Pinterest search volume: what you can see and how to plan without it

Updated October 21, 2026 · 6 min read

What Pinterest actually shows

Pinterest treats search counts as internal data. What it publishes is relative interest, through Pinterest Trends, plus the ordering of suggested searches and guided search tiles. Here is what each source tells you and what it does not.

The common thread: Pinterest tells you which is bigger and when it is big. It never tells you how big.

How to read a Pinterest Trends graph

Pinterest Trends needs a business account and a desktop or mobile browser. Type a term and you get a line over time. Three things to know before you draw conclusions.

The scale is relative. Pinterest normalizes each term by dividing its searches by all searches in the same period, then sets the highest point on the graph to 100 and the lowest to 0. The line shows shape. A term that peaks at 100 in December and sits at 20 in June got roughly five times more attention in December, relative to everything else people searched.

Alone, a graph has no size. View "cabbage recipes" on its own and its peak is 100. View "chicken recipes" on its own and its peak is also 100. You learn nothing about which is bigger until you put them on the same graph.

Together, the scale is shared. Add a second term and both are drawn against the same 0 to 100 scale, set by whichever term peaks higher. Now the gap between the lines is meaningful. If one line hovers around 15 while the other peaks at 100, the first term is a small fraction of the second.

So the habit to build is: never read a Trends graph with one term on it. Always add a benchmark, a term in your niche whose size you have a feel for, and read the new term against it.

Seasonality is the part Trends does well

Because the graph shows two years, you can see whether a term is steady, seasonal or growing.

• Steady terms run flat. "Chicken recipes" and "living room ideas" look like gentle hills. Pin for them any time.
• Seasonal terms spike. "Halloween costumes", "Christmas cookies" and "fall outfits" rise for weeks, peak, and collapse. Note when the rise starts, not when it peaks; that is when your pins need to be live.
• Growing terms climb across both years. The yearly change column in the search trends section catches these without a graph.

Comparing this year's curve with last year's also tells you whether a seasonal peak is arriving earlier or later, which is more than Google volume can tell you, since a monthly average smooths it out.

Using Google volume as a proxy

For ranking terms against each other at scale, a number beats a graph. Keyword tools report Google search volume as a monthly figure, and that is a fair guide to Pinterest demand for most topics.

The relationship is not exact. Pinterest is visual and planning-oriented. Searches about decor, recipes, outfits, hairstyles, crafts, weddings and holidays are a larger share of Pinterest than of Google. Searches about news, software, sports scores and definitions are much smaller. Within a niche, though, the ordering holds well: if "small bedroom ideas" has more Google searches than "bedroom ideas with desk", it almost certainly has more Pinterest searches too.

Our keyword tool takes a seed term, suggests related phrases and shows Google volume next to each, so you can sort a few hundred candidates in one pass.

The combination that works: use Google volume to shortlist, then open Pinterest Trends for the shortlist to confirm the terms are alive on Pinterest and to see their timing.

A worked example

Say you run a home blog and want to write about small kitchens. The seed is "small kitchen".

1. Shortlist by volume. The keyword tool returns "small kitchen ideas", "small kitchen design", "small kitchen storage", "small kitchen remodel", "small kitchen island" and so on, each with a Google figure. Sort by volume and keep the top ten that fit your post.
2. Benchmark in Trends. Open Pinterest Trends, enter "kitchen ideas" as the benchmark and add "small kitchen ideas". Its line sits well below the benchmark, which is expected, but it is clearly alive and runs flat through the year. Good.
3. Check the long tail. Add "small kitchen storage". It runs a little lower, with a bump in January when organization searches climb. That bump is a publishing date.
4. Pick and write. "Small kitchen ideas" is the title keyword. "Small kitchen storage" and "small kitchen design" go into the description's later sentences. The tagged topics finder shows which of Pinterest's interests match the text.

5. Time it. Publish the storage pin in late December so it is collecting saves when the January rise starts. Publish the general pins now.

You never saw a Pinterest search count. You still made every decision a count would have supported.

What to do when two terms look the same

Sometimes the shortlist has two phrases with similar Google volume and overlapping Trends lines. Pick by fit rather than by size. The phrase that describes your pin more exactly wins, because Pinterest rewards pins that match the search and get saved by the people who see them. "Small kitchen ideas on a budget" with a slightly lower volume beats "small kitchen ideas" if your post is genuinely about doing it cheaply, since the people who search the longer phrase are the ones your pin will satisfy.

If both fit equally, use one in the title and the other in the description's second sentence. Pinterest reads both, and the pin can appear for either search without you having to choose.

Why relative data is enough

A raw number feels reassuring, but it answers a question you are not really asking. You are not deciding whether to pin at all. You are deciding which of a handful of phrases to put in the title, and when to publish. Both are comparisons, and comparisons are exactly what Pinterest Trends and a volume proxy give you.

The decisions that actually move traffic are the ones on the pin itself: a specific title under 100 characters, a description that uses the phrase in the first sentence, a 2:3 image with a readable overlay, the right board, and the right tagged topics. The Pinterest SEO guide walks through all of them.

Where to go next

• Most searched keywords on Pinterest: how to find them
• How to find trending keywords on Pinterest
• Pinterest keywords: how to find the ones worth using