feature where you can take any PIN URL of yours and put it into a tool and it will show you all the keywords it ranked for and what the ranking was and when.

[Carly Campbell]

Historically.

[Tony Hill]

Historically. Yeah, that's cool.

[Carly Campbell]

Yeah.

[Tony Hill]

To get an idea, because eventually I want to be able to follow the path of my top 50 pins that Pinterest will show me for, like, say, outbound clicks. And I want to see their ranking journey, because my theory is that Pinterest search is their testing ground for the home feed, that they're looking to see how users are engaging with pins to then see if they're worth showing in the home feed.

[Carly Campbell]

And I love that theory because it makes sense when you consider how much we are seeing Pinterest search change, how regularly we're seeing it change. And yet my strongest pins don't have crazy, fluctuating traffic. My strongest pins have a steady baseline of traffic they're still getting out there, even though search results are not static. And so then this, this kind of, you know, ties into how much I would let search volume influence my choices on the platform. I know that you can have great traffic without ranking well, but I also know that if you are ranking well, you're getting immediate feedback from Pinterest that they understand what your content is about and that they think it's worth testing to see if people who do search their intentional users, not just their users who want to be entertained, those are very different things. But they're seeing that they think that you can provide value to their intentional users, and I think that that's really important. So I think that ranking is a good goal, but I think that if you are not consistently ranking, it doesn't mean that you are not doing well. Like, you should have some rankings. But it's okay if they come and go. I don't necessarily think that it's detrimental if they move around.

[Tony Hill]

Yeah. Because going back to the difference between Pinterest and Google, and that is another thing Google doesn't have. Well, they, they have a Pinterest like platform and that's Google Discover.

[Carly Campbell]

Oh, yeah.

[Tony Hill]

But they really gatekeep who shows up in Google Discover, whereas Pinterest does not do that with their home feed. So a lot of people don't pay that close attention to Google discovery for those reasons because it's just really hard to get in there these days. And so, yeah, that's where a lot of that traffic's going to come from, the home feed. But, you know, I don't ignore search because one stat I found is that Pinterest has 2 billion monthly searches. That's a lot.

[Carly Campbell]

Yeah.

[Tony Hill]

And the way I look at search is like one, it's an opportunity to get traffic because there's people searching on the platform, but it's also an opportunity to get into the home feed. And so if I can show up and the search more often, then I have a better chance of showing up in the home feed. That's part of my, my theory. And it's kind of like, you know, just fishing. Right. And you gotta get.

[Carly Campbell]

Yeah.

[Tony Hill]

Lines out in the water. You gotta get bait on the hooks.

[Carly Campbell]

And engagement breeds engagement.

[Tony Hill]

That's right. And get people engaging with your pension.

[Carly Campbell]

Yeah. And if you can get in front of them, then that you have the opportunity for engagement. So I totally agree with that. I also think the one pin that I've got that I'm talking about that started November 5th and has kept going, you can see in its growth trajectory that it probably had more consistent engagement than the ones that have left search over time. Which makes sense because if it's ranking consistently, you should have consistent engagement. But to bring that back to search volume, how are you letting search volume specifically now that we can see that influence what you think about search in general?

[Tony Hill]

Yeah. So for me, I'm in niches where they're very popular on the platform. So that means that there's a lot of keywords for them. And I'm trying to figure out how do I prioritize keywords because I can get overwhelmed by them with so many possibilities. I really like having search volume in place to help get through the noise and prioritize keywords to use. So maybe by the time this episode is out, there's more search Volume visible in pin clicks. Like, we're showing it, like with the keyword research tool, which is going to be transformed pretty soon. And it's showing search volume there. We're not showing it yet on the Interest Explorer tool, but I bet it will be there by the time this is out. My developer's working on it as we're talking right now.

[Carly Campbell]

Awesome.

[Tony Hill]

And so that will be there. And so now my team knows. Okay, we're going to sort by volume here and focus on volume. Because if we've got 200 keywords showing up and we're focusing on one blog post, and this is the blog post level. So I like to target keywords within a blog post because I'm doing a lot of listicle content and every listicle item is going to be its own pin. And so I want to make the most of that pin and target a keyword with it. But if I've got like 200 items and I'm only doing a listicle of, say, like 25 items, how do I determine the 25 out of the 200? And that's where having the search volume will help. So that's where I'm going to start, you know, and then as time goes on, if we want to do another blog post or expand that other one, then we can go back and add some additional keywords, maybe lower volume, but that just makes it very easy, especially as, like, creating an SOP for a team of choosing keywords. Because then there's people like you who just really understand the platform and understand the niche, and you have really good intuition on choosing keywords.

[Carly Campbell]

Yeah, it's definitely one of those things that is more difficult to teach, but I believe it's worthwhile to cultivate by practicing. But I mean, if I had to choose between the keywords, you know, pumpkin cake recipes and easy pumpkin cake recipe, and they had the exact same search volume, because that's, that's the way that I've looked at it in the past. Everything has the exact same search volume because I can't see search volume. So just assume it's all the same.

[Tony Hill]

That's good.

[Carly Campbell]

If I had to choose between them, I would want to be able to articulate why I would choose between them without the search volume, because I don't feel like we've seen search volume play out on the platform long enough yet for me to have full confidence in it. I think that as far as, like, validating a niche, I think that it's going to be very valuable for that, because if I Come to Pinterest with no concept of whether or not niche A or niche B is better on the platform, then I think search volume is a really easy signpost for, like, you know, there's 400,000. Oh, well, no, there's 4,000 keywords in this niche and they all have high ish search volume. And there's 2,000 in this niche and they all have really low search volume. Well, then probably this niche is better than this niche. But as for the individual iterations of similar words on the platform, I can't see myself using search volume yet to to choose between similar words. I think I'll probably still default to choosing what's Pinterest suggesting more often. So in the pumpkin example, if Pinterest is showing me pumpkin cake recipe more often than they're showing me easy pumpkin recipe, then I'm going to go with the one that Pinterest is suggesting. Even if they tell me the search volume's higher on the other one. Yeah, that's just my, like, old habits that die hard. Maybe that might adjust as, you know, as time goes on and I get to see search volume build itself out as a real tool that we have.

[Tony Hill]

Yeah, for sure. And I'm already getting some ideas of ways that I can update pin clicks to make that even more valuable.

[Carly Campbell]

Well, I was just wondering if you would put the search volume in the gray bubbles on the annotations on the pins. I don't know if that's possible.

[Tony Hill]

Yeah, for sure. We'll definitely do that.

[Carly Campbell]

That would be amazing.

[Tony Hill]

We may actually turn that into like a table because then we can show you the number of followers for that particular interest. Right. So that's the other thing that the other data point that pin clicks is gathering besides search volume, and that is how many people are following this interest. And I think that's something else that's worth considering. So, like, let's show it to you and especially as you're trying to make these connections. So hopefully if you're listening to this, you've at least checked out pinks using a free trial to understand what we're talking about. But the interest Explorer tool, once you click on a keyword, then it's going to show you all of the related interests, like connected, these connected keywords. Yeah. So at least, you know, try it, poke around, look at all the related keywords. Maybe there's some patterns you see there that could be helpful. But having search volume and knowing how many people are following an interest, those are things that I'm looking at myself. To determine because again, I'm in niches that have so many keywords, I've got to figure out which ones to prioritize. So for me, volume matters from top to bottom. From like validating niche to choosing a blog post to then choosing the keywords I want to target with that blog post. But before the search volume, when it came to like lately, you know, things that you were talking about looking at related interests and trying to, you know, target those. And once we built pin clicks, we were like, okay, let's focus on the ones targeting the keywords and the interest explorer tool that have connected, you know, these related interests associated with it. Prioritize those. So now we can, to me, it's the best of both worlds. We can do both. We can prioritize those and then the ones with volume.

[Carly Campbell]

Yeah, no matter what the volume says, it's very important to make sure that you are checking your user intent. Because if your user isn't intending to click through, you might accidentally, I mean, I don't mean you, Tony, I mean like you listening to us, you might accidentally, if you're just making a choice based on search volume, you might choose all those words that are really speaking to the saver and not the clicker. And I tend to want to be targeting the words that are speaking to the clicker. And so, you know, search of all, you might guide us in our choices, but just make sure that you're taking all the other important considerations on the platform into, into consideration. In fact, very often I believe, and this is little bit complex, we talked about this earlier, like is it a chicken or an egg thing? You know, is the search volume influenced by what Pinterest suggests? And I believe that it is. And Pinterest will almost always suggest the keywords that are at the best interest of Pinterest, meaning they'll suggest the words that lead to higher saves over higher clicks. And so I just want to be sure when I'm choosing my keywords that I'm not leaning into their, their images that really don't ever have the intent of a click through on the other side.

[Tony Hill]

Yeah, and that will go to show and for some keywords there's just a higher interest in that particular topic and maybe less of a higher search volume for it. So like visually just try to imagine, go to Pinterest search, you type in, you know, chicken recipe and you start to see a dropdown of search suggestions. And so what we're talking about is if you were to tap on one of those, does that count as A search. So, you know, Pinterest showing us how many times someone searches for something, or are they only counting it? When people actually type out the full keyword? My theory is when they tap on a suggestion that's getting counted as a search and that will go towards the search volume, but it doesn't reflect necessarily, you know, the 200 people searched for it. It's like 200 people who had that really strong intent of like, I want to see this specific thing, and they typed out that whole keyword. It was just suggested to them.

[Carly Campbell]

Right? Yeah. And you know, actually you make a good point. The stronger the intent of the user potentially, and I mean, this is certainly an advanced, you know, online business concept, but the stronger the intent of the user, the more valuable that user is to your business and the more money that they're willing to spend. Nine times out of ten. And so the stronger the intent of the user, the smaller the search volume. Doesn't actually matter that much because you can make, you can make a thousand. I mean, if I was trying to sell a high cost product that I really wanted to get those users that are strongly intending to learn about that subject and I wanted to convert them, I wouldn't probably target anything that had a search volume of five, but a search volume of a thousand. I still would. Because a thousand people is more than enough to run a profitable business when you're selling something that pays you well if the intent is there. So I also am hesitant if your business is just, you know, display ads, which mine and yours mostly are on Pinterest, higher volumes, better. But for those people that might be listening, who might be using pin clicks and seeing lower numbers, but they know that that person is a valuable reader when they get them to their site. As long as, you know, viral traffic's not your goal, I wouldn't let low search numbers scare me away in that situation either.

[Tony Hill]

Another aspect of this that I haven't factored in and that I don't think we'll ever know, and that is guided search. So the filter bubbles, like the colorful filter bubbles there when people click on those, it performs a new search. Right, with those keywords.

[Carly Campbell]

It does, yeah.

[Tony Hill]

And so does that count towards search volume?

[Carly Campbell]

I think so, because it adjusts the order of the words you searched. It changes the like, if you have like word A, word B, word C, and then you click word D, sometimes it'll put word D into somewhere else in the search. Like it'll actually change the order of the words that's typed in there. And so it's not searching what you're typing, it's searching what they have determined. Yeah, the search is about. So I would say it does count towards that search volume.

[Tony Hill]

That's my guess too. But it's just a factor to consider. So Pinterest doesn't make it so black and white like it is with Google to a degree. Although Google does have the, the dropdown suggestions they've got like the people also ask and people also search for to guide people. But I think Pinterest does probably a little bit more guiding than Google does.

[Carly Campbell]

Yeah, I think Pinterest guides heavy handedly which, which is why I, I focus on relationship between the pins that are ranking already. So you know, if, if somebody else's PIN is ranking in first place, I don't always think like I need to take that first place ranking. I think like well I need to have a relationship with you with your pin.

[Tony Hill]

Yeah, that makes sense. And then like clicking on an annotation that you know, that goes to the idea page. But then how does that influence, you know, search? Because we're assuming that Pinterest is just saying this is from the search box itself.

[Carly Campbell]

Right.

[Tony Hill]

Of counting search volume. I don't think it's the number of people who have navigated to a particular interest idea page. I think it's search box. But again it could also be the dropdown suggestions, it could be the guided search that's also counting towards it. I don't know like this is all brand new. We're just still kind of figuring it out. And Pinterest hasn't really been communicating all these details which I don't expect them to. So we can only just guess.

[Carly Campbell]

No, I don't expect them to either. I, I expect they will have to figure it out. But it's really good that we all start with, you know, this conversation about how it's kind of new. These are the things we don't know about it. These are the applications that we, we, you and I believe are probably, you know, beneficial for it and the considerations of the ideas that, you know, maybe be careful of it in, in this instance, you know, like don't write off an entire profitable niche just because it's low volume if you think that you can get the click right.

[Tony Hill]

And so that leads me to, I'm going to kind of skip down a little bit here on our talking points but I wrote down here search volume versus interest volume and I. Okay, we got some examples here. So you have pointed out to me that you are aware of Pinterest accounts that are doing really well, and there's low search volume. So it's like, what's going on? Like, how. How is it possible? And so the way that I was trying to wrap my mind around it was there are topics where there's high search volume because people are actually going to Pinterest search bar and typing things in. But then there are also topics where there's a lot of interest in them. And people will click on those pins and go to your site, but they're not necessarily using the Pinterest search box to engage with those topics. Do you want to share some examples of that?

[Carly Campbell]

Well, I think that the ones that I have seen personally are often about, like, child behavior. So if you talk to 9 out of 10 people who write about child behavior, they'll tell you that that's really hard niche. And I would assume partly that that's a really hard niche because people aren't going to Pinterest to search for, like, you know, what to do if my kid is hitting. That's not something you search on Pinterest for. You might search on Google for that maybe, but not Pinterest. And yet it's a subject that, you know, if you're dealing with that, it's going to be very painful and on your mind when you get reminded of it. Like, you know, you see the pin that says what to do when your kid is hitting. If that's something that speaks to you, you're likely to engage with it, even though there's really no search intent for it or, you know, no search intent for it compared to the other Pinterest niches where we would see high search intent. But over time, Pinterest will have developed very strong relationships between pins that pertain to kids hitting or biting or whatever, and kids that don't go to sleep really easily or kids that are picky eaters. And now all of a sudden, we stumbled into niches that probably do have really high search intent on Pinterest, picky eating in particular. So, you know, people search for and engage with a picky eating pin. That pin is annotated with, you know, parenting type keywords and tags, and then those people will be served the hitting or biting pin in their feet. And so we'll find that people can do really well with these subjects that are broadly applicable. So marriage, divorce, any relationship, really, finances, because everybody has relationships, everybody has money or lack of money. And therefore, those things are applicable to the entire Pinterest audience. And when things are applicable to the entire Pinterest audience. I think that's what I like the term that you've given it, interest volume. Because this thing applies to me. I am part of the interest volume of this thing, even though I wouldn't necessarily search it.

[Tony Hill]

Yep. So that's just one way to look at it. If you're thinking about avoiding keywords because it has low volume, see if it connects to broader audience or even a broader topic like, like parenting as a good example, you know, picky eaters. People might also, you know, type in like, you know, toddler DIY or maybe something related to behavior, but it's like a kind of a shoulder topic. And then Pinterest starts connecting all these dots, like, okay, this person may overlap based upon what they've engaged with, what they've searched with. There's a high chance that they might have a toddler that's biting, you know, and so they're going to show up with that pen.

[Carly Campbell]

Right.

[Tony Hill]

So that's just something to pay attention to and to really understand all of these interests in your niche. And like, that's one of the reasons why pin clicks, I think, is such a great tool, is because it's like the only tool that you can easily start to navigate and see all of these interests and how they can connect.

[Carly Campbell]

To each other, the relationship between them. Absolutely.

[Tony Hill]

Yeah.

[Carly Campbell]

It's really easy to see it on the screen when it's laid out for you like that.

[Tony Hill]

So, targeting search volume.

[Carly Campbell]

Right.

[Tony Hill]

So I've got a couple questions down here. Like, should you only target high search volume or maybe target high and low? Or like, what about zero search volume? Like, where it's unknown. Before we started recording, I was curious, okay, well, what's the lowest search volume idea page that Pinterest has? Because Pinclicks has been capturing all that data from like 12 million idea pages. So we have the search volume for it all. And I did a little bit of searching and the number is five. Five monthly searches. I did not find an idea page or interest here that had less than five monthly searches.

[Carly Campbell]

So five is the lowest number that they seem to generate a page for.

[Tony Hill]

Yeah, that's right. So when I say, you know, zero search volume, we're not going to find an idea page that has zero on there. It's going to at least have five. And so that's a whole. It might be a whole other topic I don't know of. Like, how do you target, like, you see a keyword, maybe use pink clicks or something else, but it doesn't have an idea Page. So you have no idea if there's volume there. There probably isn't, in my opinion, that like Pinterest has gone ahead and created all these idea pages because there's search volume in there. But again, it doesn't necessarily mean that you won't get traffic. I don't know. That goes back to that conversation we had before of like, if you're doing a bunch of keyword research in your niche and you're finding there aren't a lot of keywords being found in pin clicks in the interest explorer tool, it might not be a great niche.

[Carly Campbell]

Or if they are there and they all have really, really, really low volume, it might be reflective of the volume of the niche in general.

[Tony Hill]

Yeah. And that's where you have to have that intuition to know, like, okay, is this because maybe it's a sensitive topic and a lot of people aren't searching for it, or Pinterest doesn't want to create idea pages for it? It's like, I don't know, divorce might be one of those. And so does it mean you should ignore it? It's just something to be aware, to understand how Pinterest as a platform treats that topic.

[Carly Campbell]

I just need to check. I'm checking divorce specifically because, like, it's not one that people would search, but the volume on divorce quotes is 76,000. And so I would think that, like, if you're selling something where the intent is really, really important, then, you know, even if Pinterest isn't gonna distribute this because you said it's about how Pinterest treats it, in some cases where it's words that Pinterest won't distribute it, but you could still rank there. And it's got really high volume that might be like solid gold. All your users will be high intent users.

[Tony Hill]

Yeah, right. And that's some advice I've given people in the past. I think it was. Might have been on this niche. Exactly. Like, I would create pins for divorce quotes, even though there's hardly, it might be hardly any traffic that will actually be sent to your site. But what you've done is you've exposed your account and your pins to a highly targeted audience. And so now they're tagged with, you know, divorce. And then any pins that you create that talk about divorce more likely to show up in the home feed. And so that's where it's like bait, you know, doing the quotes one or wallpapers or aesthetics. Like, I know a lot of people don't like to target those keywords. I Think they might be worth testing to help get into the home feed because you're going to start capturing more.

[Carly Campbell]

Of those people, I think depending on the kind of business you have. If you have a business where you're not. I like, I wouldn't target those ones if I want viral search traffic, if I want ad money. Those ones like, you know, the ones where people wouldn't click through. But if I have something to sell people who are getting divorced, then in that case I would do it.

[Tony Hill]

I see. I would do it for. Even if I was like for display ad sites like that are just making money from ads. Totally. Yeah. I would go after the quotes because I'm not expecting traffic from those pins.

[Carly Campbell]

Okay.

[Tony Hill]

I'm expecting engagement.

[Carly Campbell]

Okay.

[Tony Hill]

And now there's a connection between my pin on my board with that user.

[Carly Campbell]

Oh, and you're going to create text content. You're going to create info content.

[Tony Hill]

Yeah. Then I'll have my normal blog posts talk about divorce.

[Carly Campbell]

Sure.

[Tony Hill]

Put him in that same board as a quote.

[Carly Campbell]

Yes. Okay, I understand what you're saying. Yeah, no, absolutely, that makes sense because that pin relationship is there, right? Yeah. So that the search volume, you know, for divorce quotes is 76,000. Oh my goodness. And like 99% of the terms for divorce are actually quotes. Oh. It's going to be difficult to like continue on with my thought because I can't find any keywords that aren't quotes. Well, I was just gonna say like, you know, here's the search volume.

[Tony Hill]

Are you using the Interest Explorer tool?

[Carly Campbell]

I'm using the keyword research1.

[Tony Hill]

Oh, the keyword research tool.

[Carly Campbell]

It's funny because I always use the Interest Explorer tool because that's my favorite. But anyway, I was just going to find one that didn't have the word quotes in it and demonstrate that the search volume on that one was much, much, much lower. But, but in the situation you've described where you are starting to reach your intended audience, you know, through a higher volume keyword that isn't your main blog post that you want to drive traffic to the lower volume keyword there is still going to be valuable to you right through the avenue of distribution via the higher volume keyword relationship.

[Tony Hill]

Can we get into the weeds for a second?

[Carly Campbell]

Uh huh.

[Tony Hill]

All right, so I'm on the Interest Explorer tool. I typed in the word divorce and then I did the minus sign quote, the word quote, and then space minus sign word quotes. So basically it's searching the Interest Explorer tool for keywords that include the word divorce but do not Include the word quote or quotes.

[Carly Campbell]

Okay.

[Tony Hill]

The first one that popped up for me was how to get a divorce with no money. And I'm like, really? Are people really searching the platform on Pinterest Search how to get a divorce with no Money. Pinterest says 77 people in the last 30 days have searched that. Maybe. Or maybe it was a guided search. Right. It could have been a drop down or it could have been like one of the filter bubbles. Right?

[Carly Campbell]

Yeah.

[Tony Hill]

Like we don't know exactly how that those 77 searches were necessarily generated, but I mean, it could be. So that was a really interesting one. But there's a ton of keywords. Divorce shirts, divorce nails, My goodness. So these are ones that, you know, you can. I would still target in this niche, but I would definitely would be going after the big keywords like divorce quotes. I don't know. Divorce aesthetic. Divorce parents aesthetic. My goodness. That's one of those keywords aesthetic that Carly and I believe that Pinterest is like intentionally seeding that keyword in there, that people aren't actually searching for it. But I would target it and I would. I mean, I'd probably do divorce aesthetic. And if I had a whole account on divorce, I would create an aesthetic pen, a quote pen, and put it on every single board.

[Carly Campbell]

So this is a great conversation and we should contrast now divorce with food or nails.

[Tony Hill]

Okay.

[Carly Campbell]

Because I think that from the search volume perspective, we've talked about how if we have a divorce site where we're supporting divorced people and we look at these keywords that you are talking about that don't use the word quotes, we're going to see much smaller volume. Right. You said 77. I looked at another one, it was 42. And yet for the quotes we see 76,000 and there's another one right underneath that one that was like 46,000. So there's high search volume for these like less click and tenty ones. And you said you, you would target those to get the relationship built up with your more click intenty ones. And that makes sense. But to contrast this with food or nails or something home, home decor, something where the click intent is already there, then in those situations, I am not, I don't think, going to waste my time targeting food aesthetic because I can just put my effort into targeting cheap dinner recipes. And even though the, the volume might be a little lower, I think the ROI is higher in those situations.

[Tony Hill]

I don't know. According to Pinterest, chicken dinner aesthetic gets. I swear I was just gonna do this as A joke. But I'm serious. Chicken dinner aesthetic gets 804 searches a month. Like I was just going to say.

[Carly Campbell]

That as a hundred and four.

[Tony Hill]

Eight hundred.

[Carly Campbell]

But okay. It's not 200,000. I mean it's not. I don't think it's real. But they've put it in there and then they've encouraged people to click on it and then people have accidentally clicked on it. 800 of them.

[Tony Hill]

Yeah. So I would look at what would. And then one of the features that I want to launch pain clicks here is I want to be able to one like I click on Chicken Dinner static. The first thing I want to know is what are all the common like annotations for all these pens that are on that page? But yes, that's hard to see at a snap glance. But yeah, but yeah. Butter chicken aesthetic. Making dinner aesthetic. That's. These are all related interests. This is fascinating. I don't think people are actually searching for these things. Aesthetic dinner ideas. I can get behind that. That gets over 3,000 searches a month.

[Carly Campbell]

Okay.

[Tony Hill]

Right. For someone throwing a party. Right. And they want to have like a cool looking, you know, table or whatever with all the food or whatever.

[Carly Campbell]

Yeah, yeah. I just, I think that the ones that are more. Chicken Dinner for Family. This one. Oh, Chicken Dinner for family is only 168 searches. See, I could not in good faith tell anybody don't target Chicken Dinner for Family because it only has 168 searches. Because when I look at the first pin, it has 126,000 saves. And if I target Chicken Dinner for family with its 168 people, I'll be creating relationship between my PIN and that pin that has 126,000 saves.

[Tony Hill]

That's an excellent point.

[Carly Campbell]

And so search volume is really, really interesting and important, but I just can't let it just dictate the words that I'll target. I don't think, and I say this all with a disclaimer that I'll change my mind in six months as we learn more and more about volume by watching it on pink clicks.

[Tony Hill]

Right. I don't know. They're chicken. Chicken nuggets aesthetic. I don't know. Maybe people really care like how their chicken nuggets are presented on a plate to their kids. That's maybe that's a Gen Z thing that we just don't understand.

[Carly Campbell]

Do you think they just add the word aesthetic to every single search that has over a certain number of searches because they just want those aesthetic words?

[Tony Hill]

Yeah. Do you remember so Like, I have a theory why they do it, why they add the word aesthetic. It's because then when people then engage with it and they can now tag all these pins and they can then feed these to their machine learning models. And it's for image analysis, basically, to understand aesthetic. Because it's important that Pinterest, they do want to show pins that are aesthetically pleasing to the user and they want to try to understand what that person's aesthetic vibe is. So maybe they're using that to, like, for future searches of like, chicken, they're figuring out, okay, well, the aesthetic keyword, what kind of pens did they engage with, like the design and style and color and all that kind of stuff to help maybe determine the design and style of the chicken recipe that they did a search for in the pens that show up there?

[Carly Campbell]

Well, that makes sense because the aesthetic intent, I think if they ever get anybody to click on that, it lends itself to saves over clicks also. So if Pinterest is cultivating a knowledge of pins that increase saves over clicks, that's beneficial for Pinterest because the people aren't leaving the platform, they're just saving the idea, staying on the platform, saving another idea. And so it makes sense that they would be wanting to train their. Well, I don't know what, what the thing is that they trained, what do they train the robots? They want to train the robots.

[Tony Hill]

The robots?

[Carly Campbell]

Yeah, yeah. They want to train them to engage with the, the pins that are a certain way.

[Tony Hill]

Right?

[Carly Campbell]

Yeah, yeah. So that makes perfect sense to me.

[Tony Hill]

Yeah. So I'm, I think we've kind of covered. I'm looking at the rest of the things on our list here and, and I think we've talked about all of it. So we're like an hour into this thing. I didn't think we could talk about search volume for an hour, but look at this.

[Carly Campbell]

No, I didn't either.

[Tony Hill]

Leave it to us.

[Carly Campbell]

Yeah, yeah.

[Tony Hill]

Well, if you still have some questions about search volume, you can always reach out to us in one of our communities or pentalkpodcastmail.com and I'm sure we'll come back to this topic in the future as we just get more information, more data from pin clicks and stuff. So I encourage you to, yeah. Check out pin clicks and use the Interest Explorer tool and the keyword Research tool. We're showing search volume everywhere and dig around and look for patterns. That's one of my biggest pieces of advice. Look for patterns. Take the time to really analyze your niche. And I think it's going to be one of the ways that you can kind of get a leg up on everyone else.

[Carly Campbell]

Yeah. Yeah. When people start to see patterns that are in conflict with things that I say, I just want to congratulate them on having, you know, discovered all the secrets of their niche because there are patterns out there that are in direct conflict with the things that I see and probably with in conflict with the things that you see, too. And discovering the patterns in your own niche is the best thing that you can possibly do for your business.

[Tony Hill]

Yep. We'll leave it at that. Okay, thanks for listening and we'll catch you on the next episode. Hey, thanks for listening to this episode of Pentalk. Head over to pentalkpodcast.com to get the show notes and the resources mentioned. And hey, if you like this episode and want to hear more from us, please rate and review our show. Thanks.